Fewer homes enter foreclosure process in February

The number of homes caught up in some stage of the foreclosure process in February fell 2% from the previous month to 308,524, a real estate firm will report Thursday.

That number is up 6% compared with the same month a year earlier but marked the smallest year-over-year increase since January 2006, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

Executives at the Irvine firm attributed the steady decline in foreclosure activity to efforts by banks to keep people in their homes through the Obama administration’s $75-billion plan to help troubled borrowers.

“One of the reasons we are not more optimistic is because we are continuing to see homeowners who are delinquent on their mortgages,” RealtyTrac Senior Vice President Rick Sharga said. “The lenders are taking a longer time to evaluate those loans to see if they qualify for the loan modification program that the Obama administration is pushing -- but ultimately what we think we are going to see is really a delaying of the inevitable.”

California, Sharga said, could be particularly vulnerable because of the high concentration of borrowers falling behind on their payments and because there are so many borrowers in the state who are “underwater” -- owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

California ranked fourth in foreclosures among the states -- following Nevada, Florida and Arizona -- with 1 in every 195 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing in February.

alejandro.lazo@

latimes.com