Residential Real Estate Auctions

There was a Wall Street Journal report this week on the rising “shadow inventory” of homes. The shadowinventory refers to unlisted bank-owned properties and those that are in the foreclosure process. These are primarily homes that banks have repossessed after foreclosure, but have yet to put up for sale for fear of flooding the market and further depreciating home values.

According to a report from CoreLogic, a real-estate research firm, the shadow inventory of unlisted REO homes and looming foreclosures increased to 2.1 million homes in August, up 10% from last year. When combined with the 4.2 million unsold homes that are listed for sale, that means there is more than 23 months of supply at the current sales pace.