As 2009 comes to a close let us revisit some of the top stories of the year. Undoubtedly the year was awash in news of a depressed economy and a depressed real estate market. However, with the cyclic nature of both these areas, we can only wait and see what developments arise in the coming year, and in the coming decade.

January 2009
Foreclosure Research reports mixed figures on foreclosure filings and REOs for 2008.
According to RealtyTrac there were a total of 3.16 million filings for the year. ForeclosureS.com reported 2 million filings. Read the full post here.

February 2009
For the first time in several months, all foreclosure listings companies reported a decline in foreclosure activity between December 2008 and January 2009. Read the full post here.

Foreclosure Research reports on the fraudulent practices of Foreclosure World and Foreclosure Store, specifically spotlighting several Ripoff Report complaints against the company. Read the full post here.

March 2009
A different perspective comes out of a University of Virginia study that finds “foreclosure rates really aren’t that high,” citing that the majority of foreclosures are concentrated in only a few areas. Read the full post here.

More concerns over faulty foreclosure reporting arise with blog author Elizabeth Razzi voicing her concerns. “Like most major media outlets, The Post reports foreclosure numbers from RealtyTrac each month, mostly because there’s no other source that’s better. But I don’t know anyone who uses those numbers, including reputable economists, who isn’t frustrated by the fact that the same home often gets counted more than once in their statistics.”

April 2009
Colorado passes new law which prohibits the governmental use of private foreclosure listing company statistics. The new bill (HB1196) aims to help regulate foreclosure reporting. Read the full post here.

More doom and gloom. Realtor, John Hull describes the fallout from such negative reporting, which “helped to stymie consumer confidence across our nation,” and helped “to cause fear and alarm in our community without including any of the positive aspects, which offer balanced reporting.” Read the full post here.

May 2009
RealtyTrac quote found in job loss statistic, which triggers concerns over whether or not that is their area of expertise. Read the full post here.

June 2009
An article headline reads, “U.S. foreclosures jump to record high,” misusing the word foreclosure for foreclosure filings (or notices of default). Yet further in the depths of the article a reader will find that actual foreclosures decreased for the period. Read the full post here.

July 2009
RealtyTrac makes public statement that its figures “should not be held to the same standards as statistics compiled by government agencies for the purpose of making public policy decisions.” However, in a press release located on their Web site it specifically states that “RealtyTrac’s foreclosure data has also been used by the Federal Reserve, FBI, U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee and Banking Committee, U.S. Treasury Department, and numerous state housing and banking departments to help evaluate foreclosure trends and address policy issues related to foreclosures.” Read the full post here.

July 17, 2009: Happy one year anniversary for Foreclosure Research!

August 2009
Foreclosure Research reports a deviation of 51% between ForeclosureS.com’s mid-year statistics and those of RealtyTrac’s.

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.

September 2009
ForeclosureS.com and RealtyTrac figures show only a 6% difference in Nevada foreclosure statistics compared to past differences of over 100%. Read full post here:

October 2009
Colorado posts its first foreclosure report since converting to government run foreclosure data collection. Read the full post here.

The Housing Assistance Council releases the report, “What is the housing foreclosure situation in rural America?” The report cites discrepancies with certain foreclosure statistic providers such as RealtyTrac and their sparse coverage in rural counties. Read the full post here.

November 2009
Concerns spread over the practices of online retailers. In this particular instance a professor of economics unwittingly subscribed to two services (rather than the obvious one service) when signing up for real estate listing provider RealtyTrac. Read full post here.

December 2009
A close look into the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable Program. While created with good intentions it appears that some of the homeowners with modified mortgages are still falling behind in payments. Read the full post here.

Take the sign-up page for the free trial for example. At meets the eye, it looks incredibly similar to a competing foreclosure listing site, Foreclosure.com (See photos 1 and 2). The layout and styles are the same and even the text is copied verbatim. In this case, based on further investigation, the original sign-up page belongs to Foreclosure.com, making Foreclosure Store the copyright infringe r.

ForeclosureStore.com Sign Up Page

Foreclosure.com Sign Up Page

Upon further review of the sign-up page on Foreclosure Store are icons from various high-caliber news journals, such as the New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, and many more. There also appears to be a quote from the New York Times.

While there was in fact an article that mentioned Foreclosure Store, it was much different than the quote offered on the site and on the sign-up page.

