As the number of foreclosed home sales rapidly falls, real estate professionals who specialize in foreclosure sales may want to start looking toward other areas of business, writes Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS® on its Economists’ Outlook blog.

Foreclosed sales comprised about 6 percent of all home sales transactions in August, down from double-digit figures last year. By next year, foreclosure sales are projected to shrink to 1 to 3 percent, which will put it in line to historic norms, Yun notes.

“Fewer distressed properties will also help with the overall appraisal process of not using bad comparables,” Yun notes.

Yun notes that seriously delinquent mortgages and homes in some stage of foreclosure still are currently elevated compared to historical norms, but that’s mostly been centered in a few states where the processing of foreclosures has lagged. For example, RealtyTrac’s latest foreclosure report showed that the foreclosure process in New Jersey takes, on average, 1,064 days to process – the longest of any other state. Other states like Florida (951 days); Hawaii (937 days); New York (902 days); and Illinois (889 days) also had the longest foreclosure wait times.

Source: National Association of REALTORS® Economists’ Outlook Blog