Cloud Hanging Over Realtytrac Data
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007RealtyTrac, made its debut two years ago by becoming the first data collector of the country’s mortgage crisis. It made its entry at a point of time when such a service was of invaluable importance. The information provided by RealtyTrac has been widely quoted by national news media and even by the Congress.
But it is not free from criticism. Colorado State Housing Division had problems with RealtyTrac figures and had to do its own sleuthing. Under pressure of censure for having played around with numbers, the company will for the first time issue a statement in its quarterly report explaining the contradictions in its data.
A spokesperson of RealtyTrac, Sharga, said that the unjust criticism is a backlash from trading groups who are uncomfortable with the bad news. Some do not understand that the foreclosure issue is not just an incident but also an ongoing process. The numbers are based on public information pointing to a problem.
Duncan of Mortgage Bankers Association agreed about the problem but said that the data was incorrect because of triple counting. It damaged the public image of the industry. Each step of a single property was counted more than once. The Association has its own data bank representing 80% of the country’s mortgage transactions.
The ace foreclosure websites like RealtyTrac.com, Foreclosure.com, Foreclosures.com and Bargain.com charge monthly fees from those interested to view foreclosure, defaulting and reversion to bank lists. The data of these data collectors varies. RealtyTrac claims to be the largest and most comprehensive publishers of national statistics relating to foreclosure and bank-owned properties – more than 1 million units stretched across 2,500 counties. The collection includes all the three steps of foreclosure – notice for default, auction proceedings and completion of it when the property returns to the bank. It is the detailing that has led people to misunderstand its method of calculation. One property cannot be in more than one phase of the process. But the explanation is given that in the quarterly report, a property may have been counted more than once. A property is sometimes foreclosed simultaneously by more than one lender.
RealtyTrac is happy about the service it has done to society as many state offices come to them for details – the objective being to find out escape routes for the unhappy victims. It has brought about cohesion between government and private enterprise.
