Foreclosures slip for the month but still high enough to drag the economy back -- and they are likely to go higher.

Foreclosures’ drag on the economy will probably grow worse yet, Vitner said. “Typically in a recession, mortgage defaults do not peak until after the unemployment rate has come down.”

For Atlanta, watching the damage to real estate is the best way to judge the economy, he said. “It is pretty much the center of the storm.”

Equity Depot tracks notices published each month for public auctions scheduled for the following month. November’s numbers count the homes set for auction in December.

Of course, filings do not always lead to foreclosure; homeowners could reach a last-minute accord with lenders or the lender could – for whatever reason – postpone the sale. But many homeowners do lose their houses, and the Equity Depot data has matched the intensifying distress washing through the metro Atlanta economy.

The most recent numbers show filings down 1.3 percent from October and 24 percent since September’s record high, according to Barry Bramlett, president of Equity Depot. But the month’s filings were 40 percent higher than the same month last year, 80 percent above two years ago and 146 percent higher than 2006.

With metro Atlanta unemployment at 10.5 percent, government attempts to help homeowners have not always been effective, Bramlett said. “If someone is not working, it is not going to matter.”

Each foreclosure adds to the financial pressure on a family, a lender and the larger housing market, which in turn is a burden on the economy – which means more layoffs.

When the housing bubble burst in 2006, sales and construction plunged, devastating incomes and jobs among brokers, builders and others dependent on the transactions. Then, as prices dropped – and many mortgage payments rose – thousands of new homebuyers spiraled into default.

Historically, nearly every drop in new home building is followed several months later by a spike in unemployment.

Only in the past several months have reports shown prices in various areas of metro Atlanta starting to inch upward. But many areas still have large pools of unsold inventory – a problem that foreclosures only add to.

More foreboding is the notion that there are tens of thousands of defaults that are inevitable but have been delayed. For instance, some lenders are loath to foreclose, especially if they do not think they can sell the home.

“There are hidden foreclosures,” Bramlett said. “There’s a fear – no, I think it’s a sure knowledge that there are a lot more out there.”

It is not just residential real estate getting soaked: The problem has been spreading to commercial real estate, said Alan Wexler, president of Databank Atlanta, which tracks many of those properties.

That foreclosure wave will not break until late next year,” he said. “It is not a big trend now, but it has started.”