The chart below shows the number of Bank Owned and Short Sales in all areas of the RMLS™ system during 2011. To download or print this chart, click here.
All Areas when comparing percentage share of the market 2010 to 2011
- Comparing 2010 to 2011 distressed sales as a percentage of closed sales increased from 29.3% to 33.5%
- New listings dropped from 78,903 to 61,980 which is a 21.4% decrease
- Short sales comprised 13.9% of new listings and 10.7% of sold listings in 2011, up 2.1% and 1.8% from 2010 respectively as a percentage of the market.
- Bank owned properties comprised 13.1% of new listings and 22.8% of sales in 2011, rising slightly from 12.3% and 20.4% respectively in 2010.
Portland Metro when comparing percentage share of the market 2010 to 2011
- Comparing 2010 to 2011 distressed sales as a percentage of closed sales increased from 29.0% to 33.1%
- New listings dropped from 45,907 to 33,940 which is a 26.1% decrease
- Short sales comprised 15.3% of new listings and 10.8% of sold listings in 2011, up 3.0% and 2.5% from 2011 respectively as a percentage of the market.
- Bank owned properties comprised 13.4% of new listings and 22.3% of sales in 2011, rising slightly from 12.6% and 20.7% respectively in 2010.
Clark County when comparing percentage share of the market 2010 to 2011
- Comparing 2010 to 2011 distressed sales as a percentage of closed sales increased from 35.2% to 43.2%
- New listings dropped from 9,774 to 8,643 which is a 11.6% decrease
- Short sales comprised 21.0% of new listings and 16.4% of sold listings in 2011, down .6% and up .4% from 2010 respectively as a percentage of the market.
- Bank owned properties comprised 15.9% of new listings and 26.8% of sales in 2011, increasing from 11.7% and 18.4% respectively in 2010.
Below are links to additional charts for some of our larger areas*:
Portland Metro
Clark County, WA
Lane County, OR
Douglas County, OR
*If you want information on percentages of distressed sales in other areas not represented by our charts, please contact us at communications@rmls.com.
Okay let’s do the math; 8,590 listed short sales and 3,668 sold. So statistically what you’re saying is that for every 10 short sales that I hassle with, I’m only going to get paid for 4.
So there it is folks. For all of the Banks’ rhetoric about “encouraging short sales” they’re really just paying you 40% of your standard hourly rate to help them solve their problem.
Oh, do sign me up!!
Well, Carson, if you properly work the short sale, you can expect a much beter ratio than that. Out of all the short sales I have ever listed, only 2 have not closed. Yes, it takes more work. Yes, it takes longer. But the reward is not so much in the hourly rate but rather helping our clients. Isn’t that what we are suppossed to do anyway; put our client’s needs above our own?
Like the layout, can we get more specific about the information by county, etc.?
We’ve linked to information by some of our larger areas by county at the bottom of the post. Was that the information you were looking for?
here here….thanks for saying what I was thinking.
Sue
Hey Garrett, here’s a little fact about our industry: You only get paid by those customers who are ready, willing, and ABLE to buy or sell real estate. I don’t care how much you love your short sale customers, they don’t make the decision as to whether you get paid or not.
Sure I love to help people with their real estate problems, but I run a business, not a discounted fee-service for Banks trying to minimize their losses. The statistics that RMLS provided lays it out pretty clearly. Regardless of your personal experience, the fact remains that despite their rhetoric, the Banks are only approving approximately 2 out of every 5 short sales in our market; which translates into 60% of the short sale listing agents getting ZERO for all of their hard work. Who in their right mind would ever take a job for an employer who told you that you would only get paid for 4 hours out of your 10 hour day? I don’t care how much you love your customers, that’s insane; yet I see agents doing all of the time.
Let me see….maybe because I PRE-QUALIFY any potential short sale listings before I take them. I’m not going to take a listing where I don’t feel confidant in my ability to get it to close. There are those out there taking a listing just to have it on their books and to garner potential buyers for other properties. A good REALTOR will not succumb to this kind of behavior. Of course I would never ACCEPT a job offer if I knew I was only going to get paid 4 out of 10 hours worked. But, since I pre-qualify the “employer”, I know when I can take the job or not. If all REALTORS took this approach, there would be fewer short sales on the market (with an much higher close rate) and more REO’s on the market (which close much more quickly) and we could get through this issue that much more quickly!
Some very good points shared. My experience has been not to take the short sale listings because I see the broker pay back situation as described by Carson to be evident. So Garrett, what is your streamline and effective basic system for prequalification on your short sale listings? There are many situations out there for short sale listing properties and of those that I worked with to get on board, I lost time and money just getting the answers from the bank and finding the situation not such a good prospect.
My point is this; up until this RMLS statistic became available, we only knew the list-to-close rate of our industry as a whole; about 55% (34,293 solds for 61,980 total listed). The new statistics are revealing in that it breaks it down further. There is now a sign on the short-sale pond that says “notice: only 4 fish are caught here for every 10 fisherman fishing” (3,668 closed for 8,590 listed). Compare this to the new sign on the banks of the open real estate ocean that says “6 fish are caught for every 10 fisherman” (30,625 closed for 53,390 listed).
I agree that your advice is sound for those who wish to fish in the shallow short-sale-pond with the 40% catch-rate; by all means, you’ll want to do your research before ever put your pole in that water. I’m just saying I’d rather fish in the open ocean where the average fisherman is clearly catching a lot more fish with a lot less work.