When it comes to foreclosures, Salt Lake City is the worst of the worst.

The metro area had the largest percentage increase in foreclosure filings the past year among more than 50 communities hardest hit by the nation's foreclosure crisis, a new report shows.

Owners of 5,155 local properties received a foreclosure-related notice in the first quarter, 101 percent higher than the same period in 2009, according to RealtyTrac, a company that tracks foreclosures nationally. In the U.S., foreclosure filings rose only 16 percent. Many of the other metro areas with high levels of distressed properties actually saw their foreclosure rates fall from the super-high levels of last year.

As for the rate of foreclosures-related filings, one in every 77 of all housing units in the Salt Lake area, or 1.3 percent, received a notice in the first three months of the year, RealtyTrac said. That's the 35th-highest rate of filings among all 206 metro areas in the RealtyTrac report, up from No. 62 in the first quarter 2009 and No. 107 in the first quarter 2008.

Provo-Orem was No. 34, while Ogden-Clearfield was No. 53.

RealtyTrac said Salt Lake's growing foreclosure-filings rate demonstrates how the problem has spread in a big way from cities in California, Arizona and Nevada into other once-booming areas. Utah, which in the mid-2000s had one of the most robust economies and lowest foreclosure rates now has the fifth-highest rate of foreclosure filings of all states, behind only Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California.

"Early on, when we started seeing foreclosure problems it was a limited number of states and metro areas," said Darin Blomquist of RealtyTrac. "The foreclosure problem has spread."

Defaults and foreclosures in Utah first started to creep up in 2008, after the real estate market and state's overall economy began to take a turn for the worse. As home sales and prices have fallen over the past two years, more and more homeowners are "underwater," meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. Many of those in this situation are unable to sell their homes for enough money to cover their mortgages after they encounter financial trouble and can't keep up with their payments.

That's why Mark Knold, chief economist for the Utah Department of Workforce Services, isn't surprised that Utah's foreclosure rate is significantly higher than the national average. Nationally, only one in every 138 households have received a foreclosure filing, or 0.72 percent, compared with Utah's much higher one-in-77 rate.

"We were late in to the housing bubble, we'll be the last to get out," he said. Knold believes Utah's foreclosure problem will be at its worst this year and should begin to improve in 2011.

In some cases, homeowners can sell their homes via a short sale if lenders agree to accept less than they are owed. Some lenders also are willing to modify mortgages, which can lower a borrower's monthly mortgage payment. But either method of avoiding foreclosure can be difficult and time-consuming to complete, and not all borrowers qualify for help.

The RealtyTrac report covers a wide range of foreclosure-related filings, from default notices -- in which homeowners are simply behind on their payments but not yet in danger of losing their properties -- to notices that the bank is taking possession of the property.