Diane Kawell, an award-winning Realtor in the Tacoma/Seattle area of Washington, mentioned in a comment on my previous post that 44% of all residential real estate sales in her area were distressed sales, i.e. sold listings that are short sales or bank-owned REOs.  This made me curious about what the numbers are in our south Santa Clara County area.

I looked at each community of Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Martin separately for single family home and condo/townhouse listings sold on the MLS within the past 365 days.  Here is what I found:

Morgan Hill:  total sales = 444,  distressed sales = 231,  percentage distressed = 52%

Gilroy:  total sales =  659,  distressed sales = 491,  percentage distressed = 75%

San Martin:  total sales = 36,  distressed sales = 23,  percentage distressed = 64%

I was somewhat surprised at the large percentage numbers.  Buyers are buying “the deals” and the price discounts on distressed properties are very attractive.  I suppose that I should have been expecting these large percentages.  When I look back at the real estate properties that I sold within the past 365 days, 55% of those properties were either short sales or REOs.