For every two homes currently for sale, a third is lurking in the nation’s “shadow inventory” of housing that’s either already been foreclosed by banks or is secured by seriously delinquent loans likely to fall to foreclosure, a new report from financial analysts at CoreLogic suggests.

Nationally, the shadow inventory totaled about 1.6 million units as of January 2012, an amount that’s been roughly static since the group’s last report covering October 2011.

This represents about six total months’ worth of real estate transactions, 400,000 of which are already owned by the banks that foreclosed on them.

Figures do not include other homes that, while not currently delinquent, are considered likely to go into default according to CoreLogic’s calculations.

Locally, the numbers may be even higher – California is one of three states harboring the largest inventories of distressed and bank-owned homes not listed for sale. Our state combines with Illinois and Florida to make up fully one-third of such properties.

“Almost half of the shadow inventory is not yet in the foreclosure process,” says Mark Fleming, the chief economist at CoreLogic.

The analysts expect that lenders are waiting to see how strong the spring looks for real estate sales before opening the floodgates on their backlog of delinquent properties, which could result in a glut of foreclosures soon coming to market.

“As we move into what is traditionally the peak selling season for real estate, servicers will certainly be watching closely to see if now is the time to move more inventory out of the shadows,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO for CoreLogic.