Going by the most recent statistics forwarded by the Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac, US foreclosure filings exceeded 300,000 for the eighth month in a row, thereby indicating that unemployment still stands in the way of bill-payments by homeowners.

Almost 50 percent of the country’s foreclosure activity in October was reported in California, Florida, Illinois and Michigan.

RealtyTrac data revealed that, as compared to the year-before figures, the October number of properties receiving a default, an auction notice or a bank seizure rose by 19 percent to 332,292, with one in every 385 households in the US having received a filing.

However, the tally fell for the third successive month, dropping 3.3 percent from the September numbers, which is a positive sign depicting a turning of the tide for the better; even though the residential sector dilemma is likely to persist throughout 2009.

Despite the fact that year-on-year foreclosure declines have been reported even by Nevada and Florida, some fundamental forces that still hang over the embryonic recovery of the residential sector include high-risk mortgages, high unemployment, and negative equity.

Commenting on the scenario, Stephen Miller, Economics Department Chairman at Las Vegas’ University of Nevada, said: “The foreclosure problem is still with us and will keep prices down. The real issue is we don’t know what inventory banks are holding that they have yet to put on the market.”