You think your town's real estate market is under siege?

Families of our nation's fighting forces are struggling much more against the scourge of foreclosures.

The rate of foreclosures in towns where soldiers and sailors live is increasing at nearly four times the pace of the national average.

That's more than during the Vietnam War, the Korean War and World War II, according to data from Realtytrac.com.

Realtytrac.com says foreclosure filings in 10 towns and cities within 10 miles of military facilities, rose by an average 217 percent from January through April this year, compared to last year. Nationwide, the overall rate during the same period was only 59 percent.

The biggest surge was in Columbia, South Carolina, home to Fort Jackson, where the Army trains recruits for combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Columbia, properties in some stage of foreclosure rose a whopping 492 percent from a year earlier. The second-biggest strike against homeownership was a 414 percent increase in foreclosures in Woodbridge, Virginia, next to the historic Marine Corps Base Quantico.

Foreclosure filings were up 300 percent in the cities around the Norfolk, Virginia Naval Base and the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base near Oceanside, California, RealtyTrac said. Foreclosures have more than doubled in Havelock, North Carolina, site of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

Other military base cities experiencing foreclosure rates above 100 percent include Carlsbad and Barstow, California and Columbus, Georgia.

The Servicemembers' Civil Relief Act protects soldiers and sailors from losing homes for nonpayment of mortgages only while on active duty and for 90 days after they return home.

However, military families were frequently targeted as subprime mortgage customers during the housing boom because of their frequent moves, frequent calls to duty, and low military pay, making them more likely to have weak credit application credentials.

Published: June 3, 2008

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.