Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
For the past three years, the shadow inventory has declined year-over-year and posted double-digit declines for the past 16 consecutive months as the housing market continues to heal, Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, says in the company’s February 2014 National Foreclosure Report.
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The national residential shadow inventory was 1.7 million homes in January – a 23 percent year-over-year drop from 2.2 million in January 2013. Foreclosures also continued to fall last month, dropping to 43,000 in February, 15 percent lower than year ago levels.
“Although there is good news that completed foreclosures are trending lower, the bigger news is the impressive decline in the foreclosure and shadow inventories,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Every state has had double-digit, year-over-year declines in foreclosure inventory, which is reflected in the $70 billion decline in the shadow inventory.”
Over the past year, shadow inventory has been falling at an average monthly rate of 41,000 units, CoreLogic reports. The states that hold 42 percent of all distressed properties in the nation are: Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.
Other highlights from the report:
All this talk about the "Shadow Inventory" cost investors MILLIONS in potential profits down here in South Florida. Once the Lenders got caught in the "Robo Signing" Scandal there was no way the banks would ever be able to flood the market with Foreclosures, especially in Florida, where they had to go through the courts. Yet people kept harping on this fabled "Shadow Inventory" like it was some sort of a tsunami heading in. Smart investors, who listened to me and jumped into our market in 2010 -11 have seen over 20% appreciation. And while we're on the subject, these same people are now worried about another bubble. No, prices are not going to go up 20% a year, but we were bouncing off a very low bottom. Now people act like 8-10% a year in appreciation into the foreseeable future isn't good enough. P.T. Barnum was right, you know.