This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 24, 2011 - The sale of foreclosed homes in Missouri totaled 11,485 in 2010, a 34 percent decrease from 2009, according to RealtyTrac, an online lister of foreclosure properties.
But here is the other shoe: Those foreclosed homes accounted for 17 percent of all home sales in the state last year -- and sold at an average discount of nearly 25 percent compared to non-foreclosed homes. The average sales price of a foreclosure in Missouri in 2010 was $114,419.
Nationwide, foreclosed homes accounted for nearly 26 percent of all U.S. residential sales in 2010, according to RealtyTrac. That was down from 29 percent of all sales in 2009 but up from 23 percent of all sales in 2008. The average national sales price discount was 28 percent.
In a statement that accompanied the statistics, RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio noted the bloated supply of foreclosures, coupled with weak demand from homebuyers.
"The catch-22 for 2011 is that while accelerating foreclosure sales will help clear the oversupply of distressed properties and return balance to the market in the long run, in the short term a high percentage of foreclosure sales will continue to weigh down home prices," he said.
A decline in fourth-quarter foreclosure sales helped bring down the national numbers: 831,574 residential properties either owned by banks or in some stage of foreclosure were sold to third parties in 2010, a decrease of 31 percent from 2009 and nearly 14 percent from 2008, according to the report.
"Foreclosure sales in the fourth quarter faced the twin headwinds of the expired homebuyer tax credit -- which began to stifle sales volume during the third quarter -- and the foreclosure documentation controversy, which hit in the fourth quarter and temporarily froze sales of foreclosures from several major lenders," Saccacio said.
Despite a 21 percent spike in December, fourth-quarter foreclosure sales totaled 149,303, a decrease of 22 percent from the third quarter.
