U.S. foreclosure activity for May ebbed from April’s record, but mortgages still failed at a staggering pace as President Barack Obama’s rescue programs had not had time to fully take root, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Foreclosure filings dipped 6 percent in the month but increased 18 percent from May 2008, marking the third highest month on record.

“There were almost one million foreclosure filings in a three-month period, and that’s simply unprecedented,” Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in an interview.

Temporary freezes on foreclosure activity ended in March. Failures of many seriously delinquent loans that were put on hold during those moratoria have been thrust back into the foreclosure cycle.

One in every 398 households with loans got a foreclosure filing in May. Filings, which include notices of default and auctions, were reported on 321,480 properties last month. Read the rest of this entry »