With bank-owned properties taking an even larger share of the market, the number of Metro Detroit properties sold was up 9 percent in the first quarter of this year, as buyers took advantage of a 31 percent drop in prices,  according to an analysis by BankOwnedBids.com.

In the tri-county area, 60 percent of residential properties sold in the quarter were bank foreclosures, compared with 43 percent a year ago. The average price of residences sold was $55,971, compared with $81,130 for same period in 2008.

The figures are based on RealComp multiple listing service data for Wayne, Oakland and Macomb from Jan. 1 through March 31 and compared with the same period last year.

With Michigan leading the nation with 12.6 percent unemployment and the ripple effect of a troubled auto industry promising even tougher times ahead, Metro Detroit’s drop in housing values was more than twice that of the national average. The tri-county average housing prices are not quite a third of the national average.

Across the country, housing prices fell 14.2 percent to an average $183,378, putting more than one in five borrowers owing more on their mortgages than what they could fetch selling it, real estate website Zillow said last week, reporting on its survey of 161 metropolitan areas.

In Metro Detroit, Macomb showed the biggest increase in residential sales – 28 percent – and at the same time had the lowest percentage of foreclosure sales, 54 percent compared with 30 percent a year earlier. Average prices in the county were down 33 percent, from $107,016 last year to $72,106 this year.

Wayne narrowly led the counties with the biggest share of bank-owned properties. Sixty percent of all homes, condos and multi-families sold in the county last quarter wer foreclosures, known as REO for real estate owned. That is up from 48 percent in 2008. Wayne residential sales were up 8 percent and average prices were down 29 percent, from $58,961 in 2008 to $41,710 this year.

Oakland was close behind with REO properties making up 57 percent of all homes sold, up from41 percent during the same period a year ago. Residential sales jumped 6 percent while average prices dropped 30 percent, from $77,414 in 2008 to $54,098 this year.