Foreclosures continue to decline, short sale market share up

Rockville, MD –(February 10, 2012) – The following analysis of the Baltimore Metro Area housing market has been prepared by RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI), and is based on the January 2012 RBI Pending Home Sales Index™ released today.

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OVERVIEW

Baltimore Metro Area listing inventory ended January at the lowest level since April 2006, yet new contract activity was 2.5% higher than January 2011. Pricing continued along a stable course with a nominal year-over-year decline but the median sold price for townhouses showed a surprising year-over-year spike of 22.6%.  The market share of foreclosed listings in both sales and inventory continued the previous month’s trend of sharp year-over-year declines. New listing activity continued to decline compared to the same period last year, though there were 16.9% more short sales added in January compared to January 2011.

So it's a long graphic, but scan around to see how your county fared - you might be surprised to see a drop from 2010 to 2011. While some are anticipating an uptick in foreclosures with the robo-signing scandals in the rearview mirror, here's hoping 2012 will continue this positive trend in fewer foreclosures in the Mid-Atlantic Market. 42 of the 56 jurisdictions included in the chart below experienced year-over-year declines in the percentage of sales involving foreclosed properties!

Note, these figures should be considered preliminary, as RBI will publish final Year End stats in February. It's not expected that the shares below will change much once the Year End numbers are finalized.