RealtyTrac: Can We Call a ‘Take-Back’?
According to a revealing article in the Hartford Courant, RealtyTrac “radically” revised its total Connecticut foreclosure filings for the month of June. The article published on August 15, 2009, written by Kenneth R. Gosselin, states that the company first reported an 80 percent decrease in foreclosure filings when actually there was an increase of 31.5 percent.
The original numbers were revised due to further investigation by Courant reporters following the surprisingly low level of filings originally reported by the foreclosure data company.
RealtyTrac first reported only 56 foreclosure filings while the revision claimed 991. That’s a head-turning difference of 1,670 percent.
In the article Darren Blomquist, a RealtyTrac spokesperson, admitted that the subscription-based company was having trouble with data collection in Connecticut. Yet it seems the company still continues to issue formal reports on Connecticut and other coverage-lacking areas.
In the past RealtyTrac has admitted to inaccurate data in some rural areas, specifically counties with less than 25,000 in population, but according to the US Census all of Connecticut’s counties have well over 100,000 in population.
Which begs the question, “is it really just rural areas?” Or perhaps smaller, less-important states are also denied the accurate reporting they deserve?
There really is only one solution, and that is to have some governmental control over foreclosure statistics in the media. If this were the case, at least the government grasps the concept of equal representation among the fifty states of America. In addition, the government would be less concerned about selling subscriptions in heavily foreclosed areas, which is obviously the main focus of the foreclosure listing company in question.












[...] RealtyTrac offers an explanation for its sparse coverage in rural areas; citing populations of less than 25,000 are many times overlooked. Read the full post here. [...]
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