Here are the numbers for the Lake Oroville real estate market for the week ending 6/6/2013.

If you only look at the percentage change from the previous week you would think the Oroville market was crashing. But, fear not. It looks like that we just cleared up some inventory of homes that had been on the market for what now is an unusually long amount of time.  Most of what sold was REALLY distressed property that would not qualify for any type of institutional loan, and, that I am guessing, investors picked up with cash purchases.

Last week was the first week in a LONG LONG time that bank-owned homes for sale in the Oroville real estate market numbered in the single digits. There were only 9, that’s right NINE, bank owned homes on the greater Oroville real estate market when I ran the report. Not having begun tracking this number until 2009, which was the depths of the Oroville real estate market downturn, I don’t have any data to support what a “normal” level of Oroville bank owned properties on the market should be.  But, if this trend continues I would speculate that by the end of the year, or the first part of 2014, these REO properties will be a non-issue. The wildcard is whether or not there actually is the dreaded “Shadow Inventory” lurking around the corner.