429 pieces of property on the foreclosure auction block in Hall

LOS ANGELES - A mortgage research company says Georgia comes in fifth among the states with the top 10 foreclosure filing rates in October.

RealtyTrac -- based in Irvine, California -- said yesterday that more U.S. homeowners fell behind on mortgage payments or even lost their homes last month compared to a year ago.

Nevada, California, Florida and Ohio posted the highest foreclosure rates.

The company says the 224,451 foreclosure filings reported in October were up 94 percent from the 115,568 in the same month a year go.

The number of filings in October rose 2 percent from September's 219,850.

RealtyTrac says the United States had one foreclosure filing for every 555 households in October.

The filings include default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. Some properties might have received more than one notice if the owners have multiple mortgages.

In all, 45 states saw an increase in foreclosure filings over last year.

Rounding out the states with the top 10 foreclosure filing rates in October were Georgia, Michigan, Colorado, Arizona, Indiana and Illinois.

In Georgia, the number of filings in October increased by 37.80 percent over September and increased 64.64 percent over October 2006.

In Hall County, RealtyTrac lists 173 pieces of property as scheduled for foreclosure auction in December out of 429 listed as forclosures on its Web site as of midday Friday.

On the Net:

RealtyTrac Inc.: http://www.realtytrac.com