One of my favorite Los Angeles blogs is Peter Viles LA Land:

“Nearly half of SoCal sales are foreclosed homes
The region's housing market is increasingly dominated by sales of bank-owned, foreclosed houses, which made up almost half of the homes sold in August, according to MDA DataQuick's report on existing home sales.”

I was curious about the above post... I don’t dispute these figures… But l took a look at what has closed escrow in Glendale, La Canada, and La Crescenta month to date (September) as reported in the multiple listing service.

28 homes (reported) sold as of this morning
4 were short sales (less than 15%) Glendale 3 - La Canada 1
3 were foreclosures (less than 11%) Glendale 3

The remaining were typical sales.  So that elusive 50% - I wonder if some of these foreclosures are being counted twice... maybe at the time of foreclosure and then the time of resale.... I just wonder if even the Inland Empire have the foreclosures to push the stats to nearly 50%.