[tony soprano]

Originally Posted by Daddys///M3

On another note, I would like to point out that a NOD does not a foreclosure make. Many lenders are not willing to mod loans unless the borrower misses 3 payments, so now that is the borrower's bargaining tool. Same goes for short sales. With that, I think that pre-foreclosure numbers are not an accurate guage of REO inventory coming on to the market.

Agreed. There's certainly not a linear relationship between NODs and foreclosures. Flawed as it is, it's one of the few leading indicators available to someone trying to divine a market direction. Perhaps a more reliable leading indicator would be employment numbers, and I think we have a reasonable idea where those might be headed.

I do agree about the moratorium delaying some of the inventory coming on, but I believe I will leave it at that as I don't necessarily want to fully immerse myself in this discussion.

Fair enough. You are the model of civility.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by tony soprano

I'm not sure why you choose to include SFRs only. I haven't seen any other organization that aggregates foreclosure data arbatrarily decide that condo & townhome foreclosures don't count in the overall number. Secondly, I haven't seen a single media outlet, including local Vegas media, report an increase in December to January foreclosures. Do you have a link handy?

Condos and Townhouses are classically excluded for all sorts of RE data simply because they are heavily polluted by a couple of odd items. These are condo conversions and high rises. Neither works to the metrics of the residental home market. It is possible to exclude them but it adds hugely to the data handling tasks. In the case of conversions you basically have to scrub the data tract by tract as the REO sellers routinely misinform on the item. We don't include Time Shares or vacant land even though both are also real estate. There is lots of foreclosure activity on vacant land.

Many analysis are restricted to SFRs for that reason. Condos are about 20% or a little more of the market. Add 20% to the SFR numbers and you will be roughly correct.

The source of that data is the Clark County Assersors data base. Any RE Agent or Appraiser and many load officers can confirm the increase. You can do it yourself if you wish though you really need access to the tax data base. That is a public record by the way and you can set up with Clark County to get at it. There is a fee involved.

[rpachigo]

Originally Posted by Daddys///M3

I couldn't agree with you more. Why this is now making the rounds as the tool to save us all is beyond me. I watched a video bit about a woman who bought a home in 2000 or so for $39,000. She did multiple cash out refinances and now owes $145,000. That's alot of cheddar! Where did all of that money go? Needless to say she lost her job in the real estate industry in FL (go figure) and can no longer afford to pay for the home, so she filed a request for production of the note to try and stay in the home. You know, the one she can't afford. Perhaps if she would have done something wise with that $100K she could still afford the home.

The fact is that unless the original lender is out of business the note is readily available. Even then it is not hard to come by. I was involved in a refinance transaction recently where the buyer did not have their note (what buyer does not hold on to their closing package?). I simply called the title company he closed with and they were able to get it to me the next day. Many judges are now saying that the original note is not even necessary, that electronically stored notes are acceptable.

On another note, I would like to point out that a NOD does not a foreclosure make. Many lenders are not willing to mod loans unless the borrower misses 3 payments, so now that is the borrower's bargaining tool. Same goes for short sales. With that, I think that pre-foreclosure numbers are not an accurate guage of REO inventory coming on to the market. I do agree about the moratorium delaying some of the inventory coming on, but I believe I will leave it at that as I don't necessarily want to fully immerse myself in this discussion.

You sir are very magnanimous.

[Daddys///M3]

Originally Posted by rpachigo

You sir are very magnanimous.

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic based on my first paragraph or not.

[olecapt]

While not really a panacea for those being foreclosed there are real problems with some of the securitization and maintenance of proper "pedigrees".

There are apparently a large set of places where mortgages or parts thereof were transferred without suitable endorsements.

Professionals in that business had been warning of it for some years. And now it creates havoc as you try and back out ownership to a single entitiy.

