17% of US Homes For Sale are Lender Owned
August 14, 2008
RealtyTrac released data for July 2008 that shows that nearly 1 of every 5 US homes for sale is owned by a bank (a.k.a. “REOs”).
I’m loving the data-crunching capabilities of the new MLS software so much that I thought I’d check on the percentage of Phoenix area homes for sale which are lender owned. There are 53,767 metro Phoenix area homes for sale today, and only 3,886 of them are coded “Lender Owned Property” in the MLS. So according to that, only 7.2% of Phoenix area homes for sale are lender owned.
That seems reasonably accurate, just based on the anecdotal mental evidence I gather by scouring the MLS daily for my seller and buyer clients. On the other hand, RealtyTrac’s nifty color-coded map of foreclosure activity shows Phoenix is a hotbed of foreclosure activity (no surprise there).
The MLS data does suffer from garbage in, garbage out syndrome. If the listing agent doesn’t check the little data box for “lender owned property” when they enter the home for sale into the MLS, it won’t show up properly in user’s searches.
I also checked for the number of short sale properties for sale – only 2.6%, or 1,413 homes. That seems low. Again, just based on my mental picture of the MLS based on the fact that I look at it daily. I suspect that many agents don’t check the proper data box when entering their short sale listings into the MLS and the percentage is actually higher.
Regardless, I thought my readers would find this little statistical gem interesting. Want more statistical analysis of the MLS data that fits your situation? Call or email me.
Related Posts
- Month End Sales Stats for the Valley
- Monthly & Yearly Stats by my Broker, Jay Thompson
- All About Foreclosures
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August 14, 2008 at 3:37 pm
very interesting indeed. I wonder if you can search on the comment sections – both the public comments and the realtor remarks – and see if you can find more properties which are described as bank/lender owned &/or short sale, but which didn’t have the checkbox marked? (not that I wanted to give you extra homework or anything!)
August 15, 2008 at 11:22 am
[...] According to Bloomberg, the number of foreclosure default notices rose nationwide by 55% as compared to July of 2007 and bank seizures increased 184% to 77,295 — the steepest increase since reporting on this area began in 2005. In Arizona, it appears as if 7.2% of all Phoenix area homes for sale are lender owned. [...]
August 16, 2008 at 1:22 am
“I also checked for the number of short sale properties for sale – only 2.6%, or 1,413 homes. That seems low.”
Seems really low to me too. I think you are right, many folks neglect to check “lender approval required”.
I tried (with Tempo, not Flex) to search as Chris describes. I wanted to jump off a tall building.
August 16, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Here’s an interesting update. I was searching the area around Thomas & 83rd Avenue for a new client. For their timing purposes I specifically excluded short sales. In a 1 mile radius of their current (rented) home I found 30 homes for sale in their price range (under $155,000). When I checked the details on each of the 30, only 9 were NOT short sales. In other words, 21 agents had made data entry errors in their listing. Accidental or on purpose, I have no idea, but it was frustrating, let me assure you.
August 17, 2008 at 12:46 pm
According to the Maricopa County Assessors office 41% of June 2008 sales were foreclosure sales. This includes sales beyond the ARMLS.