Foreclosures hammer Sun Belt states

Metro areas in four Sun Belt states accounted for the top 20 foreclosure rates in the nation last year, according to a report this week by foreclosure data company RealtyTrac.

Nine of those cities were in California, eight were in Florida, two were in Nevada, and one was in Arizona. RealtyTrac's Year-End Metropolitan Foreclosure Market Report analyzed foreclosure properties in metro areas with more than 200,000 people.

The nation as a whole posted a total of more than 2.82 million foreclosure filings, or 2.21 percent of all housing units.

Foreclosure activity also showed signs of spreading to previously insulated Utah, Illinois, Oregon and Idaho, the report said.

"While it was expected that cities from states with the highest levels of foreclosure activity would top the charts, there is evidence that we're entering a new wave of foreclosures, driven more by unemployment and economic hardship than what we've seen over the past few years," said James J. Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac.

"Areas like Provo, Utah, Fayetteville, Ark., Portland, Ore., and Rockford, Ill., all posted foreclosure rates above the U.S. average in 2009. And markets like Honolulu, Minneapolis and Seattle saw foreclosure activity increase at more than twice the national pace over the past 12 months -- although all three of those markets still had 2009 foreclosure rates that were at or below the U.S. average."

The Las Vegas/Paradise metro area saw the highest foreclosure rate, with 94,862 filings, or 12.04 percent of the area's total housing units. That's more than five times the national average.

The Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro area in Florida posted the second-highest rate with 11.87 percent, or 42,862, of its housing units in foreclosure. Merced, Calif. saw the third-highest rate with 10.1 percent, or 8,389, of its housing units receiving a foreclosure notice. The Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area had the fourth-highest rate in the nation at 8.8 percent. Other cities in the Central Valley were also hit hard: Stockton had the fifth-highest rate, at 8.62 percent, and Modesto had the sixth-highest, at 8.53 percent.

RealtyTrac collected the data for the report from more than 2,200 counties nationwide, accounting for more than 90 percent of the U.S. population. ...CONTINUED

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