As reported in the OC Register
The number of transactions in which a home sells for less than the owner owes the bank is up 74% in the region this year, mainly due to a doubling of those so-called “short sales” in the Inland Empire, the Southern California Multiple Listing Service reported.
| County | Short Sales | % Change |
| Orange |
2,911 |
54.8% |
| Riverside |
3,444 |
116.2% |
| San Bernardino |
2,089 |
96.7% |
| Los Angeles |
4,462 |
55.5% |
| Total |
12,906 |
74.3% |
During the first five months of 2010, the four-county region had 12,906 short sales, up from 7,405 in the same period of 2009, SoCal MLS figures show.
Short sales are increasing as lenders become more amenable to approving deals rather than letting homes go through a costly foreclosure.
Here’s how those numbers break down in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties:
- Riverside County had 3,444 short sales this year, the second-highest number in the region. That’s up 116% from 2009, when the county had 1,593 short sales.
- San Bernardino County short sales increased 96.7%, to 2,089. During the first five months of 2009, the county had 1,062 short sales.
- Los Angeles County had the most short sales: 4,462, but that’s up just 55.5% from the same period in 2009, when there were 2,870 such sales.
- Orange County had the lowest percentage gain: up 54.8% to 2,911 short sales. The same time last year, O.C. had 1,880 such sales.
- Overall, the region has 29,242 distressed sales this year so far, down 24.4% from the first five months of 2009 due mainly to declining sales of bank-owned homes.
- Bank-owned home sales fell 46.1% to 17,233 this year.