Distressed home sales, which include bank-owned properties and short sales, skyrocketed following the financial crisis. In fact, they accounted for 32.4 percent of all sales in January 2009 – a staggering amount when considering distressed sales typically only account for about 2 percent of home sales. Caused by plummeting home prices, these sales featured large discounts and spurred real-estate investors who were looking to capitalize on the down market. Since then, however, home prices have largely rebounded from their post-crash lows. This price rebound has led to an ever-decreasing number of distressed home sales and an increasing number of traditional home buyers active in the market. In short, over the past few years, the housing market has been recovering, homes have regained value, and Americans have, once again, begun buying and selling homes. A new report from CoreLogic offers further proof of this. According to the report, distressed sales accounted for just 9.4 percent of total home sales nationally in July. That’s a 2.1 percent drop from the year before and a 0.4 percent decline from the previous month. Though still higher than historical norms, the improvement has been dramatic and means, at the current pace, distressed sales would return to normal levels within the next few years. More here.