Foreclosure activity in October rose 25 percent from a year earlier, although filings in California fell by double-digit percentage points for the second consecutive month due to a state law slowing the foreclosure process, according to a monthly report by RealtyTrac.

Foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sales notices and bank repossessions — rose by 5 percent from September to 279,561 in October, according to Irvine, California-based research firm RealtyTrac.

That means one in every 452 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing in October, the firm said in its report released on Thursday.

Years of lending to risky, or “subprime” borrowers that fueled the housing boom has created an unprecedented number of foreclosures due to the inability of many of those borrowers to pay their mortgages, particularly as interest rates reset and as plunging home values nationwide increasingly render properties worth less than the mortgage.

The numbers might also be showing the effects of the economic downturn.

Homeowners facing foreclosure who are spending more than 38 percent of their income on mortgage payments could have monthly payments reduced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest U.S. mortgage finance companies.

“The good news is that there are programs and facilities in place that could actually have a material effect of stemming the tide of foreclosures, but as always the devil is in the details,” Sharga said, adding that he does not expect to see that effect until late in the first quarter of 2009.

RealtyTrac counts foreclosures by compiling the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing reported during the month. If more than one foreclosure document is filed against a property, RealtyTrac counts only the most recent filing.

You may take solice in knowing that your government is doing everything it can to see that your family has to move into a refrigerator box under an overpass. Do you feel secure knowing your government is more worried about American Express and AIG than what happens to you and your family?