No other database of this sort, with this history, exists in the United States. Throughout the 1990s, SMR has produced local market analyses, spanning growth potential to economic risk and other factors, for mortgage and home equity lenders. A majority of larger lenders have subscribed to these products. The Geo-Predictor similarly evaluates credit risk in local markets, with predictiveness. But, nonbankruptcy losses do not always follow the same patterns.
Some geographies are consistent.
Consistency over time is not sufficient in non-bankruptcy loss patterns to predict these losses geographically. One must have separate predictors of bankruptcy and nonbankruptcy experience and then combine them properly to forecast future good and bad credit performance. Bankruptcy patterns by geography are both predictable and show great variance from one place to another. That is, whatever the bankruptcy trend might be, you can tell which places will be better or worse than others. Huge differences exist in per capita filing rates from one place to another.