WASHINGTON (March 30, 2011)—The market share of vacation- and investment-home sales held steady in 2010, although the sales volume declined with the overall market, according to the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Vacation-home sales accounted for 10% of existing and new-home sales last year, while the portion of investment sales was 17%, both unchanged from 2009, according to NAR’s 2011 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey.

A sizeable number of buyers paid cash for their vacation homes due to extraordinarily tight credit conditions, said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. Nearly 60% of investment buyers paid cash in 2010, as did 36% of vacation-home buyers.

With an overall decline in home sales during 2010, the volume of 543,000 vacation-home sales was down 1.8% from 553,000 in 2009. Investment purchases fell 7.8% to 867,000 in 2010 from 940,000 the previous year. Primary residence sales declined 5.6% to 3.81 million from 4.04 million in 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

By Myers Reece , 01-10-11

Four years ago, bank-owned properties were virtually nonexistent in Flathead County. Now, with skyrocketing foreclosures, they’re everywhere, representing more than a quarter of all residential sales. 

In 2010, bank-owned – or real-estate-owned (REO) – properties accounted for 28.3 percent of residential sales in the county, according to Jim Kelley of Kelley Appraisal. Short sales made up another 6.7 percent. Kelley compiles widely referenced monthly and annual reports on regional housing data.

“In 2007, that wasn’t even a factor,” Kelley said of bank-owned properties. “That didn’t even really exist.” Read the rest of this entry »