1) Our sales data is based on daily updates from the auctions themselves, where as RealtyTrac’s equivalent “REO”  numbers are based on trustee’s deeds which are reported weeks after the auction. Last month our sales numbers were 44% lower.

2) While RealtyTrac has yet to post their April report, their March report had gross inaccuracies. Specifically they counted just 9,925 Notices of Trustee Sale for California. A laughable number when you consider there were more than that in just LA, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. We put the statewide total at 27,739. A HUGE difference. And one that is easily verfied in our favor by spending just a few minutes at some of the county recorder websites that offer document counts online.

3) Understand that the only reason I started tracking foreclosures myself was because other sources had such poor quality that I simply couldn’t rely on them to run my investing business.

I stand solidly behind our numbers.

According to the Pasadena Star News Realtytrac claims 64k foreclosure filings for California in April versus 96k filings by foreclosure radar. Why the huge disparity? Someone forgot to carry the 1 or wrote a bad SQL statement or something.

Michael “Mish” Shedlock’s Global Economic Analysis Blog also has more on Bernanke’s speach.