The total of 290,631 homes received a default or auction notice or were seized by the lender, the Irvine, California based seller of default data said in a statement today. Properties that got a foreclosure filing for the first time totaled 161,976, the highest in RealtyTrac records dating to January 2005.

“More folks have lost their jobs or are underwater on their mortgages, so a fresh housing plan won’t change those facts by itself,” Barry Eichengreen, professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an interview.

The U.S. housing crisis is getting deeper as President Barack Obama make an effort with a $275 billion rescue to lend a hand to borrower with plummeting home values or high-priced loans. Dilapidated prices exhausted $2.4 trillion in value from the nation’s residential market last year, according to First American CoreLogic. A gauge of prices in 20 U.S. cities has plummeted every month since January 2007, the S&P/Case Shiller index shows.

Growing unemployment also is making it harder for homeowners to keep up up with payments. The U.S. jobless rate rose to 8.1 percent in February, the highest in more than 25 years, according to the Labor Department.

A number of the top U.S. lenders have possession of as many as 700,000 foreclosed homes they have up till now to list them for sale, said Rick Sharga, executive vice president for marketing for RealtyTrac.

The banks may be waiting to observe how U.S. government plans to work out before selling the homes, Sharga said. The lenders and government owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest U.S. mortgage financing companies, have by now extended temporary foreclosure freeze.

The mutual percentage of loans in foreclosure or at least one payment past due in the fourth quarter was 11.18 percent, the highest on record, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington. The proportion of loans 60 days past due and 90 days or more late also were at record levels.

“Many fundamentals are lined up to suggest we’ll have more foreclosure activity in the future, perhaps an all-time high,” Sharga said.

President Obama initiated a plan Feb. 18 to use $75 billion of public resources to attract lenders to adjust or refinance home loans, curtail foreclosures and rescue delinquent homeowners. The president also said the Treasury Department would make available as much as $200 billion in supplementary backing for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to free up financial support for new mortgages.

‘Financial Hardship’

To meet the requirements for a refinanced loan, applicants will have to completely document income with pay stubs and tax returns, and sign an affidavit confirming to “financial hardship,” according to Treasury.

One in 440 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure notice last month, and Nevada, Arizona and California had the highest foreclosure rates, RealtyTrac said. The February sum was the third-highest on record. Filings rose 6 percent from January.

New foreclosures rose 8 percent from 150,432 in January.

Idaho, Illinois and Oregon joined the list of the top 10 states with the highest rates, a sign that rising unemployment is now pushing defaults, Sharga said. Florida, Michigan, Georgia and Ohio were also in the top 10.

California had the highest total with 80,775 foreclosure filings in February, a 51 percent increase from a year earlier. Auction sale notices almost tripled to 18,831.

Florida Rankings

Florida had the second-most filings at 46,391, a 43 percent increase from a year earlier. Auction sale notices climbed 158 percent and bank seizures rose 128 percent.

Arizona ranked third in filings with 18,119, up 88 percent from February 2008.

New York had the 35th highest rate and 4,301 filings. New Jersey ranked 29th and had 3,279 filings. Connecticut was 14th with 2,220 filings, RealtyTrac said.

Las Vegas had the highest foreclosure rate among metropolitan areas with populations of 200,000 or more. One in 60 housing units there received a filing, more than seven times the national average.

Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida had the second-highest rate: one in every 65 housing units, according to RealtyTrac. Five California cities ranked third through seventh: Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside-San Bernardino and Bakersfield.

Underwater Owners

Reno-Sparks, Nevada was eighth; Phoenix was ninth; and Vallejo-Fairfield, California ranked tenth, RealtyTrac said.

The company collects data from more than 2,200 counties that are home to more than 90 percent of the U.S. population.

More than 8.3 million U.S. borrowers owed more than their loans were worth in the fourth quarter of 2008, and an additional 2.2 million will be underwater if home prices decline another 5 percent, according to First American CoreLogic.

An average of 230,000 borrowers a month slid to negative equity in the quarter, led by California with 43,000, Texas with 16,000 and Nevada with 15,000, the Santa Ana, California-based seller of mortgage data said March 4.

Foreclosure Filings in United States Jumped 30% in February is a post from: Baltimore HUD Homes

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