The number of sales of bank-owned U.S. homes remained high in the second quarter, while sales of homes in default or scheduled for auction rose compared to the previous quarter, a RealtyTrac report said Thursday.

Overall sales of homes in some stage of foreclosure or owned by banks totaled 265,087, up 6.5 percent from a revised 248,959 in the first quarter. First-quarter sales were originally reported as 158,434.

"In the face of an overall market where we're seeing home sales declining, the fact that we're seeing an increased number of distressed properties being sold suggests the market is correcting the way it needs to," said Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

The glut of unsold homes is one of the biggest challenges for the housing market that is still struggling to recover from its collapse in 2007.

Overall sales were down 11.1 percent from the second quarter the year before when the pending expiration of a homebuyer tax credit pushed up purchases.

Sales of homes in the pre-foreclosure stage — in default or scheduled for auction — rose to 102,407, up 19 percent from the previous quarter, but were still down 12.4 percent from a year before.

Sharga called the quarter-over-quarter rise in such purchases "the first good news we've seen in this part of the housing market in quite some time."

"It allows the borrower to exit without a foreclosure, it gets a homebuyer into a property at a discount that's probably in better condition than a bank-owned property and it allows the bank to lose less money ultimately on the transaction," he said.

Sales of bank-owned homes stood at 162,680, edging down from 162,900 in the first quarter and down 10.2 percent from a year ago.

Total distressed sales accounted for 31.3 percent of all residential sales, down from 35.5 percent in the previous quarter, but up from 24.4 percent in the second quarter 2010.

Pre-foreclosure sales accounted for 12.1 percent of all sales, while bank-owned sales made up 19.2 percent.

The average sales price on distressed homes was $164,217, dipping from $165,272 in the first quarter and down nearly 5 percent from a year ago.

Prices were about 32 percent below the average sales price of homes not in foreclosure.

Nevada had the highest percentage of distressed sales, which accounted for 65.4 percent of all sales in the state.

Foreclosure-related sales in hard-hit Arizona and California accounted for 56.6 percent and 51.3 percent of the total, respectively.