UPDATE 1-U.S. home foreclosures reach record high

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By Julie Haviv

NEW YORK, Sept 5 (Reuters) - U.S. home foreclosures and the rate of homes entering foreclosure rose to record highs in the second quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Friday.

"The national foreclosure numbers continue to be driven by the hardest-hit states continuing to get much worse," Jay Brinkmann, the association's chief economist and senior vice president for research and economics, said in a news release.

The increases in foreclosures in California and Florida overwhelmed improvements in states such as Texas, Massachusetts and Maryland, he said.

For the quarter, a majority of the states saw relatively little change one way or the other, with California and Florida alone accounting for 39 percent of all of the foreclosures started in the country during the second quarter and 73 percent of the increase in foreclosures between the first and second quarters, he said.

The seasonally adjusted foreclosure starts rate, the percentage of loans that entered the foreclosure process during the April-June quarter, was 1.19 percent, up from 0.99 percent in the first three months of 2008 and 0.65 percent in the second quarter of 2007.

The percentage of loans in the foreclosure process at the end of the second quarter was 2.75 percent, up from 2.47 percent in the first quarter and from 1.40 percent in the second quarter of 2007.

The U.S. mortgage delinquency rate of 6.41 percent was the highest since at least 1979, which was when the trade group began its current method of measuring failing home loans.

The increase in the overall delinquency rate was driven by increases in the number of loans 90 or more days past due, primarily in California and Florida. The 30-day delinquency percentage remains below levels seen as recently as 2002, the MBA said. (Editing by Jonathan Oatis)