Foreclosure Research was one of the first online publications to report that RealtyTrac numbers had yet to show much improvement from previous years’ allegations of inaccuracy.

There have been a whole slew of news articles pin-pointing current data discrepancies from the listing provider. The first of these coming from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published on June 21, 2009, titled “Foreclosure numbers don’t add up.” Author Carrie Teegardin assessed that RealtyTrac actually under reported foreclosure notices for the month of April by almost 4,000 filings, a disparity of nearly 100 percent.

The AJC concluded the difference following an analysis of newspaper records for five metro Atlanta counties. Because Georgia is a non-judicial state for foreclosures, there are no court records on the proceedings.

The article offered an excerpt from a local foreclosure expert, who described Realty Trac’s method as “not scientifically rigorous.”

Another issue that has been noted by Foreclosure Research in the past is the lack of coverage in rural areas. Teegardin notes that in Georgia, Realty Trac “reported that April’s foreclosure tally represented a 21 percent increase over the previous year. But the company made no adjustment for the fact that it collected foreclosure data in about 100 of Georgia’s 159 counties last year but expanded to statewide coverage this year.”

Daren Blomquist responded by stating, “We don’t believe it makes any significant difference in the percentage change,” regarding the tallying of additional counties.

If this were the case, let’s do some quick calculations under this supposition.

According to the most recent report 1 out of 377 homeowners in Georgia received at least 1 foreclosure notice in May. You could then apply this figure to the areas that are not counted or at least were not counted last year.

Sample average for rural populations in Georgia*: 13,557. 35 foreclosures per county times 59 counties not counted, equal an additional 2,121 foreclosure filings per month.

April 2008
7,136 Notice of trustee sales plus 2,050 REOs, plus an additional, estimated 2,121 = 11,307 total.

April 2009
7,809 Notice of trustee sales plus 3,712 REOs equals a total of 11,521

Considering this information, Georgia foreclosures only increased 1 percent from April 2008 to April 2009, not 21 percent. If you ask me, this is a very ’significant change’ and perhaps this article can serve as a lesson on how the company can improve upon its scientific rigor in the future.

*Sampling average taken from counties with less than 25,000 in population.