Short sales and sales of distressed properties, which are those that are in foreclosure or bank-owned, accounted for 12.7 percent of all residential home sales in the U.S. in the third quarter, according to RealtyTrac's Q3 2014 Residential Sales Report released Tuesday. The percentage of short sales and distressed sales is down from 14.2 percent from Q2 and down from 14.5 percent in Q3 2013, and is at its lowest level since RealtyTrac began tracking the data in the first quarter of 2011.
Short sales, which are sales for less than the amount the home's owner currently owes on the mortgage, accounted for 3.8 percent of all residential home sales in the U.S. in Q3, which was a decline both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. The sales of bank-owned or REO properties also declined quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year down to 7.8 percent in the third quarter. Foreclosure auction sales made up 1.1 percent of all residential home sales in the U.S. in Q3, which marked a slight decline from Q2 but a slight increase from the third quarter in 2013.
Black Knight Financial Services is working to create a prototype of an industry-level report to provide detailed information on the consumer complaints the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau receives. The CFPB Complaint Tracking Report will incorporate data contributed by both servicers and CFPB. Such a report would benefit those involved by providing a way to for servicers to benchmark their management performance relative to the rest of the mortgage industry and also by standardizing the reporting to CFPB to facilitate an improvised and unbiased understanding of complaint cases.