RealtyTrac recounts foreclosures

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Good morning. Research firm RealtyTrac has been criticized for double-counting houses in its foreclosure statistics, so today it introduced new research with no double-counting, and guess what: the new numbers show slightly slower growth of forelcosures in California when you take out the double-counting.

In the first six months of the year, RealtyTrac counted 189,000
‘foreclosure filings’ in California, an increase of 232% over the previous year. But how much of that was double-counting?

The new stats answer that question: RealtyTrac says there were 104,000 ‘unique properties’ in California in some stage of default or foreclosure in the first half of the year, an increase of 170% over the previous year’s total. That means roughly 85,000 properties were double-counted.

We’ll have more numbers and analysis on this report later in the day, but we’re interested in your thoughts on it.

Photo Credit: Reuters