The latest foreclosures numbers have been released by various foreclosure reporting agencies.  According to most of the reports second quarter foreclosure filings have increased since the same period one year ago.

In an article published by Bloomberg.com on July 25, 2008, RealtyTrac, a reporting agency located in Irvine, California specifically stated foreclosures had increased more than 120% during that period.  The article titled, “U.S Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline,” by author Bob Ivry, also stated that while foreclosure may have doubled from 2007, there was only a 14 percent increase in foreclosures from the first quarter of 2008. There is also no mention of the recent decrease in foreclosures from May to June.

The article quotes RealtyTrac as stating that “almost 740,000 properties were in some stage of foreclosure,” but does not state the time period they are referencing.  There are many different time periods where the article uses comparative figures.  The 740,000 properties could represent current foreclosures, second quarter foreclosures or foreclosures for one year.

ForeclosureS.com, a reporting agency located in Sacramento, California offers a statistical foreclosure page, which can be accessed on their “press inquiry” page.  On this page, ForeclosureS.com reported a significantly lower increase with an 87 percent increase in foreclosures in the second quarter over the same period in 2007.  While still a telling increase, the foreclosure reports still dramatically differ.

However, there is one commonality between the figures from both foreclosure reporting agencies. Both companies reported an increase in foreclosure filings.  Foreclosure filings include the initial notice of a default in mortgage payments.  Many times homeowners recover from their missed payments and foreclosure is averted.  With the filings taken into consideration, the actual foreclosures are dramatically lower.  Between differing foreclosure figures and confusing press reporting readers are bombarded with a misrepresentation of data.

While differing foreclosure figures have been in the media for a while now, our emphasis began on looking in to foreclosure reporting companies. We attempted to gather some of the data directly from the source and analyze it for our visitors on ForeclosureResearch.com.

The main media source for foreclosure data and industry trends is RealtyTrac. This was our first contact. We were surprised to find that RealtyTrac does not publish general foreclosure numbers provided on the website home page like many of the other foreclosure listing services. Clicking on their county pages does provide statistics if you mouse over a county. Published on July 21, 2008, Los Angeles County had 12,756 foreclosures, or 1 in every 263 housing units. While the current county data was technically available, the data still doesn’t make it easy to assess nationwide or even statewide trends.

We contacted RealtyTrac.com in order to receive the reports or figures that are available to the press. When inquiring to the press contact regarding RealtyTrac’s reporting methods and current foreclosure figures, we received back the following according to the email from Rick Sharga, VP of Marketing, “RealtyTrac provides a number of reports for the press or any other interested parties. However, these reports are available at a fee.” The fees ranges from $100 per county report to $2,000 for a lender report. It seems as though, anybody interested would have to pay a small fortune for a general look into nationwide foreclosure trends and statistics.

We next contacted ForeclosureS.com, the secondary statistical provider for foreclosures in the industry. ForeclosureS.com also has no current foreclosure numbers on the homepage of their website. We recall in a visit to the website last month, the website stated that they have more than 5 million listings on the home page. In checking Los Angeles County to continue with the example above we found 1 of 3,000 matches on the search results page. However this was under the pre-foreclosures tab. When clicking on the foreclosure tab it also showed 1 of 3,000 matches. In fact all tabs showed 1 of 3,000 matches including auctions, which would represent a majority of the pre-foreclosure numbers. The only assumption we could make was that there were 3,000 current distressed properties in Los Angeles County which includes foreclosures, pre-foreclosures and auctions.

We contacted ForeclosureS.com to get more information on their current listings. We wanted more information on ForeclosureS.com reporting an increase from May to June where RealtyTrac reported a decrease, as discussed in the post titled, “Foreclosure Statistics Analyzed.”

ForeclosureS.com responded to our request with a generic email reply with a link to ForeclosureS.com’s “Nationwide Statistics.” However, the latest numbers on the nationwide foreclosure statistics page were the total pre-foreclosures in June, and no information referring to current foreclosures. As for our question regarding the latest foreclosure figures or the search results page for LA County, w received no answer, or commentary. Replying to the email with a secondary request for more information yielded an email promoting the next, “Super Summer Lab Sale on Learning,” webinar. It looks like we are now on their spam list.

