RealtyTrac Reports Foreclosures at Record Lows, Investors Still Swarming San Antonio

Photo: Jeff Turner

Good news for neighborhoods! Foreclosures are at the lowest level since Nov. 2009 according to the latest data from RealtyTrac. The company released its May 2015 “U.S. Home & Foreclosure Sales Report” last week, and all-cash sales have dropped almost 4 percent from April of this year to 24.6 percent.

“The cash sales share in May was close to its long-term average going back to January 2000 of 24.8 percent and well below its recent peak of 42.2 percent in February 2011. The share of institutional investors — entities purchasing at least 10 properties in a calendar month — dropped to 2.4 percent of single family home sales in May, a record low going back to January 2000, the earliest month with data available.”

Speaking of institutional investors, San Antonio is being swarmed with cash sales and institutional investors, according to the report. In the Alamo city institutional investor purchases accounted for 8.4 percent of transactions for May.

The top five metro areas with a population of at least 200,000 with the highest share of institutional investor purchases were Rockford, Illinois (13.4 percent), Tulsa, Oklahoma (12.6 percent), Roanoke, Virginia (12.6 percent), Memphis, Tennessee (10.2 percent), and San Antonio, Texas (8.4 percent).

“As housing transitions from an investor-driven, cash-is-king market to one more dependent on traditional buyers, sales volume has been increasing over the last few months and is on track in 2015 to hit the highest level we’ve seen since 2006,” said RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist continued. “And while sellers this spring are realizing the biggest average equity gains since 2006, home price appreciation is softening as the supply-and-demand balances tip more in favor of buyers and as banks began to clear out some of their more highly distressed foreclosures that sell at scratch-and-dent prices.”

Jump for a more detailed breakdown:

• The median sales price of residential properties — including both distressed and non-distressed properties — that sold in May was $173,900, up 4 percent from the previous month but down 1 percent from a year ago.
• The median sales price of non-distressed residential properties that sold in May was $205,000, up 6 percent from the previous month and up 9 percent from a year ago.
• Meanwhile the median sales price of distressed residential properties — those that were in some stage of foreclosure or bank-owned — that sold in May was $116,192, up less than 1 percent from the previous month but down 2 percent from a year ago.
• The median sales price of a distressed residential property was 43 percent below the median sales price of a non-distressed residential property in May, the biggest distressed discount since January 2006 when RealtyTrac first began tracking this metric.