The foreclosure crisis has grown statistically worse this year. March was no exception.

According to RealtyTrac, 4,696 Tampa Bay homes were sued for foreclosure in March. The total number of foreclosure filings, which include auction notices and home confiscations, was 7,397.

Anyway you slice it, it's a sorry trend. Foreclosure filings rose month-to-month and year-to-year. Here's a chart: Download Realtytrakmarch10

The number of Lis Pendens, the name of the initial foreclosure lawsuits, rose by 800 in the Tampa Bay area from February to March. As much as anything else, it suggests banks are less lenient than they were in 2009 about cleaning out what the see as mortgage deadweight.

In the county-by-county breakdown, only Pasco County showed a decline in the number of foreclosure suits in March. Pasco home sellers have slashed prices more deeply than sellers have in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

Lower prices speed up sales, keeping more homeowners out of foreclosure jeopardy. That's my theory anyway.