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.