On the upside, while foreclosures are up from previous years, many states have seen consecutive months of decreased foreclosure rates. Some experts say recent legislation, specifically the Obama Administration’s Making Home Affordable Program, has played a significant role in the latest figures.

The program offers homeowners with mortgages guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the option to refinance at more affordable rates or more affordable payment schedules. The program is back by $75 billion in tax payer funds.

However, the billion dollar question may be “is it working?” According to a recent article on ABC News, “more than one-quarter of homeowners receiving help under a U.S. government foreclosure prevention plan are behind on their new mortgage payments.”

Proponents of the plan say it’s too early to tell and that many of the modifications are only temporarily. The key to success surely would be making the modifications permanent. However, banks it seems continue to be reluctant in making such changes.

It has been a little over a year since the state of Colorado took foreclosure reporting into its own hands. Last month the state released its first yearly foreclosure report based on the numbers of its own collection methods. Colorado was the first state to break away from a reliance on the many times inaccurate reporting of RealtyTrac.

The only snag seemed to be reports comparing August and September 2009 rates with the prior year. According to the foreclosure data report, “the large difference in foreclosure filing totals between September 2008 and September 2009 is driven partially by statutory changes and partially by actual conditions in the real estate markets.”

Besides that minor hiccup, figures in 2009 seem to have stabilized dramatically since previous years under the indiscretions of RealtyTrac. According to an article in the Denver Business Journal published on October 8, 2009, “state officials have complained about widely followed foreclosure reports by RealtyTrac.” Continuing by stating their “methodology could lead to the counting of the same property multiple times.”

For a comparison, RealtyTrac reported 6,472 foreclosure filings in Colorado for August 2009. The Colorado Division of Housing reported 3,496. These figures further confirm RealtyTrac’s tendency to over-report.

While the division of housing only tracks metropolitan counties, it would be a stretch to say that rural Colorado areas showed about the same number of filings as total metropolitan filings. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, The population in the area covered by the state is over 4 million, while the population in areas not covered is less than one million. Along the same vein, in order to have a conclusive, state-wide figure RealtyTrac themselves would have had to cover the rural counties. However, the company has stated in previous inquiries they do not sufficiently report areas of populations less than 25,000.

Of the remaining counties not covered by the Division of Housing, 82% have populations of less than 25,000.