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As of end of April, there were 637,668 bank-owned homes yet to be sold, representing a 17-month supply, Blomquist said. Another 722,467 were in some stage of the foreclosure process. Sales of all previously occupied homes jumped in January to the highest pace in nearly two years, but declined slightly the next two months. Sales rose 3.4 percent in April from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.62 million, according to the National Association of Realtors. That nearly matched January's pace of 4.63 million, but was below the nearly 6 million that most economists equate with healthy markets. While rising, the share of foreclosure sales remains well below its first-quarter 2009 peak of 45 percent of all sales. They comprised less than 1 percent of all sales in 2005, at the height of the housing boom. More foreclosure sales also means potentially more pain for homeowners, who could see the value of their homes erode further as neighboring foreclosures sell. Combined, bank-owned homes and those still in the foreclosure process sold for an average of $161,214 in the first quarter. That's down 1 percent from the fourth quarter of last year and down 2 percent from the first quarter of 2011. Compared to non-foreclosure homes, the average price of a foreclosure sale was 27 percent below the average sales price of homes not in foreclosure or bank-owned during the quarter. That discount is unchanged from the fourth quarter last year, but is down from a discount of 29 percent in the first quarter of 2011.
[Associated
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