Recently within the media there were a couple articles reporting on the increase in foreclosures in San Diego County.  While all the articles stated that foreclosure flings in San Diego had in fact increased, all of the articles had differing numbers representing the increase.  The numbers that differed were the total foreclosure filings for San Diego County for the period of July 2008.

The first article published August 22, 2008, “Foreclosures up 213% for July over last year,” stated that, “2,004 San Diego County homes went into foreclosure in July.” The article, written by Emmet Pierce, was based on information gathered from DataQuick Information Systems.  Here is a link to the article Signonsandiego Foreclosure Article.

The second article published on August 25, 2008, by Ned Randolph, offered foreclosure numbers from two separate companies.  Randolph’s article stated that, “in July, 2,174 homeowners in San Diego County defaulted on $940 million in loans, according to ForeclosureRadar.” The author continues by stating that “according to HouseRebate.com, a San Diego-based discount real estate service, there were 12,000 local homes in notice of default last month [July].” Here is a link to the article San Diego Business Journal San Diego Foreclosures Article.

Interestingly enough, Randolph simply stated the varying figures with no question or further investigation, simply that the figures were different.

Given the numbers stated above, foreclosure filings in San Diego County may have totaled somewhere between 2,004- and 12,000 properties according to the three separate foreclosure reporting companies: DataQuick, ForeclosureRadar, and HouseRebate.com.

Due to such a wide variance in findings, Foreclosure Research set out to identify the true amount of foreclosure flings in the area.  Taking information from various sources including the county courthouse, and filtering out unique properties and owners, Foreclosure Research found that there were actually 3,189 foreclosure filings for San Diego County in July 2008.

One reason for the slightly lower figures, could be attributed to past negative press around foreclosure listing companies, such as Realty Trac, which were said to double- even triple-count their foreclosure listings.  As far as the drastically incorrect number from HouseRebate.com, this company only offers a short sale list on its website, and probably would not provide a good indication of the current foreclosure market in San Diego County.