I love how they kind of glaze over the actual numbers making them seem not quite as surprising and horrible as they really are.

They mentioned that notices went up 145% (sounds bad, but not horrible), but then completely failed to translate the actual foreclosure numbers into a percentage which shows a 595% increase!! That might have actually frightened a few readers.

In the 4th quarter of 2005, actual defaults rates were only 5.8% of total notices issued.

In the 4th quarter of 2006, actual defaults rates were 16.3% of total notices issued. That means not only are default notices increasing, but a much larger percentage of those notices are ending in foreclosure.

Man, even in an article about the obvious problems with this home market, they can't quite bring themselves to fully illustrate the magnitude of events currently unfolding.

I also like how DataQuick isn't "scared" yet, because defaults are still under 1996 levels. Well hell… it's only been 6 months since the absolute bottom for foreclosure rates… how about giving it a little more time. It took over 5 years to build up to that "worst quarter" in 1996. We're over half way there in just the second quarter after foreclosure rates hit their lowest levels ever. If that quick of a turnaround doesn't signal something on your worry radar, then your's must be broken.