Misleading headline regarding home foreclosures; is there any integrity in media sources?

[GON]

The headline is: Home foreclosures are soaring nationwide – and rising fastest in these 5 states.
Reading the article, I suspect it is clickbait. Housing continues to sell at record highs. Good homes almost always are under contract less than after 72 hours after hitting the market. In many cases, good homes will be under contract the day the home is listed for sale. It should also be noted that foreclosures have been very low for the past few years, so a rise in foreclosures may be a meaningless statistic.

With home prices at record highs, homeowners should not be under water. My speculation is the homeowner that is not paying their mortgage is selecting to stay in the home and ride out the foreclosure process, which can take years. These distressed homeowners likely can find a buyer to buy same day for the balanced owed on the home (speculation). Maybe these homeowners think the American taxpayers will pay the mortgage for them, who knows.

Here are the top five states the article lists as "fastest rising foreclosures:
- South Carolina, foreclosures surged 51%,
-Missouri saw a 50% jump
-Pennsylvania a 46% increase
-Texas rose 7%
- Indiana climbed 0.8%.

I have come to the conclusion the article is in fact click bait/ fake news. If Indiana is in the top five, at under one percent rise in foreclosures- that speaks for itself. I might see how Pennsylvania and Missouri are in the top five. South Carolina and Texas have been such hot sousing markets, they likely had so very little foreclosures over the past five years.

Home foreclosures are soaring nationwide – and rising fastest in these 5 states

Home foreclosures are on the upswing nationwide, according to a new report, a sign that homeowners are still struggling from the ongoing inflation crisis.

finance.yahoo.com

 

[dishdude]

Yahoo?

 

[Rogueman2016s]

South Carolina is by far the fastest growing state that much is 100% true. As for foreclosures maybe somewhat true its not cheap here especially if you're the working class. Retirees with big pensions and social security could slug it out with cost of living. Luckily my wife took her NY salary and I found ok work otherwise it would be ugly.

 

[Lubener]

It's getting tougher to buy a home and hang onto one throughout the mortgage period. Any gloom and doom doesn't surprise me.

 

[MrHorspwer]

Yahoo?

Fox Business wrote and published the article; Yahoo is the aggregator

 

[dnewton3]

From that article, it also said this ...

"However, the number of foreclosure completions fell in 28 states in February. Lenders repossessed 3,397 properties in February, down 14% from the previous month and 11% from the prior year. The biggest declines took place in Georgia, where completed foreclosures fell 52%, and in New York, with a decline of 41%."

The article title is certainly clickbait, if more than half the States are down 11% from the previous year.

 

[ka9mnx]

South Carolina is by far the fastest growing state that much is 100% true. As for foreclosures maybe somewhat true its not cheap here especially if you're the working class. Retirees with big pensions and social security could slug it out with cost of living. Luckily my wife took her NY salary and I found ok work otherwise it would be ugly.

Depends on where you decide to live in SC.

It's still much cheaper than where family and friends live out of state.

Foreclosures in SC? I haven't seen that in the news here.

 

[97K15004WD]

To the OP's Title and original question, "Simply misleading headline -is there a single media company that is honorable?..."

I would answer no. And the reasons are many:

1. PROFITS OVER EVERYTHING ELSE. In the 1980's ("Last Century" as my kids say) publicly traded companies went from socially responsible with an emphasis on doing what was right to maximizing profits.

2. EYEBALLS. Walter Cronkite would never exist today because what makes money is "eyeballs", not the well researched topics and teams of researchers looking to ensure factual information.

3. MULTIPLE MEDIA OUTLETS. Back "last century", there were really only three major networks and they competed for advertising dollars for eyeballs too, but by focusing on socially responsible reporting. Today, there are literally tens of thousands of media outlets - all competing for your attention and "clicks" so they can claim so many hits and get advertising dollars.

And there are a lot more reasons (excess capital, venture capital looking for huge returns; lot's of advertisers who now can afford to advertise; search engine optimization, etc).

