sd_bear that is the more insightful analysis I was looking for. Still not sure I buy into the banks holding back scenario but the time for an REO to be put on the market does vary. For instance the Mesa Norte property which has been discussed here in other threads went to trustee sale in June. It just hit the MLS yesterday. Is that the norm? Of course not. Then there are properties that go right to auctions such as REDC. Also as someone who has done alot of string searches in the MLS I would say widen the search and use alot of different terms… bank, lender, foreclosed, foreclosure, REO, Trustee… you see what I am saying? Also search in the confidential remarks fields as well. Also did you do your search on actives only? I assume you did your search on solds, pendings, actives, expireds, expireds and withdrawns. You would then have to pull out all of the duplicates. Also note any trustee sale made in say december and quite possibly november will/may not be on the MLS.
Given all of that I absolutely applaud you getting down and dirty and attempting to provide raw facts through your own data mining.