Bungling Of Foreclosure Figures
Thursday, June 14th, 2007Statistics on Colorado foreclosures, on Tuesday, were largely at variance with one another. According to one online source the number is up but another one says it is down. The difference between the two figures is quite considerable and therefore confusing.
According to Bargain Network the foreclosure listings was 8,662 – that is about 3% drop from the previous month. The rate works out to one foreclosure for every 211 properties. It placed Colorado fifth in rank. In April Colorado was fourth with the foreclosure number touching 8,907. It was a considerable 22% decrease from March.
But the national picture is that listings jumped to 6% from April with 149,000 properties ready for the anvil. In November 2006 the number was 108,000. This meant an increase of a staggering 38%.
The states of Colorado, Florida, California, Texas and Illinois have the distinction of being responsible for 59% of all the foreclosures in the country. Among these Florida comes first with 29,820 houses waiting to suffer the process of being foreclosed and auctioned. Texas comes third with 11,012 units marked to be doomed. This means that on an average Texas has one foreclosure for every 732 houses.
Most of the activity in the foreclosures– that is about 87%, centred on single-family houses. 75% comprised of the market in condominiums and town-homes. The remainder was about commercial units, land, mobile homes, multi-family and the like.
A second rival company that deals with real estate, Realty Trac Inc. in Irvine, California came out with contradictory reports later on Tuesday. In its report the number of Colorado foreclosures is up by 8.5% in comparison to last month – that is April 2007. Realty Trac went on to add that Colorado listings number 6,321. This means only one out of 290 units is under the cloud of foreclosures. Nevada was rated as having one foreclosure for every 166 properties.
Realty Trac has come under criticism for doing the wrong counting. It now plans to revise its method of reporting of putting together in one basket all the foreclosures. It will now break it up and give a step-by-step statement of how many units are moving through which stage of the foreclosure process. Foreclosure is a lengthy process and does not involve one quick move. By next month the new Realty Trac figures should be available to enable analysts to assess the situation from different angles.
