Graphed: U.S. Foreclosures and Home Repossessions, 2005 to 2010

It’s hard to get a sense of what’s going on in America with foreclosure filings, the number of homes being foreclosed on and the actual number of houses being taken back by banks. The newspapers are confusing! Are they “down”? Are they “up”? So we dug up the actual numbers for each year since 2005, up to the projected numbers for 2010. A “foreclosure filing” can be a number of things, including notice of default, auction or seizure-which is why the actual number of houses receiving these notices is a useful number to know.