Your friendly (and busy) real estate blogger ran across a couple of relatively promising national housing reports today that were worth noting (in brief):

  • Prices of distressed properties increased last year, but those distressed sales (foreclosures and short sales) still made up 43 percent of all transactions last year, according to RealtyTrac. Here's the full report.
  • Though the market is still saturated with foreclosures, their presence continues to fade. CoreLogic said that foreclosure inventory during January was down 21 percent from a year ago. That was the 15th-consecutive month of year-over-year declines. Here's a link to the local data.