At least for now, they have just about completely dried up. We talked about this back in 2012 when they had slowed to a trickle, and that trend has continued. In December 2010 there were 31 new short sale listings in Marin, but last month that number was down to 4. There were a total of 10 active short sale listings, compared to the 234 on the market back in December 2010. Not that we should need distress sales to have any inventory in Marin, but this is certainly part of the story when looking for answers about this extended period of super low levels, as Janis Mara was doing in her recent IJ article.
In this chart the green bars show total short sale inventory, while new short sale listings coming on each month are represented by the blue line. It makes sense that they are going away as prices rise enough so that owners are no longer underwater on their mortgages.
