Foreclosures Surge?

This was just now posted on AzCentral with the headline, "Foreclosures surged in July.  This is what passes for "reporting" by most media about the real estate market.  June foreclosures were 5,149.  July’s numbers (per the article) were 5,316.  A difference of 167 foreclosures or 3.24%.  And that is being called a "surge".

I wonder if anyone’s paycheck went up at an annual rate of 3.24% they would ever consider it a surge?

This isn’t to suggest that the number of foreclosures going up is ever a good thing – just that reading past the headlines and actually looking at the numbers might shed a bit of light on the subject.

If anyone cared to truly examine some relevant market statistics for the Greater Phoenix area here are a couple I personally find quite interesting: The current "success rate" for all listings in ARMLS is 64.8%.  You can see that (along with some other very interesting numbers) here.  But since most of the sales occurring are lender owned properties, that number doesn’t mean too much to me.  Let’s break it down.

Scroll down on this page and you will see the breakdown, based on types of listings.  The success rate (percent of all listings of that type that sell) for lender owned is 91.4%.  Not very surprising – at least not in our market.  But look at the comparison between "normal listings" and short sales.  The numbers are almost the same!  Normal listings success rate is 50.2% and short sales success rate is 49.4%.

I know, I know, the normal listings stat surged way ahead.