The number of foreclosed homes on, or about to hit, Metro Orlando’s resale market has more than doubled in the past year, forcing down the prices of other houses that have already lost more than half their value since before the recession, new figures show.

Foreclosure activity may have slowed down in local courts, but a record number of bank-owned properties are searching for new owners or waiting in the wings.

“Inventories have gone up,” said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for the research firm RealtyTrac. “It is taking longer for the banks to sell.”

The four-county metropolitan area had 13,712 bank-owned properties in January, up from 5,874 a year earlier, according to California-based RealtyTrac. Florida as a whole is saturated with a record 104,759 foreclosed properties, and bulging inventories are affecting much of the U.S., which exceeded 1 million bank-owned homes for the first time in January.

Foreclosed properties with good prices, good locations and in good repair can quickly garner multiple offers still, but many others languish. For instance, many of the foreclosed homes listed for sale in northwest Orange and southwest Seminole counties have been sitting on the resale market for months, said Mike McGraw, chairman of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association: Of the 228 bank-owned houses recently listed for sale in the Apopka/Altamonte Springs/Longwood area, 40 percent had been on the market for at least two months.

“My experience has been that, a year ago, those properties were moving a little bit quicker,” McGraw said. As a result, he added, “We’re seeing more price reductions — and seeing some pretty dramatic price reductions at that.”

Orlando’s pool of bank-owned single-family homes has occasionally dipped from one month to the next since RealtyTrac began tracking the numbers three years ago, but overall the metro area’s inventory has increased fourfold.

“I have seen some of the properties sitting on the market longer than in the past,” Winter Park real-estate broker David Welch said. Last week one of his buyers looked at a foreclosed home that has been on the market about two months — and it’s not just that some foreclosures are taking longer to sell, he added.

“Banks are slowing down on taking the properties and getting them on the market,” Welch said of the bulging inventory. “They are not getting them on the market like they were.”

When banks repossess home in normal times, they list them within a month and sell them quickly. But these days, thousands of such properties have not yet hit the market. Title issues, needed repairs and eviction proceedings have delayed the process in some cases.

Some real-estate analysts also speculate that banks may be delaying the release of some repossessed properties in hopes the federal government will create an entity that would buy distressed properties for 50 to 60 cents on the dollar. Some lenders these days are getting only half that amount on the open market.

Officials with Wells Fargo, Chase Home Mortgage and Bank of America would not indicate this week whether their foreclosure sales have turned sluggish, but they all said they are working to sell their inventory as quickly as possible.

For every month that bank-owned properties go unsold, lenders face additional taxes, fees and maintenance costs — further motivating them to slash prices and move inventory.

A spokesman for Wells Fargo said two-thirds of its foreclosed properties are serviced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and those institutions are processing the sales.

“When we do have to market a property that we have foreclosed on, it’s in everyone’s best interest to market it as quickly as possible,” said Jason Menke, a communications consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

Bank of America does not maintain a “shadow inventory” and quickly inspects and repairs houses to get them on the market, a spokeswoman said.

Another reason the current backlog of foreclosure properties could further depress prices is that, unlike homeowners who update, stage and upgrade their houses before placing them on the market, lenders invest little in repossessed homes.

Prices of Orlando-area foreclosures have fallen from $84,000 in December 2009 to $78,101 a year later. At least so far, foreclosure prices have dropped in tandem with the prices paid for regular houses, which fell from a median of $173,960 in December 2009 to $159,900 a year later, according to the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.

McGraw said he thinks buyers are becoming more willing to pay higher prices for regular properties because, unlike many foreclosure houses these days, they don’t require expensive repairs and the financing can be easier to obtain. And as for short sales — houses whose owners are seeking less than the mortgage amount owed because they can’t keep up the payments — more buyers are discovering they don’t have the patience to wait months and months to find out whether the lender involved will approve or reject the deal, he said.

Still, regular homes are often priced too high for the current market, he added.

“I load people up every day, just about, and show them houses — and I apologize to them,” he said. “I’m sorry there’s not better inventory to show.”

mshanklin@tribune.com or 407-420-5538.