Despite low mortgage rates, the outlook for the purchase-mortgage market remains gloomy. And you can blame it mostly on current housing market conditions. One of the biggest problems plaguing the housing market, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey, is the large share of distressed properties that make up home sales in most areas of the country. Nationally, foreclosed properties and short sales accounted for a whopping 48.4 percent of home purchase transactions tracked in the HousingPulse Distressed Property Index during...