RealtyTrac Inc., announced this week that more than 75,000 residential and commercial properties were taken back by banks since the beginning of 2007 in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
A few hours later, CondoVultures.com came out with its own report: in excess of 94,000 properties in the two counties were repossessed during the same period.
Both firms say they get their information from public records.
What gives?
Seems they have different definitions of repossession.
RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based foreclosure listing firm, said it doesn’t count a repossession if a third party (usually an investor) outbids the bank for a property. CondoVultures, a consulting firm, does.
That pretty much explains it, though there may be other methodology differences, said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac.
“We’re trying to capture what’s going back to the banks versus what’s going to investors,” Blomquist said.
Peter Zalewski, principal at Bal Harbour-based CondoVultures, said he has no problem with the RealtyTrac method. Still, he believes a repossession has occurred even if an investor outbids a bank because the homeowner was forced to give up the property through the foreclosure process.
There you go.
Still, no matter how you count, that’s a lot of lost homes.
The author of this article is: Paul Owers
See the original post at: http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/business/realestate/housekeys/blog/2012/01/real_estate_firms_differ_on_de.html
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