US Foreclosure filings have increased 75 percent over the last year, and 149 percent over 2005. According to RealtyTrac more than 405,000 households lost their home in 2007. California and Florida were hit the hardest with 481,000 and 279,000 filings respectively. Ohio, Texas and Michigan were also hit hard 153,000, 150,000 and 136,000 respectively.

Nevada's foreclosure rate was three times the national average with 3 filings for every 100 households.

Foreclosures are expected to continue to rise as statistics show the risk of foreclosure having increased 22% over January of last year.

Arizona was ranked #8 by RealtyTrac with 69,970 foreclosure filings on 38,568 properties in 2007. Why is the number of filings nearly double that of the number of properties? Many properties had more than one lender who filed foreclosure (for instance a first mortgage plus a home equity loan or line of credit), and some of them even received more than one filing from the same lender within the year.

How does this affect the Real Estate Market? Well, the Market continues to shine bright among all the media gloom and doom. For real estate investors, now is the time to buy. If you have some money in the bank and would like to invest there are great deals to be had for those who wish to buy and hold properties to earn cash flow and build equity. And investors are rushing to find those deals. Mortgage rates are low and so are prices. Investors can find big profits in REOs, pre-foreclosures and short sales. And, with all the people who are faced with foreclosure still needing a place to live, the outlook shows strong signs of rental market growth.