Is the Number of Foreclosures Going Up or Down?

It depends who you ask, when you ask and where you ask. The Wall Street Banks have been very effective at putting out stories to make it appear that foreclosures are all but over.

You can read story after story about how foreclosures are “lowest since” 1991 or whatever. But in an age of 140 characters you need to read just a little bit further to see that the article came from a small town newspaper in a place where the population is 300. There are dozens of stories like this each with the announced purpose of conveying that the foreclosure crisis is over and legislatures need not do anything against banks and servicers anymore. Rocket Dockets have been rolled up and the banks have stopped paying for them which is whole other story.

The current Wall Street strategy is to maintain the appearance of a disappearing problem. The principal ways they do this is (1) “sponsoring” articles that say so and (2) playing Wack-a-mo with the foreclosures.

By letting foreclosures lay fallow for a few years in Miami and increasing it in Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado and other states the banks get the media to ignore the spike in foreclosures and talk about the big bad banks and fail to specify why the banks are big and how they are being bad.

It is difficult to actually report whether the number of foreclosures per day, week or month is going up or down because fo inconsistent reporting standards. But I can tell you that we see the movement of the banks, turning off the hot spots and going to places they are going to spike the number of foreclosures.

There are miles to go before we sleep.

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