Almost a half-million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure in the first half of the year, nearly double the same time a year ago. That’s six of every 1,000 households nationwide repossessed by the bank following foreclosure so far in 2008, according to real estate information service ForeclosureS.com. “If the trend continues, we could see one million properties lost to foreclosure across the country by year-end,” says Alexis McGee, expert, educator, and president of ForeclosureS.com. REO filings for June — all 87,465 of them — were up 5.35 percent over May and up 15.8 percent quarter over quarter, McGee said. Not surprisingly, REO volume has been centered inc California, Florida, and Arizona; California alone has seen 116,857 REO properties come online this year, representing 10.2 of every 1,000 households in the state. Pre-foreclosure filings already have surpassed the one million mark in the first half of the year, with 1,060,187 filings as of June 30, according to stats provided by ForeclosureS.com — nearly double the 558,178 recorded in the same time frame a year ago. Looking at the numbers another way, 14.6 of every 1,000 households nationwide have been forced to deal with pre-foreclosure this year, up more than 87 percent from a year ago. Quarter over quarter, however, the jump in pre-foreclosure filings was much less both in numbers (547,211 filings, up 6.67 percent from 512,976 in Q1), and on a per household basis (7.6 filings for every 1,000 households, up 7.04 percent). Part of the reason for the softened numbers was a 4.25 percent drop in June pre-foreclosures over May, McGee said. For more information, visit http://www.foreclosures.com.