After a yearlong lull, foreclosure filings in the Sacramento region soared 76 percent in August, reflecting a new wave of activity by Bank of America, the nation's largest lender.

RealtyTrac, the Irvine-based foreclosure-tracking firm, said the number of notices of default – the first step in the foreclosure process – rose to an 11-month high of 2,432 last month.

The surge was tied to new foreclosure starts by BofA. According to RealtyTrac, the number of default notices issued in California by the Charlotte, N.C.-based banking giant nearly doubled last month, even as competitors Wells Fargo & Co. and JP Morgan Chase filed fewer foreclosures in the state.

The flood comes as BofA announced plans Monday to cut more than 30,000 jobs over the next several years, in part to address huge losses from the company's ill-fated, 2008 takeover of subprime lender Countrywide Financial Corp.

"This shows that we're not out of the woods yet when it comes to the foreclosure cycle," said Daren Blomquist, spokesman for RealtyTrac. "We're probably past the peak of foreclosure activity in Sacramento, but we still have a lot of this messiness to deal with."

The four-county Sacramento area has been one of the hardest hit by the nationwide mortgage meltdown.

Since 2007, approximately 67,500 homeowners – or about 8.5 percent of the households in the area – have lost their homes to foreclosure. Those foreclosures, in turn, helped trigger sharp declines in local home prices and big drops in local governments' property tax collections.

The August filings hint that a new wave of bank take-backs could be headed this way, following nearly a year of steadily declining foreclosure activity.

Foreclosure filings have decreased on a month-to-month basis in eight of the past 12 months. In July, 1,374 notices of default were filed, the lowest number for the four-county region – Sacramento, Yolo, Placer and El Dorado – since October 2008, according to RealtyTrac.

But those filings don't include tens of thousands of troubled loans here that banks have yet to foreclose upon. Seriously delinquent loans – those well over 90 days delinquent – make up a large part of the so-called "shadow inventory" that Realtors and analysts say could haunt the Sacramento market for years.

According to RealtyTrac, many of the foreclosure notices last month were for loans that have been on the banks' books for some time.

The average default amount for troubled loans in California was $37,390 last month, which means the typical homeowner who received a new foreclosure notice was around 18 months behind on mortgage payments.

Bank of America confirmed that it stepped up its foreclosure activity last month as it moved more aggressively to clear out its portfolio of distressed loans.

"We are seeing continued increases in foreclosure referrals in many areas of the country, and that is a potential harbinger for housing market recovery," bank spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens said in an email.

Jonalyn Mosley figures she could do without that kind of recovery.

The Elk Grove resident said she receive a foreclosure notice in January from BofA on a 15-year first mortgage she took out on her five-bedroom home in 2003.

Mosley, a nurse with Kaiser Permanente, said she received a temporary reprieve, called a forbearance, from the bank two years ago when her husband took a 20 percent pay cut and she went on disability. The one-time deal lowered the monthly payments on the first mortgage on her home for about six months, from $5,400 to $1,295.

But earlier this year, the bank told her she was in arrears for the six-month period covered by the agreement. A foreclosure auction on her home was scheduled in July. It was called off only after the Mosleys agreed to pay $20,000 upfront and increase their monthly payment to $6,200.

"This has been devastating for me and my husband," said Mosley, who said she is paying for the higher housing costs by picking up extra work at Kaiser and getting a part-time job.

The upturn in foreclosures comes as community-activist groups are calling on the major banks to take a more active role addressing and paying for the social and community impacts of the foreclosure crisis in Sacramento.

On Wednesday, the California Reinvestment Coalition and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment – a group started by former ACORN staffers – said a typical foreclosure costs local taxpayers $19,229 in government services.

"It's a huge problem for the community," said Angel Picone, Sacramento regional coordinator for the alliance. "This is taking away resources from other city programs."

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