With much of the talk surrounding the housing market centered on “normalization” or returning to its pre-crisis state, one metric which the market is watching is the distressed sales share—the share of REO and short sales that comprise total residential home sales. For February 2016, the distressed sales share declined by 2.9 percentage points over-the-year (and 0.4 percentage points over-the month) down to 11 percent, according to data released by CoreLogic on Thursday. At their peak in January 2009, distressed sales accounted for nearly one-third of all residential home sales (32.4 percent) but has been declining steadily since then. By comparison, the pre-crisis share of distressed sales was typically around 2 percent; CoreLogic estimates that if the current rate of year-over-year decline continues, the distressed sales share will reach the “normal” pre-crisis level in slightly more than two years. “Prior to the housing crash, the distressed share of total...
