North Texas home foreclosure postings for the first month of 2007 were basically unchanged from December, Foreclosure Listing Service reported Thursday.

But they are still up more than 20 percent from a year ago.

More than 3,500 Dallas-Fort Worth area homes are posted for foreclosure in January's sale.

Foreclosure volumes in the D-FW area have hovered at that level for a couple of months.

"If there is anything good to be said, we haven't seen another spike like we saw in October, when we got up close to 4,000 postings," said George Roddy, president of the Addison-based firm that tracks foreclosures.

"But it's still at a pretty unhealthy level."

The biggest jump in pending foreclosures is in Collin County, where postings were 61 percent ahead of last year. Tarrant County had the smallest increase – up 17 percent.

This year, 38,809 D-FW area homes were posted for foreclosure, an increase of 19 percent from 32,513 postings in 2005.

It's the largest number of home loans in default since the 1980s regional recession.

Not all of the homes posted for foreclosure sale are sold.

In many cases the sales are delayed or the borrower reaches a new agreement regarding the debt.

This week, the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association predicted that nationwide home foreclosures will continue to rise because of higher payments on adjustable-rate mortgages.

Almost 5 percent of U.S. mortgage payments were delinquent in the third quarter, the latest period with statistics available.

California, Florida and Texas top the nation in the number of homes lost to foreclosure.

E-mail stevebrown@dallasnews.com