Foreclosures double from last year

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home foreclosure filings rose 14 percent in the second quarter, the eighth consecutive quarterly climb, and more than doubled from the same period a year-earlier, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said on Friday.

Home foreclosure filings during the second quarter were reported on 739,714 U.S. properties, up 121 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac, an online market of foreclosure properties, said in a report.

The figure is a total of default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions between April and June.

"Although much of the fallout from foreclosures is being driven by rampant activity in a few states, such as Nevada, California, Florida, Ohio, Arizona and Michigan, most areas of the country are seeing at least some increase in foreclosure activity," James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, said in a statement.

Indeed, 48 of 50 states and 95 out of the nation's 100 largest metro areas experienced year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity in the second quarter, he said.

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 the second quarter was one foreclosure filing for every 171 U.S. households.

Properties that have been foreclosed on or repurchased by a bank accounted for 30 percent of total foreclosure activity in the quarter, up from 24 percent in the first quarter, Saccacio said.

"This shift in the distribution of activity indicates that there is a progression toward purging the problem loans out of the system -- at which point the housing market can regain some sense of normalcy. Of course, if another surge in defaults occurs, which could well happen later this year, it would refill the foreclosure pipeline and prolong the recovery," he said.