Foreclosure filings in the United States rose 5-percent between the months of February and March of this year and were up 57-percent when compared to March of last year, according to RealtyTrac's latest March 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.

In the latest report, RealtyTrac says foreclosure filings were issued on 234,685 properties in March — a statistic that includes filings on all default notices, auction sale filings and bank repossessions.

“The March numbers show that overall foreclosure activity so far this year continues to run nearly 60-percent above the levels we saw last year,” said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “On a year-over-year basis, default notices were up nearly 57-percent and bank repossessions were up nearly 129-percent, but auction notices were up only 32-percent, indicating that more defaulting homeowners are simply walking away and deeding their properties back to the foreclosing lender. This deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure process allows the lender to take possession of a property without putting it up for public foreclosure auction.”

The states with the highest foreclosure totals in March included California with filings on 64,711 properties; Florida with foreclosure filings on 30,254 properties and Ohio with 11,273 filings. The states with the highest foreclosure rates per capital include Nevada, California and Florida.

Click here to read the full report and to see foreclosure statistics for every state in the union