Continuing from last week’s article, “The Underbelly of an Online Listing Provider,” Foreclosure Research has delved into the listing side of Foreclosure Store (ForeclosureStore.com) in order to gain a better understanding of their illusory practices.

Luckily for us, most of the information (or shall I say disinformation) is available on the site without a subscription- at least the general information on the property.

The first noticeably suspicious aspects of the listings are the photos attached to the property addresses.  I searched for foreclosures in Fort Lauderdale and at fist glance there are homes with trees that have lost their foliage in the cold winter months. Also, homes with large pines and mountainous terrain in the background. Going further through the first page of listings there are more homes that seem out of place, and on page two there even appears to be homes with snow-covered yards; all of these factors improbabilities in South Florida to say the least. See photos 1-3 for details.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

I then searched for homes in Oakland, NJ for a comparison. Perhaps if South Florida had New England type homes and foliage then New England may have South Florida type homes and palm trees- possibly due to a North-South confusion in their backend. To my surprise there were no palm trees or beaches but instead the very same pictures used for the homes in Fort Lauderdale in the exact order! See photo4 for details below.

Photo 4

While these photos may simply serve as teasers or sample photos, one complaint spotlighted in last week’s report from Hevyn begs to differ. In Hevyn’s complaint she stated that the pictures did not change once she had signed up fort the free trial.

Photo 5

As for the sister site, Foreclosure World (ForeclosureWorld.com), their listings are just as dubious.  Again, I searched for listings in Fort Lauderdale, and contrary to the site name, I found not one foreclosure listing out of 9,719 records. All of the listings were bankruptcy listings or for sale by owner homes.

To make matters worse, the listings offered very little to NO information. For example, one listing states: Homeowner in Bankruptcy (under property type), Aventura (for city), “find out more” (for address), and “Low Price: Members Only” (for price).  Other descriptions under the address field included: desirable neighborhood, close to schools, and convenient location.  No information even resembling an address or area even.

Let this special report serve as a caveat for prospective buyers. If you decide to view a Foreclosure World home in a “desirable neighborhood,” for a “low price” in Miami Beach, and come to find snow in the yard, let me be the first to say, you took a wrong turn!

ForeclosureWorld.com Ripoff (parent foreclosureStore.com)

As Foreclosure Research has reported since its inception, foreclosure statistics have proven to be illusive by nature. Not one foreclosure reporting company will have the same figure for a given period of time. While the statistics as a whole may be far from exact, at least there is factual data behind the listings. However, for some online listings companies that is not always the case. Some companies actually use the illusive nature of foreclosures in their favor in order to deceive users by aggregating misleading and false information.

In this case, Foreclosure World is a main conspirator. There have been various news articles and exposés on the fraudulent practices of Foreclosure World (parent company ForeclosureStore.com) and all of their online aliases. In Ripoff Report alone, an online BBB of sorts, there are almost 50 complaints for Foreclosure World.

In one Ripoff Report complaint, Brian, of Oxford New Jersey, had given the company $7,435.00 in return for real estate coaching. Apparently the company never sent the full package and upon Brian’s questioning the company said it had sent “bad products” and they would send better ones. Brian has yet to hear from the company again.

One of the many complaints regarding their dubious listings comes from Hevyn in Ocean City, Maryland. Hevyn wrote that that not only did the house photos not match the particular property address but the photos were not even of homes in that respective city. She continued, “I was appalled to see how fake it was… I knew there were no large, snow-covered front lawns on Coastal Highway in Ocean City, Maryland.”

Most of the Ripoff Report complaints from Foreclosure World customers stated they were unwittingly charged $297.00 for the “trial products” even when the products were returned. Customers were never able to contact a customer service representative to refund the money or inquire into the charge.

Just from the customer service front and ambiguous charging methods alone, one can assume that Foreclosure World is a deceptive business. A complete analysis into the Foreclosure World site will be available in Part II of, “The Underbelly of an Online Listing Provider.”

The first month of the year may be an indicator of better times to come. For the first time in a while all foreclosure listing companies reported a decline in January foreclosures.

As seems to be the norm, the percent by which foreclosures decreased continues to be up to debate. According to an article published in Ad Hoc News, ForeclosureS.com reported that nationwide foreclosure had decreased 25 percent. The company also reported a 12 percent decrease in foreclosure filings.

However, according to a separate series of articles, a different percent was reported. These conflicting articles were based on RealtyTrac’s January foreclosure report. Based on this report, nationwide foreclosures had decreased 18 percent and 7 percent respectively. While it seems the margin between competing foreclosure listing companies is narrowing, they still offer a wide disparity of information. In order to better understand the conflicting figures, below you will find a visual representation. Also note that while the percent differences are closer than usual, the actual figures in properties remain quite vast.

Foreclosure Breakdown:
RealtyTrac: REOs/Completed Foreclosures December 78,938
RealtyTrac: REOs/Completed Foreclosures January 66,777
18% change

RealtyTrac: Pre-foreclosure Filings December 224,472
RealtyTrac: Pre-foreclosure Filings January 207,622
7.5% change

ForeclosureS.com: REOs/Completed Foreclosures December 97,841
ForeclosureS.com: REOs/Completed Foreclosures January 72,694
25% change

ForeclosureS.com: Pre-foreclosure Filings December 190,467
ForeclosureS.com: Pre-foreclosure Filings January 166,860
12% change

It looks like the December foreclosure figures were overshadowed by reports of an 81 percent increase in 2008. Just a quick analysis shows that those figures should have been given a little more priority by media outlets as many states reflected a decrease or very slight increases in filings for the month, a great sign in the midst of a bedraggled economy.

In fact, there was only a trickle of articles mentioning a decrease for the month of December, at least according to recent headlines. Most continued to report increases in their perspective city or sate.

According to reports, some of the states that showed a decrease or only slight increases in foreclosures filings include:

Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming.

While many of the states mentioned normally have relatively low foreclosure rates, there are a couple states that are worth noting.

The first of these is Florida. According to a recent report published from a foreclosure listing company, Florida has a total of 7 cities listed in the top 100 U.S. metro foreclosure areas. All of these cities appear in the top 25. Given the recent December figure of only a 3 percent increase, one would assume that this would be newsworthy, but apparently this is not the case.

A couple more states that should have received some attention on the foreclosure front are Michigan and Ohio. These two states have 2 and 6 cities, respectively, on the top 100 U.S metro foreclosure list. Michigan foreclosure rates in December decreased by 7 percent. With some of its cities gaining national attention for its economic strain, this figure certainly should have made a more prominent appearance in the press.

As for Ohio, with its six cities in the top 35 of the list, it also reflected a decrease. Ohio foreclosures decreased over 12 percent in December from November. Again, there were no articles reporting the decrease.