Las Vegas No. 2 last year in rate of foreclosures

Staff and wire reports

Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009 | 1:23 p.m.

The Las Vegas metropolitan area ranked second in the nation last year for its rate of foreclosures.

RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing firm based in Irvine, Calif., which compiled the figures, said 67,223 properties in the area had foreclosure filings, which is 8.89 percent of all properties. Only Stockton, Calif., had a higher rate, at 9.5 percent of all housing units receiving a foreclosure filing last year. Riverside and Bakersfield, Calif., and Phoenix followed Las Vegas to round out the top five.

Nevada had the highest rate of home foreclosures of any state -- about 7 percent of all homes.

Nationwide, more than 2.3 million homeowners faced foreclosure proceedings last year, an 81 percent increase from 2007, with the worst yet to come as consumers grapple with layoffs, shrinking investment portfolios and falling home prices.

Moody's Economy.com, a research firm, predicts the number of homes lost to foreclosure nationwide is likely to rise by another 18 percent this year before tapering off slightly through 2011.

Still, foreclosures — which keep breaking records going back 30 years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association — are likely to remain well above normal levels for years to come, and that will continue to keep home prices from rebounding.

"Hitting bottom is a lot different than coming off the bottom," said Christopher Thornberg, a principal with Beacon Economics in Los Angeles.

The RealtyTrac report comes as Democrats, including President-elect Barack Obama, develop plans to use up to $100 billion of the remaining $350 billion in financial bailout money in an attempt to prevent the foreclosure crisis from getting even worse.

The four states with the highest foreclosure rates last year were Nevada, Florida, Arizona and California.

More than 1.1 million properties in those four states received a foreclosure notice, almost half the national total. And more than one in five of those households were in California, which is coping with massive job losses in the housing and mortgage industries as well as a rapid decline in home prices.