Texas takes No. 3 spot in foreclosure totals, study shows

It was a busy month in the Texas real estate market, unfortunately perhaps for all the wrong reasons.

Over the 31 days in the first month of 2008, 14,698 homes in the Lone Star State entered the foreclosure process, according to the latest report by Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc.

The figure marks a 19.95 percent jump from the number of foreclosures reported during December 2007 -- and only a slight decrease, .20 percent, from the number of postings filed in January 2007.

With 14,698 new foreclosure filings, Texas had the dubious honor of having reported the third highest number of new filings out of any state in the country, RealtyTrac reports.

Coming in first place was California, where foreclosure filings were reported on 57,158 properties during the month of January.

In second place was Florida, with a grand total of 30,178 properties.

Filling out the top 10 were Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Massachusetts, Illinois and Colorado, RealtyTrac states.

On the national front, a total of 233,001 properties entered the foreclosure process in January -- marking an 8 percent increase from the number of filings in December 2007. The new national figure also represents a 57 percent jump from the number of filings reported in January 2007.

"January's foreclosure numbers demonstrate that foreclosure activity is continuing on its upward trend, substantially increasing from a year ago in many states," says James J. Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac.

By comparison, however, between December 2006 and January 2007, foreclosure filings increased by 19 percent, Saccacio observes.

"The 8 percent monthly increase is not as precipitous as the 19 percent spike we saw in January of 2007, and several key states actually experienced decreasing foreclosure activity from the previous month," he continues.

Two key states that posted a decrease in filings between December 2007 and January 2008 were Florida and Illinois, which saw filings go down 3.33 and 20.85 percent, respectively, in that time frame.

Big monthly drops were also posted in Montana, 40.40 percent; Nebraska, 46.20 percent; Nevada, 44.56 percent; Alaska, 64.49 percent; and Vermont, 66.67 percent.

"It could be that some of the efforts on the part of lenders and the government -- both at the state and federal level -- are beginning to take effect," Saccacio says. "The big question is whether those efforts are truly helping homeowners avoid foreclosure in the long term, of if they are just temporarily forestalling the inevitable for many beleaguered borrowers."