Shadow Inventory Jumps More Than 10 Percent in One Year, Pushing Total Unsold Inventory to 6.3 Million Units

SANTA ANA, Calif., Nov. 22, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), a leading provider of consumer, financial and property information and business services, reported today that shadow inventory of residential property as of August 2010, reached 2.1 million units, or eight months worth of supply, up from 1.9 million, or a five-months' supply, from one year earlier. With visible inventory remaining flat at 4.2 million units, the change in shadow inventory increased the total supply of unsold inventory by 3 percent.

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Shadow Inventory

CoreLogic estimates shadow inventory, sometimes called pending supply, by calculating the number of properties that are seriously delinquent (90 days or more), in foreclosure and real estate owned (REO) by lenders and that are not currently listed on multiple listing services (MLSs). Shadow inventory is typically not included in the official metrics of unsold inventory.  

According to CoreLogic, the visible supply of unsold inventory was 4.2 million units in August 2010, the same as the previous year. The visible inventory measures the unsold inventory of new and existing homes that were on the market. The visible months' supply increased to 15 months in August, up from 11 months a year earlier due to the decline in sales during the last few months.

The total visible and shadow inventory was 6.3 million units in August, up from 6.1 million a year ago.  The total months' supply of unsold homes was 23 months in August, up from 17 months a year ago.  Although it can vary and it depends on the market and real estate cycle, typically a reading of six to seven months is considered normal so the current total months' supply is roughly three times the normal rate.  

Distressed Supply

In its analysis, CoreLogic also found that the highest levels of distressed months' supply, which is the ratio of the number of properties that are 90+ days or more delinquent to the number of sales, are in Florida, Michigan, and California.  Although Phoenix and Las Vegas have high months' supply of total housing inventory, they are not among the markets with the highest distressed months' supply because of the increased number of distressed sales that have been occurring in those markets. The markets with the lowest distressed supply are all in Texas, which largely bypassed the housing boom and subsequent bust.

Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic commented, "The weak demand for housing is significantly increasing the risk of further price declines in the housing market. This is being exacerbated by a significant and growing shadow inventory that is likely to persist for some time due to the highly extended time-to-liquidation that servicers are currently experiencing."

Methodology:

CoreLogic utilized its LoanPerformance Servicing and Securities databases to size the number of 90+ day delinquencies, foreclosures and REOs. Roll rates, which measure the proportion of loans that were in one stage of default that rolled to the next stage of default over a period of time, were applied to the number of loans in default by each stage of default. This calculation allowed for estimating the number of loans that were proceeding from earlier to later stages of default.  Then we calculated the share of loans in default that are currently listed on MLS by matching public record properties in default to MLS active listings.  We applied the percentage of defaulted loans that are being listed to our estimate of outstanding loans that will proceed to further stages of default to calculate the pending supply inventory by stage of default and added that to the visible inventory that is reported for existing homes and new homes by the National Association of Realtors and the Bureau of the Census, respectively. To determine months' supply for visible and shadow inventories, we utilized the number of home sales according to CoreLogic.

About CoreLogic

CoreLogic is a leading provider of consumer, financial and property information, analytics and services to business and government. The company combines public, contributory and proprietary data to develop predictive decision analytics and provide business services that bring dynamic insight and transparency to the markets it serves. CoreLogic has built the largest and most comprehensive U.S. real estate, mortgage application, fraud, and loan performance databases and is a recognized leading provider of mortgage and automotive credit reporting, property tax, valuation, flood determination, and geospatial analytics and services. More than one million users rely on CoreLogic to assess risk, support underwriting, investment and marketing decisions, prevent fraud, and improve business performance in their daily operations.  Formerly, the information solutions group of The First American Corporation, CoreLogic began trading under the ticker CLGX on the NYSE on June 2, 2010. The company, headquartered in Santa Ana, Calif., has more than 10,000 employees globally with 2009 revenues of $2 billion. For more information visit www.corelogic.com.

CoreLogic is a registered trademark of CoreLogic.

SOURCE CoreLogic