The latest foreclosure figures have been released from two foreclosure listing sources. One report was released by RealtyTrac, the other report was released by competitor ForeclosureS.com.

In an article dated July 10, 2008 from the Associated Press, “US foreclosure filings surge 53 percent in June,” Realty Trac reported a 3 percent decrease in foreclosures from May 2008 to June 2008.

In a press release published in DSNews.com on July 14, 2008 by Rachel Daniels, ForeclosureS.com reported that foreclosures were “up 5.35 percent from May.”

One foreclosure listing source reported foreclosures decreasing while the other reported foreclosures increasing. Considering the data collection methods of ForeclosureS.com, I found their figure quite surprising because historically their figures have always been lower than RealtyTrac’s.

I then referred back to an article published by SFGate.com on May 18, 2008, “Foreclosure statistics tell different stories to different interpreters.” In this article author Carol Lloyd attempted to sort out the differences between the two foreclosure listings providers as far as data collection processes were concerned. According to the article, Alexis McGee, president of ForeclosureS.com, “agreed that the difference between the two companies’ findings could derive from their definitions of foreclosure as well as how and where they collect their information.” She continues by stating that “RealtyTrac’s foreclosure rates may also be higher because it tracks foreclosure activity throughout the month,” and RealtyTrac “combines preforeclosure activity with foreclosures.”

This information explains why ForeclosureS.com numbers have usually been lower than RealtyTrac figures. However, in the case of the most recent report, ForeclosureS.com was reporting much higher figures. This rather large disparity in figures led me to find a third party in order to further investigate the actual numbers in foreclosures from May to June.

To do this I collected a sample of HUD foreclosures directly from HUD.gov affiliate websites. From this sample data, I found that new foreclosures had in fact decreased almost exactly 3% from May to June. With the new information collected one could conclude that ForeclosureS.com’s data was not a good indicator of the foreclosure market for the period of May to June.

Since the beginning of the real estate downturn the media has been reporting some rather shocking headlines. Whether the headlines and the corresponding articles are based on truly shocking data or spun to sound more drastic is up to the reader to decide. The latest foreclosure report was released last Thursday, July 10, 2008.

Most of the headlines reflected an increase in foreclosures by 53 percent. An article written by Alan Zibel for the Associated Press, dated July 10, 2008, was titled, “US foreclosure filings surge 53 percent in June.” Another article, written by Dan Levy for Bloomberg, had the following headline, “Foreclosures Rose 53% in June, Bank Seizures Tripled.” Even Reuters offered a similar article, “June home foreclosures up 53 percent.”

However, with further analysis into the article readers will find that although foreclosures “surged” 53 percent in June from the same month one year ago, foreclosures actually decreased 3 percent from the month prior. One would imagine that the decrease in foreclosures should have been the focal point considering the public is surrounded by constant news of a weakening economy.

In further examination a reader should also consider what the 53 percent figure actually represents and how that figure is reflected on a national scale. All the articles listed above do not mention that the 53 percent accounts for roughly 87,000 new foreclosures nationwide. While that number in itself may seem high, it is much less if it were to be spread out on a state level or even a county level, which would then represent only 1,740 new foreclosures per state or 27 new foreclosures per county.

Readers would have had to sort through the deluge of foreclosure articles to find just one article that in fact reported and focused on a decrease in foreclosures. Through all the sorting I did find an article that reported a decrease in foreclosures. An article from the Palm Beach Post published on Thursday, July 10, 2008 was titled, “Florida foreclosure filings rise, national numbers fall.” The article written by an unknown author could be further analyzed. Although the article reported a national decrease in foreclosures, they also reported an increase in foreclosures for the publisher’s home state. A reader could then surmise, did the author add the national decrease only to make the Florida rates seem more dire? It is up to the reader to make informed decisions about the foreclosure rates, uninterrupted by bias in the media, in order to find out the truth about foreclosure data.