RealtyTrac has issued its analysis of distressed residential sales across the United States, and state by state, in 2012 and the news shows that almost half these sales involved some kind of distressed property.

Officially titled the RealtyTrac® Year-End and Q4 2012 U.S. Foreclosure & Short Sales Report™, the report can be read online here.

Overall, the RealtyTrac analysis found almost a million homes either in the foreclosure process or were already REO (owned by the bank) were sold in 2012 (sales of 947,995 properties), and these amounted to 21% of all foreclosure-related residential real estate sales nationally. 

This sounds bad, and it's definitely not good; however, consider that this percentage was much higher, at 28%, two years ago. 

Non-foreclosure short sales made up 22% of 2012's residential home sales.  Take this number and add it with the earlier tally, and the year's percentage of sales that involved distressed properties works out to 43%.

“Although foreclosure-related sales represent a shrinking share of total sales, primarily because of fewer bank-owned purchases, distressed sales are still a disproportionately high portion of the overall housing market,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac. “And while distressed properties — whether bank-owned, pre-foreclosure or short sales not in foreclosure — are still selling at a significant discount compared to non-distressed properties, average distressed property prices are increasing in many markets thanks to strong demand and limited inventory.”

Also from the report are the following findings:

• In Florida (and 11 other states), there were less REO sales than there were pre-foreclosure sales.
• Florida saw an increase in pre-foreclosure sales in 2012.
• Florida was one of the states with the largest number of non-foreclosure short sales in 2012, tying with Michigan and Nevada for the number one spot (each at 33%).
• Foreclosure-related sales were 25% of Florida's total residential sales in 2012.