(This guest post originally appeared at the author's blog)

RealtyTrac has released their monthly US Foreclosure Market Report today and its a mixed bag of results. In other words, its like unemployment. Its at a high level but the pace of increase seems to be abating. In other words, with 3.9 million notices sent to homeowners in default, it is going to take a while for this inventory to clear out.

Here are the foreclosure metrics by state.

And a news recap:

foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 306,627 U.S. properties during the month, a decrease of nearly 8 percent from the previous month but still up 18 percent from November 2008. The report also shows one in every 417 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing in November.

Phyllis Furman over at The Daily News does a nice NYC-centric analysis of the results.

While foreclosure activity is rising, the percentage of homes at risk here – one in every 1,706 – is small relative to the rest of the country. In November, 306,627 U.S. homes – one in every 417 – received a foreclosure filing. That was up 18.4% from last year, but down 7.7% from October.

And Dan Levy at Bloomberg does a nice US foreclosure recap

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — Foreclosure filings in the U.S. will reach a record for the second consecutive year with 3.9 million notices sent to homeowners in default, RealtyTrac Inc. said. This year’s filings will surpass 2008’s total of 3.2 million as record unemployment and price erosion batter the housing market, the Irvine, California-based company said. “We are a long way from a recovery,” John Quigley, economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an interview. “You can’t start to see improvement in the housing market until after unemployment peaks.”:

Statistical nirvana by default (sorry for the pun)