Does not really prevent foreclosures but does slow down or stop the process for a while...or sometimes it turns out the bank forecloses, gets the property, and cannot document its ownership well enough to sell the property. Going in to foreclosure you need only satisfy the judge...coming out you have to get a title company to sign on.

[tony soprano]

Originally Posted by olecapt

The source of that data is the Clark County Assersors data base. Any RE Agent or Appraiser and many load officers can confirm the increase. You can do it yourself if you wish though you really need access to the tax data base. That is a public record by the way and you can set up with Clark County to get at it. There is a fee involved.

Your data source seems to be at odds with just about every other source of information that I've seen that says foreclosures were down in the month of January. It wouldn't be terribly difficult to convince me to dismiss Realtytrac, who says January foreclosures were down. However, it strikes me as odd that an information aggregator that is routinely panned on this board for inflating foreclosure numbers, is now found to be in error in exactly the opposite direction.

Foreclosure.com has also said foreclosures were down for the month of January. OK, just for the sake of discussion, Ill reject Foreclosure.com's data as being no more accurate than data from Realtytrac. This next one I have a difficult time dismissing - Applied Analysis has said foreclosures were down in January. I find it hard to believe that a market analysis firm located in Vegas, is unaware of, or doesn't have access to the county assessor's database. I find it equally hard to believe that a market analysis firm could manage to keep their doors open for very long if they were unable to provide an accurate accounting of month-over-month foreclosures.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by tony soprano

Your data source seems to be at odds with just about every other source of information that I've seen that says January foreclosures were down in the month of January. It wouldn't be terribly difficult to convince me to dismiss Realtytrac, who says January foreclosures were down. However, it strikes me as odd that an information aggregator that is routinely panned on this board for inflating foreclosure numbers, is now found to be in error in exactly the opposite direction.

Foreclosure.com has also said January foreclosures were down for the month of January. OK, just for the sake of discussion, Ill reject Foreclosure.com's data as being no more accurate than data from Realtytrac. This next one I have a difficult time dismissing - Applied Analysis has said January foreclosures were down in January. I find it hard to believe that a market analysis firm located in Vegas, is unaware of, or doesn't have access to the county assessor's database. I find it equally hard to believe that a market analysis firm could manage to keep their doors open for very long if they were unable to provide an accurate accounting of month-over-month foreclosures.

Look it is not rocket science. There is only one data base. You extract the records that meet the criteria for a Trustee sale as the current sale. Note that all bank acquisitions are lableled this way as they then do not have to pay the transfer tax. If they take title any other way they would be liable for the tax. It requires a little more doing if you reach back out of the current month or so as the properties are generally resold starting in not much more than 30 days after acquiring. So you have to check the previous sale code as well.

As I said before it is simple to check the quality of the RealtyTrac data. Just open their REO tab and go back 9 months. Then pick a couple and check ownership on the OpenWeb Information Mapper. You will swiftly find out that they are reporting already sold as bank owned.

Applied Analysis is simply using foreclosure.com. I have no idea where foreclosure.com gets its data. Does not check with anything I know of...

I suggest you get a little more skeptical about data sources. These guys are trying to sell public data to the gullible. The though that they are careful about how they do it is ludicrous.

[tony soprano]

Originally Posted by olecapt

Applied Analysis is simply using foreclosure.com.

You know this how?

I suggest you get a little more skeptical about data sources.

I'd say I'm already reasonably skeptical of data sources. Especially data posted on the internet by individuals that is unsupported by any corroborating evidence, and contradicted by multiple sources.

These guys are trying to sell public data to the gullible. The though that they are careful about how they do it is ludicrous.

Here's what I find ludicrous; the notion that you exercise more care in deriving month-over-month foreclosure numbers than a 12 year old market research firm located in Vegas, that is compensated to provide information on which to base decisions on public policy, investment, development, economic impact, etc.

Originally Posted by Applied Analysis

Urban economics applies information technology and real estate data to analyze the impacts of development activity and programming strategies. This is done from both a fiscal and economic perspective. Our team stays on the leading edge of market data, maintaining some of the region's most comprehensive real estate tracking systems.

