California Real Estate Recovery Continues with 200% Drop in Bank Owned Sales

In June, home sales with equity value jumped again to their highest level in over a year. At the same time, a large drop in distressed sales, fueled by a 200% drop in bank owned sales showed that the real estate market is growing a healthy, wide spread recovery. "These are the types of good numbers everyone can be happy with," said Chris Pollinger, Senior Vice-President of Sales for First Team. "Bank owned sales this time last year represented more than 1 in every 5 sales. Today that number is down to less than 1 in 15. That just shows how positive growth is." In the latest analysis from the California Association of Real Estate, healthy equity sales of residential property grew by almost 50% year over year to 79.9% of June's sales from 57.8% in June 2012. During that same time frame, bank owned real estate sales dropped to 6.6% of sales from a June 2012 high of 20.4%. "Distressed sales are just that. The seller is either absent or distressed by the sale, the property is often the same, so seeing these healthy numbers is very encouraging," continued Pollinger. "And the numbers in Orange and San Diego counties are substantially better than the state average shows the time to enter the market is now!"