A huge spike in Countrywide foreclosures? No.

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Commenter ‘gman’ wrote, ‘Something that’s been missed by this blog, possibly due to the fires, is this astonishing accidential posting of 196,000 (up from 13,000 the day before) REOs/forclosures for sale on the Countrywide website yesterday. The list was up for a day and a half (I think) and then quickly taken down. Is it possible that Countrywide has 196,000 of these and they’ve just been holding back?’

We did see this -- and we noted that it was ‘accidental’ -- that is, a mistake, by Countrywide. Here’s the backstory: The Countrywide Foreclosure blog, which tracks real estate owned by Countrywide -- or REOs -- reported yesterday that Countrywide’s own tally rose, shockingly, from 13,000 to 195,000 homes.

We called Countrywide PR Tuesday to ask about this, and after a few hours, we recevied an e-mail that said, ‘There was a technical glitch. I’m trying to get you the accurate number but it probably won’t happen until tomorrow.’

Today Countrywide corrected the ‘technical glitch,’ and the new tally is this: 13,674 REOs for sale.

To answer gman’s question (‘Is it possible that Countrywide has 196,000 of these and they’ve just been holding back?’), we think that is highly unlikely, and we take Countrywide at its word on this one: a technical glitch.

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Photo Credit: EPA via Los Angeles Times.