Foreclosed home sales rose in 2011, but average price dips

More Hawaii homes caught up in foreclosure were sold last year, but at a lower average price than the year before, a new report shows.

Real estate research firm RealtyTrac reported that 2,075 homes in Hawaii were sold last year by homeowners in foreclosure or lenders, representing 10.5 percent of all home sales statewide.

The tally compared with 1,452 foreclosure homes sold in 2010, representing 9.1 percent of all sales.

Homes in foreclosure sold for an average $356,043 last year, down from $377,517 in 2010.

RealtyTrac said the 2011 average sale price for foreclosure homes in Hawaii was 22 percent less than the average for nonforeclosure home sales.

RealtyTrac calls the difference a discount, though the difference is influenced by a variety of factors including the condition, size and location of homes.

RealtyTrac said the discount was 17 percent in 2010.

In 2009, when there were only 512 foreclosure sales in Hawaii, the discount was 18 percent and the average sale price was $378,429.

The report shows that foreclosures continue to have a significant influence on Hawaii’s residential real estate market, helping boost the number of sales, but also depressing prices.

A new state law enacted last May has slowed the number of new foreclosure cases and prevented many homes in the midst of foreclosure from proceeding to auction. But the RealtyTrac report shows that the inventory of repossessed homes held by lenders still represents a sizable piece of Hawaii’s housing market.

RealtyTrac said 1,423 of the 2,075 foreclosure homes sold last year were sold by lenders, roughly twice as many as the 706 sold by lenders in 2010.

There were 652 homes sold by troubled borrowers with consent of lenders prior to an auction last year. That was down from 746 so-called short sales in 2010.

The new law led lenders to stop initiating foreclosure out of court, which is faster and cheaper and had been the way the vast majority of foreclosure cases were handled in recent years. Instead, lenders are now filing foreclosures in court where cases typically take longer to conclude.

RealtyTrac has previously said that the number of Hawaii home sales by lenders eventually should decline because of the law. Typically, there is a six-month lag between when a lender repossesses a home and puts it on the market for sale.

There was no decline in the fourth quarter. Lenders sold 339 Hawaii homes in the last three months of 2011, a 49 percent increase from the same quarter a year before. Overall, foreclosure home sales in the quarter was up 5.5 percent to 465 because of a decline in short sales.

RealtyTrac counted foreclosure home sales in 40 states. The company said it didn’t have sufficient data for 10 states.

Hawaii had the 11th lowest rate among the 40 states in terms of the percentage of foreclosure home sales compared with all sales — 10.5 percent.

The national rate was 23 percent. Nevada had the highest rate at 54 percent. New York had the lowest rate at 6 percent.