By Kristena Hansen
Phoenix Business Journal
CoreLogic Inc. has determined that the shadow inventory figures it has been reporting quarterly for the past seven years are flawed — and, in most cases, way off — and is thus changing its methodology moving forward, according to a company statement this week.
In fact, when the California research firm revised all shadow inventory data for every month dating back to January 2005 to reflect the new method, it found the original numbers were low-balled by roughly 40 to 60 percent.
For example, CoreLogic recorded 1.52 million homes nationwide in the shadow inventory — meaning the number of homes with seriously delinquent mortgages, in some stage of foreclosure and owned by the lender that have not yet been listed for sale on the market — in April this year under the old method.
