TAMPA - Fewer Tampa Bay area homeowners are falling into foreclosure this year, but more of them are losing their homes, too, new figures show.

On Wednesday, RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosed homes, released its monthly foreclosure report for October. The numbers show a mixed picture for locally and for Florida.

In what seems to be good news, the number of Tampa area homeowners who fell into foreclosure and received first-time foreclosure notices in October was down about 16 percent. All told, 3,725 local homeowners received the initial notices, compared with 4,415 homeowners in October 2009.

The company tracks foreclosures in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Hernando counties.

Daren Blomquist, a RealtyTrac spokesman, said fewer initial filings could mean some loan modification and other foreclosure prevention efforts are working. Meantime, some lenders may be giving delinquent homeowners more time to pay before filing foreclosure.

However, a more pessimistic theory is that banks and mortgage servicing firms are just taking a breather while they catch up with their flood of existing foreclosure cases.

Blomquist said Florida still may see another wave of foreclosure filings in coming months. Bearing this out, the number of first-time foreclosure filings has been creeping up a bit in the last few months, even though it's down over the full year, he said.

Several major banks have halted or slowed their foreclosure cases in recent months because of the scandal plaguing the industry. In Florida and nationwide, state attorneys general allege that foreclosure processing firms fabricated documents or made rampant errors.

Still, the scandal didn't affect the number of foreclosure cases in Florida last month, Blomquist said.

Even if first-time foreclosure filings are down over the year, the number of people in late stages of foreclosure is way up. Last month, 3,861 Tampa Bay homeowners received notices of foreclosure sale, which is up more than 200 percent from October 2009, RealtyTrac data show.

Also, the number of homes that banks have retaken rose more than 200 percent last month when compared with 2009.

Henry Hicks, a Tampa attorney who defends homeowners in foreclosure cases, said a change in the way the court handles foreclosures might have caused the spike in homes going to foreclosure sale. Over the summer, the circuit court in Hillsborough County began speeding up the foreclosure process through the use of a "rocket docket."

Many of the homes that went through the rocket docket may be going to sale now, Hicks said.

All the foreclosed homes are dragging down prices in the local real estate market, Blomquist said.

This week, Zillow.com, an online real estate marketplace, released a report on housing values nationwide. The median home value in the Tampa metropolitan area is about $115,700, which is down 9.1 percent over the year and down 46 percent from its peak a few years ago, Zillow.com reported.

Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865.