Utah's number of home foreclosures rose nearly 52 percent in February from a year earlier — a figure that rivals the national year-over-year foreclosure increase of nearly 60 percent.

The state seemed to have it rough in January, when its foreclosure activity rose about 8 percent from December and about 5 percent from a year earlier. But data released today show even worse figures for February.

The U.S. Foreclosure Market Report by market analysis firm RealtyTrac Inc. shows Utah's monthly increase was 33.06 percent and the rise from February 2007 was 51.89 percent.

The report indicates Utah was 15th in the country in its foreclosure rate — up from 22nd in January — with one household in 678 being the subject of a notice of default or notice of trustee sale, or foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank. Utah had 1,288 properties in those categories in February.

Nationwide, foreclosure activity fell by 4 percent in February, when 223,651 properties were involved in default notices, auction sales notices and bank repossessions. That amounts to one in every 557 U.S. households.

"The interesting thing was that Utah foreclosure activity was up January to February, whereas the national level for activity was down 4 percent," said Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac's marketing and communications manager. "But year over year, the Utah increase is close to the national increase. The trend appears to be similar to what we've seen in a lot of other states, which is foreclosure activity is moving higher."

Blomquist said month-to-month figures often fluctuate because of variables in collecting data from public records.

Even so, the month-to-month and year-to-year increases in Utah being significantly higher in February than a month earlier "is a little bit out of the ordinary," he said.

"There are states where we're seeing definite and clear trends in foreclosures becoming a problem, where there really is no cloudiness on the issue. In Utah, there's not that definite, clear-cut trend where foreclosures have really become a widespread problem."

Blomquist said Utah has "held up pretty well" in terms of foreclosures, being among states with a relatively stable real-estate market in the past couple of years, "rather than some markets that just went crazy" with new home construction.

"The ranking is a little higher than it was, but with the monthly increase, it's too early to tell if it's a long-term trend or not," he said.

Quarterly foreclosure figures for Utah have "held fairly steady" since RealtyTrac started charting the figures in 2005, he said.