How we measure

What a share is

For each county we look at the court filings in the records we collect and sort them into case types: foreclosure, probate or estate, divorce, tax sale and partition. A "share" is the part of those filings that falls in one type, rounded to a whole percent. Where we publish the share of owners who live somewhere else, it is the part of the owners behind those filings that we flag as living somewhere other than the property. We show it only where enough owners have a known address.

What a share is not

• It is not a count, and we do not publish counts here.
• It is not every case a court hears. We collect some case types in some counties and not others, so a county's shares describe the filings we see, and say less about the court as a whole.
• It does not name or describe any person.

When it updates

Once a month. Every number carries its month. Each month's file replaces the last one for that county.

Small samples

We leave a county out until we have enough filings behind it for a share to mean something.

Corrections

When we fix a number we date the fix on the cite page.