You never know when foreclosures are up or down in this market. Actually, even despite the market, foreclosures can be up, and at the same time they can be down.
Are you confused? You should be.
Take one of the latest foreclosure articles as an example. This article, titled “foreclosure rates up 25 percent year-over-year,” describes how ” more than 279,500 U.S. homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice in October (an increase of 5 percent over September).” The article written by Adrian Sanz was published in Yahoo news on …

With the latest third-quarter figures still in the news, now is a good time for some further scrutinization. Strategically and purposefully, it seems that foreclosure listings companies offer their statistics in varying forms as not to draw any obvious attention to the disparities afflicting the data.
The most recent reports do just that.  An article published on October 10, 2008 in the South Florida Business Journal, uses ForeclosureS.com reported numbers for Florida during the period of September, 2008. The article, titled, “Florida ranks No. 3 for foreclosures,” stated there were …

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 …

Foreclosure statistics have again sprung up across all media outlets. However, unlike recent trends, the headlines for California are claiming dramatic foreclosure declines. Imagine, in a time with economic strain taking precedence in the media, comes an article with a slight glimmer of hope? But is it based on fact?
According to reports from Foreclosure Radar, California foreclosure notices in September dropped significantly compared to rates in August. The statistic comes from one of several articles on the subject, this one titled, “State foreclosures fall dramatically.” The article quotes …

With August foreclosure figures trickling in to the media this month, more erroneous data reporting is represented throughout all media outlets. Foreclosure filings for August did increase but total foreclosures for the period varied depending on the source.
According to an article in the Los Angeles Biz Journal, “Foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 303,879 US properties during August.”  The article, published on September 12, 2008, titled “California has nation’s 2nd highest foreclosure rate in August,” continues by stating that while there …

Revisiting the issue of ForeclosureS.com 5 million listings claim, Foreclosure Research discovered another discrepancy with the data provider’s listings.  That issue was that the company may be using .. not so true.. listings as a type of filler, in order to boost total listing numbers.
Nevada seems to have many of these types of listings with Lyon County, Nevada being the biggest offender.

In the image above readers can see a screenshot of a search results page for Lyon County, Nevada.  This shot was taken two weeks ago from today.  However, revisiting …

Not too long ago ForeclosureS.com announced that the site offered over 5 million property listings. Even with the current foreclosure frenzy in the media, this number seemed inflated. They also advertised this figure directly on the homepage of the site, where other foreclosure listings companies offer their current listings. As mentioned in a prior post, “Figuring Out the Figures,” ForeclosureS.com now does not offer any current listing numbers anywhere on the site and has removed the “5 million listings” on their home page.

However, I was able to …

It is now the second week in August and the rush for July foreclosure figures have begun. All foreclosure reporting companies have released their share of data to the media. The latest comes from a press release published August 11, 2008, “ForeclosureS.com: Pre-foreclosure Filings Set Record in July.” According to the article pre-foreclosure filings hit record highs in 14 states for the month of July.
We took thee states, and decided to compare the data with the actual listings on the web site. While foreclosureS.com offers a comprehensive “Press-Inquiry” statistics page, …

The latest foreclosures numbers have been released by various foreclosure reporting agencies.  According to most of the reports second quarter foreclosure filings have increased since the same period one year ago.
In an article published by Bloomberg.com on July 25, 2008, RealtyTrac, a reporting agency located in Irvine, California specifically stated foreclosures had increased more than 120% during that period.  The article titled, “U.S Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline,” by author Bob Ivry, also stated that while foreclosure may have doubled from 2007, there was only a 14 percent increase …

While differing foreclosure figures have been in the media for a while now, our emphasis began on looking in to foreclosure reporting companies. We attempted to gather some of the data directly from the source and analyze it for our visitors on ForeclosureResearch.com.

The main media source for foreclosure data and industry trends is RealtyTrac. This was our first contact. We were surprised to find that RealtyTrac does not publish general foreclosure numbers provided on the website home page like many of the other foreclosure listing services. Clicking on …