In last week’s Mountain Press Newspaper, 17 out of the 36 recorded real estate transactions (this is ALL sales including fsbo and builder direct units) involved a bank either foreclosing or acting as the seller of the property. Today’s newspaper reports a total of 48 transactions with 20 of those featuring a bank or other lender acting as a principal (not merely making a loan but actually being the buyer or seller of the property). For those of you keeping score at home, this week’s performance is better in two respects. Obviously 48 sales is 33% more than last week’s 36 transactions and because only 20 of this past week’s 48 sales involved banks that percentage is down (which is certainly a good thing). These bank totals don’t however include short sales so the actual number of distressed sales is probably a little higher. Hopefully better times are ahead as is possibly indicated by last month’s increase in our market’s average sale price.