The reason that there are no “right” numbers is that banks and more importantly these days, mortgage servicers, aren’t required to report the number of foreclosures to regulators, hence there is no consistent definition of what constitutes a foreclosure. Some private sector groups have stepped in to fill the gap, but some use methods, like those of RealtyTrac, that clearly lead to overly large results, while others use methods which are generally considered to result in undercounting.

Effectively, this means reported “foreclosures” vary considerably by source. But for a particular data provider, the trend should be a reasonable indicator. See here for more details.

In the end, I think the underlying point is that there’s a lot of turnover and displacement in the market that hasn’t been there before in recent memory.

That in itself isn’t good.

And way too much supply which means inventories are growing which hasn’t happened in recent memory.

Also, that isn’t good.

Like I said before, I doubt the US has the “will” or the “smarts” to figure this one out. The “will” is due to the political nature, which could mean there’s a Katrina solution on the horizon.

-A-

Somewhat OT: Any idea what foreclosure activity looks like in the UK? Any thoughts on the massive scope of the current UK bailout (specifically: “Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said late yesterday the government will guarantee all accounts. The pledge will be extended to any solvent bank in similar circumstances, a Treasury spokesman said.” – Bloomberg)? If BoE is going to prop them all up, they’ll all be solvent, and if the Treasury is going to guarantee all bank accounts of any size, then the UK has developed what seems to me to be a fairly radical financial condition. Is there any precedent for intervention of this magnitude?

JS