April foreclosures rise 65 percent on year: RealtyTrac

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. home foreclosure filings in April edged up from March and were a whopping 65 percent higher than a year earlier, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said on Wednesday.

Home foreclosure filings in April totaled 243,353, up 4 percent from March, RealtyTrac, an online market of foreclosure properties, said in its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. The figure is a total of default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions.

"The total number of U.S. properties with foreclosure activity in April was the highest monthly total we've seen since we began issuing the report in January 2005," James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, said in a statement.

In March, home foreclosure filings had risen 5 percent from February.

The surge in foreclosures indicates an increasing number of homeowners are struggling to make mortgage payments amid the worst U.S. housing market downturn since the Great Depression.

RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, California, said the national foreclosure rate in April was one foreclosure filing for every 519 U.S. households.

"These properties contribute to already bloated inventories of homes for sale, and put downward pressure on home values," Saccacio said, adding that the nationwide foreclosure rate could reach 2 percent by the end of the year.

"Areas of California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona continue to be particularly hard-hit," he said.

Nevada, despite a 5 percent month-over-month decrease in foreclosure activity in April, had the highest foreclosure rate in the country, with one filing for every 146 households, followed by California and Arizona.