A new report shows 573,000 U.S. properties were subjected to some type of foreclosure activity during the first half of 2007, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties.

The report shows the number of U.S.foreclosure filings jumped 30-percent during the first half of the year compared to the last six months of 2006—and 55-percent when compared to the first half of 2006. “Despite a slight drop in June, foreclosure activity shows no sign of slowing down,” said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “Based on the rate of foreclosure activity in the first half of 2007, we could easily surpass 2 million foreclosure filings by the end of the year, which would represent a year-over-year increase of over 65-percent.”

Among all the U.S. states, California, Florida, and Texas recorded the highest number of foreclosure filings during the first half of the year with California alone accounting for 189,560 filings. Florida and Texas trailed California with 102,213 and 69,471 filings, respectively.
RealtyTrac’s latest report also includes a new approach to tracking and evaluating foreclosure data. The company said while it still records total foreclosure filings nationwide, RealtyTrac decided to break those numbers down and evaluate foreclosures on a property-by-property basis. Under this new equation, RealtyTrac discovered the U.S. had 925,986 foreclosure filings in the first half of 2007, but only 573,397 individual properties experienced some type of foreclosure activity.
“The addition to this metric to our foreclosure report was spurred by a data request for unique property addresses from the Federal Reserve Bank, which is using our data for market and risk analysis, and we believe it will serve as a valuable complement to the total foreclosure filing count that we have been including all along,” said Rick Sharga, vice president of RealtyTrac marketing. “It’s interesting to note that the total foreclosure filings and unique property counts reveal almost identical trends on the national level: foreclosure filings are up 39-percent from the previous six months and 56-percent from the first half of 2006; unique property counts are up 32-percent from the previous six months and up 58-percent from the first half of 2006.”