Tennessee foreclosures up 25% last year

Tennessee ended 2007 ranked 11th for foreclosures in the nation, with close to 1 percent of its households in some stage of foreclosure during the year, according to RealtyTrac's 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.

Last year, Tennessee had 45,834 foreclosure filings, which include default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. This marks a 24.6 percent increase over 2006.

In December 2007, Tennessee saw 3,778 fillings for foreclosure, up 32.5 percent from December 2006; in fourth quarter 2007 filings totaled 12,189, up 20.5 percent over the fourth quarter of 2006.

The U.S. had a total of 2.2 million foreclosure filings on 1.28 million properties nationwide during the year -- up 75 percent from 2006. The report also shows more than 1 percent of all U.S. households were in some stage of foreclosure during the year, up from 0.58 percent in 2006.

"While filings were up 75 percent, the number of properties in some stage of foreclosure was up 79 percent, indicating that some properties may have just entered the initial stage of foreclosure in 2007 and could be going through the rest of the foreclosure process in 2008 -- unless lender and government intervention efforts begin to gain more traction," says James J. Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac, in a statement.