Foreclosures just won't go away.

RealtyTrac said late last week, foreclosure filings in May were up 48 percent from a year ago.

One in every 483 mortgage households received a foreclosure filing during the not so merry month of May

RealtyTrac's foreclosure filings include default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. In May, they were at the highest level they've been since RealtyTrac began tracking them in January 2005.

May was the 29th straight month of year-over-year growth in foreclosure activity.

A week earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said the more than 1 million home owners who faced losing their home in the first quarter this year was the greatest number since the association began compiling figures nearly 30 years ago.

In the association's report, about 2.5 percent of home mortgages were in foreclosure during the first quarter. That was up from nearly 1.30 percent a year ago.

Another 6.4 percent of home mortgages were delinquent, but not yet in foreclosure. Last year it was only about 4.8 percent, the association reported.

RealtyTrac said Nevada, California, and Arizona had the highest state-level foreclosure rates, followed my Michigan and Ohio. Also in the Top 10 were Georgia, Texas, Illinois, Nevada and New Jersey.

The bankers association said the problem isn't just adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) resetting to high rates. More than 60 percent of the loans entering foreclosure are adjustable-rate mortgages, but many of the loans went bad before the rates reset.

Homeowners with tarnished credit who have subprime loans with adjustable rates were hardest hit.

The growing abundance of foreclosures is pushing down home prices, but tight credit, generated by so many failing loans, continues to make it tough for many to get approved for a home mortgage.

Interest rates have also been edging up.

It's a vicious circle.

Published: June 17, 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.