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10 best cities to buy short sale homes

1. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif. (41.0 percent)

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/File
Homes fill the hillside in San Francisco in this file photo. Once one of the most robust housing markets in the country, San Franicisco is now one of the top markets for deeply discounted short sale homes.

  • By Schuyler Velasco Correspondent

Discounts for short sale homes don't come any bigger than this in major metropolitan areas: more than 40 percent in San Francisco. Such sales surged 50 percent in the San Francisco metropolitan area from the fourth quarter of 2010: Nearly 3,000 homes in pre-foreclosure were sold in 2011's fourth quarter, at an average price of $330,733. Short sales made up 19.2 percent of all home sales. The city is not among the top markets  for deeply discounted foreclosure homes, indicating that lenders are taking measures to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Blumquist sees the increase in short sales as a relatively positive sign for the housing market.

"A short sale in many cases is a better solution to a bad situation than a foreclosure," he says  "It’s still painful as a whole, but it’s a little bit better for the homeowner , the neighborhood, and in many cases better for the bank. For the overall market, we see these average prices for short sales are higher than for bank-owned sales. They're still a drag, but not as much."

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Mark Sappenfield
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