Ultimately, I'm left to decide who's providing the more accurate data - the firm who's primary function is to provide data and analysis, or a realtor that's sorting through a public database.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by tony soprano

You know this how?I'd say I'm already reasonably skeptical of data sources. Especially data posted on the internet by individuals that is unsupported by any corroborating evidence, and contradicted by multiple sources.Here's what I find ludicrous; the notion that you exercise more care in deriving month-over-month foreclosure numbers than a 12 year old market research firm located in Vegas, that is compensated to provide information on which to base decisions on public policy, investment, development, economic impact, etc.Ultimately, I'm left to decide who's providing the more accurate data - the firm who's primary function is to provide data and analysis, or a realtor that's sorting through a public database.

Read the Applied Analysis site. Jeez you are quoting them and you never bothered to look where they say their data is coming from?

The only source of data for much of this information is the "public data base" you appear to be putting down.

The other piece of information is done by scraping records filed with the recorder. Another public repository. But the recorder records lack the structure of a data base and are therefore harder to deal with. The foreclosure tracking companies solve that problem by only doing the easy part.

I am by training an engineer with years of practice doing this sort of ill-structured analysis. It is not very hard. Extraction of the Nov/Dec/Jan data took less than 15 minutes. If it was harder I would not have bothered.

If you actually approach it rationally you will find all sorts of weirdness. Foreclosure.com says we have had or will have a couplle of thousand "Sheriff sales". We don't do "Sheriff Sales". They say we have 26,000 "foreclosures". Actually we have almost none...we generally don't do foreclosures we have trustee sales. And when did these 26,000 "foreclosures" occur. Can't tell they won't give you any dates unless you pay them money...And many are marked "inactive". What does that mean? Is it that much of their data is in fact useless because the home is already back in other private hands?

The same old same old GIGO

[tony soprano]

Originally Posted by olecapt

Read the Applied Analysis site. Jeez you are quoting them and you never bothered to look where they say their data is coming from?

I've read their website. I must have missed the part where they say they used Foreclosure.com for their foreclosure numbers. I did run across the previously quoted language -

Originally Posted by Applied Analysis

Urban economics applies information technology and real estate data to analyze the impacts of development activity and programming strategies. This is done from both a fiscal and economic perspective. Our team stays on the leading edge of market data, maintaining some of the region's most comprehensive real estate tracking systems.

Who'd have guessed that the Vegas region's most comprehensive real estate tracking systems consisted of a Foreclosure.com subscription.

The only source of data for much of this information is the "public data base" you appear to be putting down.

Putting down? Really? Can you direct me to a negative comment I've directed towards the county assessor's database? The database may in fact contain accurate data but it's subject to misinterpretation. Your interpretation is in the distinct minority.

I am by training an engineer with years of practice doing this sort of ill-structured analysis.It is not very hard. Extraction of the Nov/Dec/Jan data took less than 15 minutes. If it was harder I would not have bothered.

There is precious little in the way of engineering or analysis required to accurately retrieve this data. We're talking about an exercise slightly more complex than data-entry.

If you actually approach it rationally you will find all sorts of weirdness. Foreclosure.com says we have had or will have a couplle of thousand "Sheriff sales". We don't do "Sheriff Sales". They say we have 26,000 "foreclosures". Actually we have almost none...we generally don't do foreclosures we have trustee sales. And when did these 26,000 "foreclosures" occur. Can't tell they won't give you any dates unless you pay them money...And many are marked "inactive". What does that mean? Is it that much of their data is in fact useless because the home is already back in other private hands?

I just went to Foreclosure.com and did multiple searches for Vegas foreclosures. 26,000 was never returned as a result. How about providing a link to your search results? If it turns out that you successfully navigated a Foreclosure.com search, it would go a long way in convincing me you're able to accurately pull data out of the county assessor's database.