Discrepancy in Foreclosure Data May Create Confusion.

Boca Raton, FL -- There is a discrepancy with much of the foreclosure data being published, according to Brad Geisen, founder and chief executive officer of foreclosure.com here, which stopped posting its data a year ago.

This discrepancy creates confusion and presents a misguided direction of where the market is going, Mr. Geisen said during a webinar entitled, "The Truth Behind National Foreclosure Statistics."

"Properties are often counted multiple times. If a property has several liens it can be counted three different times during the foreclosure process. It makes things look a lot worse than it really is. Sometimes companies use bad data or expired data or an undefined time period," he said.

In some areas of the country, the foreclosure numbers have been so low, it is easy to get high percentage increases, sometimes as much as 200%, said Mr. Geisen.

He pointed out one graph, which showed that all default rates in 2007 were less than 1% of all loans. He said that amount is around to 2% now. "It's within the industry standard." Banks assume these will go into foreclosure. "The percentages get skewed. I don't usually like to use the percentage. I think the whole at a national level is not nearly as bad as it sounds," he said.

There is a lot of confusion out there between the two stages of foreclosures, which is a result of the way different data providers classify their numbers. Pre-foreclosures are often counted as foreclosures, but that is when the property has just started the foreclosures process, including notice of default, lis pendins, sheriff's sales and auctions.

Banks and servicers are working hard to provide loss mitigation and loan workouts to resolve pre-foreclosures and short sales are taking place to sell these homes. Based on its data, foreclosure.com calls a property a foreclosure once it has been foreclosed on and the bank owns it. These are real estate-owned assets or REO.