New foreclosure stats for the month show Washington state’s March rate posting a huge increase – 120.6 percent over the same month a year ago – but that jump is likely not as high as it looks.

RealtyTrac, the California company that supplies the numbers, said in its release that in several states, including Wyoming, Vermont, Maryland and Washington, “actual increases may not be as high due to data collection changes or improvements.” (Washington, D.C., with the same caveat applied, saw a year-over-year increase in foreclosure filings of 6,040 percent.)

Nationwide, foreclosure filings increased by 57.4 percent, according to RealtyTrac, which follows auction and default notices and bank repossessions.

I called this morning to get more info on the change in data collection and why that altered Washington state’s numbers to the degree that all of a sudden the state was No. 16 in the national foreclosure tally after months of being middle of the pack. I’ll update if I get a call back.

But I did post about a RealtyTrac miscalculation in October in Atlanta that resulted from the company counting foreclosure filings twice.

UPDATE
I just talked to Daren Blomquist, marketing communication manager at RealtyTrac, who said that Washington state's numbers are being revised and will be rereleased in the next couple days. It turns out that some Pierce County documents led to miscalculations by the company's automated system.

A company that supplies RealtyTrac with foreclosure filings sent substitution of trustee notices, which were instead tabulated as notices of default, Blomquist said. On top of the document misfire, Blomquist said the company does not typically look at notices of default in Washington state because such notices are not a required part of the foreclosure process.

The numbers will be adjusted accordingly, he said, and should lower the state's foreclosure rate. I'll update when I get the new numbers.