The New York Times article, which actually was a Q&A editorial, was published October 27, 1996. The blurb offered some foreclosure advice to a reader who was referencing “Final List Services” as just one site that offers a foreclosure list. Whether or not Foreclosure Store is actually “Final List Services” is never mentioned, however, Foreclosure Store seems to say it is based on the insertion of their name into the direct quote.

Below you will find the quotes from the New York Times and the edited quote that appears on the Foreclosure Store Web site.

New York Times: “Final List Services and other companies gather lists of various properties owned by various organizations and then offer their list to the public for a fee,”

Foreclosure Store (Foreclosure World/Final List Services, etc.): “Foreclosure World gathers lists of properties owned by thousands of banks and other mortgage companies, sorts and compiles them into state and county directories, then offers their lists to investors and the public for a small fee,”

Note that the quote was obviously edited to the favor of Foreclosure Store, yet quotation marks indicating a direct quote are still improperly utilized. Below you will find additional false quotes.

New York Times: “People can either purchase lists from the companies or contact the banks directly,” he said, explaining that the fee charged by such companies is usually limited to the charge for the list itself.

Foreclosure Store: “you can purchase comprehensive directories from Foreclosure World or you can try contacting individual banks. However, many will not deal directly with the public and many also charge a fee for their lists. In any event, the fees charged are limited to the cost of the directories, not any commissions.”

It is no surprise that this New York Times blurb has been the only reference to Foreclosure Store, or any of its aliases, for over 10 years. Keep your eyes peeled for future references of Foreclosure Store as Foreclosure Research is confident the subject matter will be to the beat of a different tune, and Foreclosure Store will have lot of whiting out to do.

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 homes with trees that have lost their foliage in the cold winter months. Also, homes with large pines and mountainous terrain in the background. Going further through the first page of listings there are more homes that seem out of place, and on page two there even appears to be homes with snow-covered yards; all of these factors improbabilities in South Florida to say the least. See photos 1-3 for details.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

I then searched for homes in Oakland, NJ for a comparison. Perhaps if South Florida had New England type homes and foliage then New England may have South Florida type homes and palm trees- possibly due to a North-South confusion in their backend. To my surprise there were no palm trees or beaches but instead the very same pictures used for the homes in Fort Lauderdale in the exact order! See photo4 for details below.

Photo 4

While these photos may simply serve as teasers or sample photos, one complaint spotlighted in last week’s report from Hevyn begs to differ. In Hevyn’s complaint she stated that the pictures did not change once she had signed up fort the free trial.

Photo 5

As for the sister site, Foreclosure World (ForeclosureWorld.com), their listings are just as dubious.  Again, I searched for listings in Fort Lauderdale, and contrary to the site name, I found not one foreclosure listing out of 9,719 records. All of the listings were bankruptcy listings or for sale by owner homes.

To make matters worse, the listings offered very little to NO information. For example, one listing states: Homeowner in Bankruptcy (under property type), Aventura (for city), “find out more” (for address), and “Low Price: Members Only” (for price).  Other descriptions under the address field included: desirable neighborhood, close to schools, and convenient location.  No information even resembling an address or area even.

Let this special report serve as a caveat for prospective buyers. If you decide to view a Foreclosure World home in a “desirable neighborhood,” for a “low price” in Miami Beach, and come to find snow in the yard, let me be the first to say, you took a wrong turn!

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 case, Foreclosure World is a main conspirator. There have been various news articles and exposés on the fraudulent practices of Foreclosure World (parent company ForeclosureStore.com) and all of their online aliases. In Ripoff Report alone, an online BBB of sorts, there are almost 50 complaints for Foreclosure World.

In one Ripoff Report complaint, Brian, of Oxford New Jersey, had given the company $7,435.00 in return for real estate coaching. Apparently the company never sent the full package and upon Brian’s questioning the company said it had sent “bad products” and they would send better ones. Brian has yet to hear from the company again.

One of the many complaints regarding their dubious listings comes from Hevyn in Ocean City, Maryland. Hevyn wrote that that not only did the house photos not match the particular property address but the photos were not even of homes in that respective city. She continued, “I was appalled to see how fake it was… I knew there were no large, snow-covered front lawns on Coastal Highway in Ocean City, Maryland.”

Most of the Ripoff Report complaints from Foreclosure World customers stated they were unwittingly charged $297.00 for the “trial products” even when the products were returned. Customers were never able to contact a customer service representative to refund the money or inquire into the charge.

Just from the customer service front and ambiguous charging methods alone, one can assume that Foreclosure World is a deceptive business. A complete analysis into the Foreclosure World site will be available in Part II of, “The Underbelly of an Online Listing Provider.”