Report shows looming housing threat

A new report shows there's 1.6 million housing units, or about six-months of supply, across the county that are seriously delinquent but have not yet been foreclosed upon or listed as a short sale.

It's a measurement often referred to a shadow inventory, and some Realtors see it as the largest threat to ongoing improvements in the market.

The 1.6 million shadow units are about the same level reported in October 2011. On a year-over-year basis, shadow inventory was down from January 2011, when it stood at 1.8 million units, or eight-months' supply, according to figures released by CoreLogic.

Currently, the flow of new seriously delinquent (90 days or more) loans into the shadow inventory has been offset by the roughly equal flow of distressed sales (short and real estate owned), the report shows.

"Almost half of the shadow inventory is not yet in the foreclosure process," CoreLogic chief economist Mark Fleming said in a statement. "Shadow inventory also remains concentrated in states impacted by sharp price declines and states with long foreclosure timelines."

CoreLogic estimates the current stock of properties in the shadow inventory, also known as pending supply, by calculating the number of distressed properties not currently listed on multiple listing services (MLSs) that are seriously delinquent, in foreclosure and real estate owned (REO) by lenders.

The agency couldn't provide local or state statistics.

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