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One out of every 79 homes in Fort Myers-Cape Coral was in foreclosure last month.

By comparison, one in every 179 Charlotte households, one in every 206 Sarasota households and one in every 292 Manatee households were in foreclosure. The national average was one in every 483, data released Thursday by Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac showed.

Though better off than its southern neighbor, the relentless rise in foreclosures in Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte is still causing problems for borrowers and bankers alike.

A total of 2,161 filings -- default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions -- entered the court systems last month. That compared with 1,934 in April and 1,432 foreclosures a year ago.

Foreclosure filings in Sarasota County were up 19 percent to 1,054 from April, while rising 7 percent to 538 in Charlotte and 4 percent to 569 in Manatee.

"May was the third straight month where we've seen a month-to-month increase in foreclosure activity and the 29th straight month we've seen a year-over-year increase," said James Saccacio, RealtyTrac's chief executive.

Default notices rose 1 percent, while auctions dropped 3 percent, but bank repossessions rose by double-digits from the previous month and doubled from a year ago. There are 700,000 bank-owned homes in RealtyTrac's database now, he said.

Some encouragement

It was encouraging that there were fewer foreclosures at the start of the process and more at the end, said Tramm Hudson, a longtime Southwest Florida banker who recently started a consulting firm.

But it also meant that banks are taking on an increasing share of the burden.

Hudson estimated that it takes six months and costs a bank about $3,000 in legal fees for an uncontested foreclosure and up to 10 months and $10,000 when a homeowner puts up a fight.

"The reason a bank should only lend 80 percent of the value of a house is that if the bank has to take the house back, it will cost it about 10 percent to market and maintain it," Hudson said. "The bank needs the other 10 percent cushion to offset lowball offers from buyers of foreclosed properties, or to pay for deferred maintenance caused by former owners who either failed to keep the place up or trashed it on the way out."

Those carrying costs make bankers want to get rid of foreclosed properties as quickly as possible. That in turn is creating opportunities for enterprising real estate agents.

"We just started in March," said Joan Erni, who was recruited to head up a bank-owned real estate, or REO, program for Michael Saunders & Co. "We have already signed up eight local community banks and have put a process in place to help them value properties and get them into marketing condition."

Her firm has sold one bank-owned property on Siesta Key so far and has contracts pending on two of eight REOs on the company's Web site.

"The properties are selling quickly," Erni said. "The one we sold, sold in two days."

Plenty of investors are watching properties go through the foreclosure process and swooping down as soon as banks take possession, said Peter Zalewski, a Bal Harbour consultant who runs CondoVultures.com.

"Banks are very often looking to dump properties within 90 days," he said. "They usually start with one price and move down every month. By the last month, they are looking to take anything they can get."

Any end in sight?

"I don't think we've seen the bottom yet," said Nancy Detert, a former mortgage broker running for state Senate who is pitching a "community downpayment assistance plan." It would allow home buyers with good credit to receive local and state government assistance to buy houses in some stage of foreclosure.

"We have so much empty supply," Detert said. "It is devaluing the houses owned by the rest of us and devaluing whole neighborhoods."

The answer is to let members of the work force occupy the houses and pay whatever they can on a first mortgage, she said. The community can then provide a non-interest-bearing second mortgage which can be repaid when the house is ultimately sold.

"If we took a sponge and sponged up some of the supply, we'd have more demand," Detert said.