Clark County had 4,863 foreclosures for April, down 37.2 percent from 7,747 in March but up 154 percent from 1,911 in the same month a year ago, Sacramento, Calif-based Foreclosures.com reported.

Preforeclosure filings, which start with a notice of default, dropped to 8,639 in April from a record 11,593 in March. There were 4,426 preforeclosure filings in April 2008.

Although about two-thirds of existing local home sales in March were bank-owned properties, for the first time on record, bank-owned dispositions outnumbered acquisitions, housing analyst Larry Murphy of Las Vegas-based SalesTraq said.

He counted 2,376 dispositions, compared with 1,846 acquistions, leaving bank-owned inventory at 15,954 in March.

“It could be a fluke. I’m curious to see if it happens twice,” Murphy said.

Banks have also become more sophisticated and savvy with REO pricing, he said. They’ll list a foreclosure at below-market value to create competitive bidding between interested parties, bringing in multiple offers and getting a better price in the final analysis, Murphy said.

The median price of a foreclosure sale in March was $127,500, compared with $149,900 for homes that were not bank-owned, SalesTraq reported.

Half of the nation’s largest banks failed the government’s “stress test,” or Supervisory Capital Assessment Program, which looked at current and expected future bank capital requirements.

Banks need cash and their bulging portfolios of “hidden” foreclosure inventory are one way to help them get it, said Alexis McGee, president of Foreclosures.com investment service.

If they price the homes right, it could translate to incredible deals for consumers on bank-owned foreclosure inventory, she said.

“This isn’t a pipedream amid a recession with 8.9 percent national unemployment and foreclosures at all-time highs,” McGee said. “Now is the time for homebuyers and investors to press captial-hungry banks to unload their phantom REO inventory.”

The “phantom” inventory is lender-repossessed properties that are not shown for sale on the Multiple Listing Service. Only about 30 percent of REOs are listed on the MLS, McGee said.

“This is a staggering low number,” she said. “That leaves 70 percent of lender-owned REOs that no one knows about potentially available for sale.”

The number of REO listings in Las Vegas had been declining since February when certain foreclosure moratoriums were enacted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as by some of the large lenders, Frank Nason of Residential Resources said.

He saw a 5 percent drop in the first week of May from the previous week, the largest weekly drop since he’s been tracking the statistics.

For the first time, short sale listings, or homes offered for less than the mortgage balance owed, exceeded the supply of REO listings, 10,305 to 10,281, Nason noted. Yet short sales account for less than 10 percent of all closings each month.

If short sale listings stabilize at about 12,000 and the percentage of successful short sale transactions hovers aroaund 9 percent, that means another 11,000 units are destined to hit the market as REOs, Nason said.

“Of course, they won’t all hit at once, but those 11,000 units represent another four months of supply that has to be absorbed before the marekt returns to even a semblance of normalcy,” Nason said.

“And during that time, the pent-up supply of normal sellers will be building. As they see a bounce upward in prices, you can expect to see those normal sellers and investors who have been picking up the REO properties rush back into the market and put downward pressure on prices.”

With the lifting of the Fed’s foreclosure moratorium, the nation is on track to experience record-setting numbers of foreclosures and bank-owned properties in the second quarter, said Travis Hamel Olsen, president of National Short Sale Center.

He’s predicting more than 1 million foreclosure filings during the quarter, coming off 803,489 filings in the first quarter. The so-called “sand states” — California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona — top the list of foreclosure rates.

“The dam is breaking for foreclosures and bank-owned properties,” Olsen said. “We’re returning to premoratorium percentages, with a rather large initial increase in the second quarter as properties that have been in the moratorium flood through.”

Contact reporter Hubble Smith at hsmith@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0491.