Lawler: "Distressed" home sales shares in Reno, Vegas, and Phoenix

Economist Tom Lawler sent me the table below with a one word discussion: "Wow".

CR Note: We've been tracking several distressed areas across the country, and a couple of clear patterns have developed:

1) There has been a shift from foreclosures to short sales. Foreclosures are down and short sales are up just about everywhere. For two of the cities below, short sales are three times foreclosures - and more than double in Phoenix. That is a huge change. A year ago, there were many more foreclosures than short sales.

2) The overall percent of distressed sales (combined foreclosures and short sales) are down year-over-year.

The three cities in the table below - Reno, Vegas, and Phoenix - were some of the hardest hit areas in the country. The decline in in distressed sales in Phoenix (from 64.1% in Sept 2011 to 39.9% in Sept 2012) is stunning. But we have to remember that 40% distressed is still extremely high.