Foreclosed properties held by US banks reached $41.5bn in Q110, a 12.4% increase from the previous quarter, according to data analysis firm SNL Financial. The amount of foreclosed properties jumped from $36.9bn at the end of 2009. At the end of the first quarter in 2008, that number was $11.7bn. Andrew Schukman, an analyst at SNL Financial said that the amount of one-to-four family properties in some stage of the foreclosure process (and not yet an REO) reached $78.6bn in Q110, up 9.1% from the end of last year. The amount of REO property held by the banks is also known as the “shadow inventory” of foreclosures. According to Morgan Stanley, it would take 47 months for the market to clear the roughly 7.5m first-lien mortgages in danger or already in foreclosure. REO assets took up 0.3% of commercial and savings bank balance sheets in Q110, up from 0.1% in Q108. While the volume of REO continues to grow, the type of real estate being taken back has changed. According to SNL Financial data, 40% of the total amount of REO in the US is construction and land development properties, up from 24.3% in Q108. One-to-four family REO fell to 28.45, compared to 44.5% in Q108. Commercial REO made up 18%, while multifamily properties accounted for 6.1% of all REO. Write to Jon Prior.