Foreclosure Sales Drop in DC and Virginia as Prices Rise

• August 30, 2012

by UrbanTurf Staff

Over the past few years, investors and industrious home buyers in the region have been drawn to foreclosures as the low price points frequently outweigh what can be a painstaking buying process. However, recent data shows that the deals for bank-owned homes may be disappearing.

Prices for foreclosed homes in DC proper rose 4.5 percent quarter-over-quarter, according to RealtyTrac’s second quarter sales report released recently. In Virginia, the report revealed that prices rose over 9 percent during that time. While prices rose between quarters, sales of foreclosed homes have dropped off by almost 50 percent in both DC and Virginia. (In Maryland, sales dropped slightly between quarters, but prices decreased as well.)

The rest of the country appears to be following the same “price up, sales down” trend. The raw number of foreclosure sales across the country in the second quarter dropped 12 percent from the previous quarter, and the average price rose 6 percent.

From RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist:

The second quarter sales numbers provide solid statistical evidence of what we’ve been hearing anecdotally from real estate agents, buyers and investors over the past few months: there is a limited supply of available foreclosure inventory to choose from in many markets.

The data from RealtyTrac’s second quarter report is in line with what RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI) reported a few months ago. RBI revealed that for the first half of 2012, foreclosure sales in the DC area dropped off noticeably, accounting for 13.6 percent of sales during that period versus 23.7 percent last year.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/foreclosure_sales_drop_in_dc_and_virginia_as_prices_rise/5967