Foreclosures again climbed sharply in the area during April, May and June as 6,075 more households handed keys back to the banks, property researcher DataQuick Information Systems reported Tuesday.

The new numbers mean that 21,402 homes have been foreclosed on in the region since January 2007, according to DataQuick.

But the numbers also show that the rate of growth in foreclosures in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties declined during the quarter.

What's more, notices of default – the first warnings of potential foreclosure that are sent out when borrowers miss two or three consecutive monthly payments – have declined slightly from April levels in several area counties.

Still, market watchers are quick to issue a warning: Don't rush to conclusions. It's by no means certain the region is seeing a plateau in foreclosure activity.

DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage said the slowing growth could simply mean that banks are "choked with too much paperwork" to process all the foreclosures. Others suggested it may reflect lenders' increased willingness to approve so-called "short sales," in which the bank takes less than owed to avoid the higher costs of foreclosure.

"We're not seeing it slacken off at all," said Pam Canada, executive director of Sacramento's NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center, a counseling agency for struggling borrowers.

Statewide, 63,061 households went into foreclosure during the second quarter as more risky loans went bad. That was up 33.5 percent from the first three months of 2008, when DataQuick reported 47,221 foreclosures.

Sacramento County accounted for 73.6 percent of the capital region's second-quarter foreclosures with 4,475, DataQuick reported. That was up from 3,936 the previous quarter.

Placer County reported 572 second-quarter foreclosures. That was up from 495 in January, February and March.

Other foreclosure tallies:

• Yolo County: 293, up from 224 in the first quarter.

• Yuba County: 224, up from 208.

• Sutter County: 202, up from 180.

• El Dorado County: 196, up from 143.

• Nevada County: 77, up from 67 in the last quarter.

• Amador County: 36, up from 25.

All were record highs, said DataQuick.

The eight-county region has counted 11,353 foreclosures since the start of the year. During that time, 17,117 homes have been sold. As of May, more than half the region's monthly sales were discounted homes previously repossessed by banks.

The historic foreclosure numbers have also forced median sales prices down 35 percent the past year in Sacramento County. But bargain foreclosure prices have brought buyers back in droves and eased some fears in the real estate industry of a massive pileup of for-sale inventory.

So far, so good, said Mike Lyon, head of Sacramento-based Lyon Real Estate. But Lyon still worries about a coming wave of higher-end foreclosures tied to "Alt-A" loans, a category between prime and the riskier subprime loans. Many of those loans involve houses worth $350,000 to $750,000.

"A lot of people won't qualify for that," he said. "There's the potential pileup."

Statewide, the scale of foreclosure activity is already four times higher than the peak of the 1990s downturn, when DataQuick recorded 15,418 foreclosures in the third quarter of 1996.

The numbers keep climbing despite massive public- and private-sector campaigns to steer borrowers into counseling. Dozens of foreclosure workshops, publicity drives and promises by banks to work out alternatives with borrowers have all failed to curb the rapid rise.

Worse, fewer households are avoiding the worst after slipping into default. Only 22 percent of borrowers in default are able to save their homes. A year ago, more than half could still escape foreclosure.

"The chief culprit has always been depreciation," said LePage of DataQuick. "It's harder for someone to sell and make any kind of profit and harder to refinance to avoid foreclosure when you don't have any equity."

Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102. Read his Home Front blog at www.sacbee.com/blogs.