The RealtyTrac report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing reported during the month, broken out by type of filing at the state and national level. The report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure, including default, auction and properties that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank.

Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., registered the highest foreclosure rate of the 230 metro areas tracked in the July report. One in every 64 households in that metro area received a foreclosure filing during the month — more than seven times the national average, according to RealtyTrac.

Merced, Calif., ranked No. 2, with one in every 73 households receiving a foreclosure filing, and Stockton and Modesto, both in California, tied for third-highest, with one in every 82 households receiving a foreclosure filing.

Wells Fargo economist Kelly Matthews said that compared to the situation the state experienced in the early 1980s when there were also numerous foreclosures. The current Utah market is not quite as dire.

"We had all of these properties that had gone through the entire process and were actually owned by the bank," he said. Banks during that time had to dispose of those properties, but in recent months, that really hasn't been the case thus far in Utah.

Last month, President Bush signed major housing legislation aimed at preventing foreclosures by allowing homeowners to switch their mortgages for more-affordable loans, but only if their lender agrees to take a loss on the initial loan. Matthews said it remains to be seen how much the government's intervention will impact the current housing crisis.

He said that the worst of the housing downturn may still be yet to come and added that the foreclosure rate in Utah could continue to increase through the rest of the year.

"The problem won't be solved next year, but we may begin to climb back out of the hole sometime on into next year," Matthews said.

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