Today, July 17, 2009, marks one year since the genesis of Foreclosure Research. Our goal has been to provide informative reporting and serve as a checks and balances to the foreclosure reporting industry. Our one year anniversary further exemplifies our commitment to uncovering the truth behind foreclosure data.
Here are a few of the year’s highlights:
July 2008

ForeclosureS.com reports a 5% increase in foreclosures while RealtyTrac reports a 3% decrease, an 8% disparity.

August 2008

New Jersey court systems reports double the foreclosures as RealtyTrac for the same period.
ForeclosureS.com falsely states they …

As a result of the onslaught of articles questioning RealtyTrac’s latest report, the company has offered insight into its data collection methods and its role in foreclosure data reporting. In the company’s defense, Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing, has been quoted as standing by the numbers.
RealtyTrac’s formal position regarding the Atlanta data exposé can be found in an Inman News article titled, “RealtyTrac numbers under fire in Atlanta,” published on June 23, 2009. According to the article written by Matt Carter, “RealtyTrac is standing behind the methods it …

Yet another economically depressing article has made its way into the media and with an aptly named title, “And Now For This Morning’s Gloom…” The article, written by Henry Blodget and published in The Business Insider on May 5, 2009 offers more insight into foreclosures, job loss, and the economy.
However, there was one noticeable red flag where there was a reference to an unlikely source when discussing the implications of foreclosures on job loss. The following is a snippet from the article:
“According to RealtyTrac, job losses result in …

It looks like the foreclosure fishermen are at it again. There is no telling just how big… the foreclosure crisis is getting. The size and method of catch all depend on which statistical fisherman you ask.
RealtyTrac is just one purveyor of such foreclosure fish stories. Their figures have been up for debate for several years now. In the most recent press release the foreclosure rate per household left out one major piece of information. According to the release titled, “Foreclosure Activity Increases 9 Percent in First Quarter,” the company …

Just two years ago, RealtyTrac was in some hot water over counting foreclosure filings multiple times for a single property and providing inflated foreclosure statistics to the media. Since then, the company has said to have changed its data collecting and reporting methods. However, as seen in last week’s articles, many of these duplicate listings are still appearing throughout the media.
On their statistics page, readers can see the different categories for filings; however, the actual numbers are not easy to come by. One would have to break out a calculator …

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 …

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 …

Third quarter numbers have been released to the press with yet again many articles offering more conflicting numbers. Depending on the source of the foreclosure data, most likely readers will see a variety of figures reflecting the current state of the foreclosure market.

The first of these articles comes from CNNMoney.com titled, “81,312 homes lost to foreclosure in September.” The article published on October 23, 2008 by Catherine Clifford offers figures from Realty Trac, an Irvine, CA based listing company.

As stated in the headline, there were 81,312 foreclosures during the …

Over the last few months Foreclosure Research has provided several articles pointing out the discrepancies in reporting for different foreclosure companies. The discrepancies are most likely due to the fact that foreclosure information is spread out across all platforms and is truly illusive in nature.
The reality is, foreclosures are so hard to track that some foreclosure listing companies are even using their competitor’s data for uses in press release articles. Take REOSphere for example. REOSphere is based in Minnesota and provides REO listings for the St. Paul and Minneapolis …

With the recent revelation coming from Realty Trac’s reporting process, Foreclosure Research has come across some interesting findings.
Referring back to the article, “How many foreclosures? ‘We know we’re underreporting West Virginia,’” Rick Sharga provided the following insight, “West Virginia is one of the states where we need to do a better job.”  He continued by stating, “We know we’re under reporting in West Virginia,” and that, “we concentrate on areas of 25,000 people or more.”
The article also touched upon the fact that Realty Trac stated West Virginia had a very …