So yes, it's clickbait - and unfortunately that's why it's called clickbait. The money that the site and "publisher" makes is determined by how many "hits" are tracked to users.

One way to maybe regain control of this mess is everyone use ad blockers and VPNs. Advertisers don't pay for users with ad blockers. And then maybe things go back to a true "subscription" because as we all know, if you are not paying for the content you are the content.

The internet has given great freedom to publish and disseminate all types of information, both true and false. Facebook, TicTok, Instagram, etc, makes everyone a publisher and influencer. Whether this is good or bad will be determined by history and who writes it.

 

[BISCUT]

Clickbait everywhere as so many outlets fight for clicks. It could also be a bit of foreboding....there are massive amounts of commercial debt coming due at the end of 2024. A lot of financial storms brewing and uncertainty if we can weather same.

 

[Slick3914]

Most articles on Yahoo Finance are click bait.

 

[BigCahuna]

It's the same thing with u-tube video's and the car foreclosure rates. Stupid high costs of vehicles and $750 a month and up payments, have people just stopping the payments due to unaffordability.,,,

 

[John105]

I always think back to college stats class, where data has to be reliable and valid. Often it's not. It isn't just in politics. I cringe if cos can run clinical trials on drugs with invalid and unreliable stats, that's scary. But to use an example, we often see articles quoting crime as well then throwing percentages up to say if good or bad, when say a particular crime has a small number of instances in a year.

In Phila, 58 homicides, down 31%. This must mean Phila has really clamped down on crime for 2024. I would say rather it's au contraire, the wild west. It's astounding the DA has anything to say about it. So I could see this method being applied to forclosures, anything anyone wants really.

 

[Thermo1223]

I would love to sell my house but a potential 9% interest rate doesn't sit well with me sitting at 3.25% now. Plus I really don't have to move.

 

[SC Maintenance]

So you posted a clickbait article so we would click on it

First thing to realize is that the author doesn't create the headline - the publisher does. So you could have a clickbait headline with a reasonable article behind it.

The article simply says forclosures are up. I live in the Charleston metro area and I wouldn't be surprised. The prices are still close to double from ten year ago, but way below their peak of 2 years ago. Tons of people flocked here 2 years ago and bought up everything - for Airbnb properties (because we were open when other states were not) and people who thought they could keep their NYC salary and work from home in Charleston. If they didn't put much down, they could absolutely be under water now - so there not going to be afforded a short sale until they go into default.

 

[cptbarkey]

Here is the actual source link published by a commercial data aggregator that Fox, Yahoo, and Daily Mail embellished. Here is what the source data advertises itself as:

U.S. Foreclosure Activity Continues to See an Annual Increase

ATTOM's latest February 2024 Foreclosure Activity report shows a total of 32,938 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings - up annually.

www.attomdata.com

Partnership Program

Discover strategic collaborations and business partnership opportunities with ATTOM to redefine the future of property data and analytics.

www.attomdata.com

For example: I've been highly irritated and skeptical of any data posted by Cox Automotive, Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book, Manheim Auctions, Edmunds and Carmax due to the circular relationships.

 

[John105]

It’s really no different than buy two, get one, buy one, get 50%, both imho terrible deals and designed to mislead, generally speaking. I want a real bonus like buy the floodlight cam for $49.99 and get a blink 4 and min cam included. A real bonus deal

 

[CKN]

It would depend if those five states are"mortgage states" or "trust deed" states.In a trust deed state evictions happen much faster than mortgage states.

It should be noted those two terms are used interchangeably many times but are a whole different legal process for eviction.

 

[Dave Hess]

There is no denying that lots of Americans are broke and struggling to bills, mortgage, car payment, credit cards, property taxes, car and homeowners insurance, etc….

 

[pbm]

Most articles on Yahoo Finance are click bait.

Yahoo News is a joke too.

 

[Finklejag]

Yahoo News is a joke too.

I see any article from Yahoo and it’s an automatic no click.