A lot of people, some with advanced degrees, have been perpetuating an argument that if you just throw out the top five or so states with the most foreclosures then the problem really isn’t as bad as it might seem. Unfortunately, there is some real bad math involved with this approach.

On HousingWire, Paul Jackson, shows why the concept of throwing out the top five foreclosure states in order to paint a rosier picture of the housing situation is mathematically wrong. I will warn you ahead of time that the math is a bit wonky but not so much as to keep you up half the evening trying to figure it out.