Short Sales of U.S. Homes on Track to Exceed Foreclosure Deals
This article is for subscribers only.
Short sales of U.S. homes rose to a three-year high in the first quarter as banks agreed to let more borrowers unload property at a loss, putting the transactions on pace to surpass deals for foreclosures, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
Sales of homes in the pre-foreclosure process increased to 109,521, up 25 percent from a year earlier and the most since the first three months of 2009, the Irvine, California-based data service said today. Most of those transactions were short sales, in which the lender agrees to a price that’s less than the mortgage balance. The number of bank-owned homes sold during the quarter fell 15 percent from a year earlier to 123,778.