Foreclosure Listings: Same Cities in Top 10

After years of foreclosures and foreclosure auctions, why do the same few places still have the most foreclosures?

The top 10 list of housing markets with the highest rates of foreclosure actions is almost exactly the same as it was last year, according to the third quarter list from RealtyTrac. Las Vegas is still followed by a familiar list of sprawl towns in California, Florida and Arizona.

But it's not just the same cities still suffering from foreclosures -- it's often the same neighborhoods. In mid-2009, one of every four homes was in foreclosure in a single zip code on the northeast fringe of Phoenix. There, hundreds of empty, new homes lined freshly laid streets with names like Tombstone Trail and Desperado Way. A full year later, one in four homes in that zip code were still in foreclosure.

"In some cases, it might actually be the same houses," says Rick Sharga senior vice president for RealtyTrac.