Shadow Inventory Shrinking Quickly

From Sober Look At the Markets:

From Core Logic:

• As of April 2012, shadow inventory fell to 1.5 million units, or four-month’ supply and represented just over half of the 2.8 million properties currently seriously delinquent, in foreclosure or REO.
• The four-month’ supply of shadow inventory is at its lowest level in nearly three years. It parallels the unsold months’ supply of non-distressed active listings that hit a more than five-year low in April, falling to a 6.5-months’ from a 9.1-months’ supply just a year ago.
• Of the 1.5 million properties currently in the shadow inventory, 720,000 units are seriously delinquent (two months’ supply), 410,000 are in some stage of foreclosure (1.1-months’ supply) and 390,000 are already in REO (1.1-months’ supply). 
• The dollar volume of shadow inventory was $246 billion as of April 2012, down from $270 billion a year ago and a three-year low.
• Serious delinquencies, which are the main driver of the shadow inventory, declined the most in Arizona (-37.0 percent), California (-28.0 percent), Nevada (-27.4 percent), Michigan (-23.7 percent) and Minnesota (-18.1 percent). 
• .......
• It is important to note that the CoreLogic numbers exclude homes that are already listed in the market - it only shows the "shadow" (unlisted) inventory. That means that the overall inventory of distressed homes is far greater than the chart above shows (maybe 2 to 2.5 times that number).
  
  Two key components are impacting the decline in shadow inventory:
  
  1. A smaller portion of loan delinquencies now results in a sale due to the various loan restructuring programs and
  2. the inventory has been hitting the market much faster than people anticipated.