The percentage of loans moving from default to full-fledged foreclosure also dropped in the second quarter.

This rare good news coincides with a time when forecasts for housing are bleak. Sales of existing homes in July fell by 26 percent from the same month last year. Sales of newly built homes dropped during the month by 32 percent from 2009. It was the slowest July for new homes in records stretching back to 1963.

Both reports, released this week, were much weaker than anticipated, and presage an autumn and winter of falling prices.

Paul Dales, an economist with Capital Economics, said the situation remained critical and the implications significant.

“Up to four million households could still lose their home,” Mr. Dales wrote Thursday in a note to clients. “Aside from the considerable social costs, this does not bode well for consumer spending, bank profits or the housing market itself.”

Already, the number of owners under stress is increasing again. The share of loans one payment behind, which peaked at 3.77 percent in early 2009, then fell to 3.31 percent at the end of the year, rose in the second quarter to 3.51 percent, the mortgage bankers said.

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The foreclosure situation is undergoing a shift. Last year, it resembled a balloon being filled by a hose: it just kept swelling. Borrowers went delinquent then entered a lengthy limbo as they tried modifications or simply waited patiently for the bank to act.

Eight months ago, the number of households behind on their payments, whether by one month or several years, exceeded eight million. The largest group, over three million, were those in preforeclosure limbo.

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Now, with the banks beginning to move ahead with foreclosures, the balloon is finally beginning to deflate. The number of households behind in July fell to seven million, according to a report issued Thursday by the data firm LPS Applied Analytics.

The backlog is starting to clear, LPS said, with lenders initiating 279,685 foreclosures in July, up from 225,700 in June.

This has its own perils for the beleaguered housing market: it adds inventory at a moment when there are already too many houses available. That will push down prices, which could give other strained borrowers the inclination to give up.

There is some evidence this might be happening already.

Herb Blecher, an LPS senior vice president, said that even as more houses were lost to foreclosure it might create a chain reaction.

In Nevada, for instance, the percentage of loans entering foreclosure increased in July to 1.33 percent of all loans outstanding, from 1.01 percent in June. Meanwhile, 5.2 percent of the Nevada mortgages that were current at the beginning of the year are now two months or more delinquent. That was by far the highest rate of any state.

“Are foreclosures going to drive another wave of defaults?” Mr. Blecher asked.

The reason people walk away from their loans in so-called strategic defaults is because they owe so much more than their home is worth. The more the market goes down, the more people are placed in this unhappy position.

In a third housing report released on Thursday, the data firm CoreLogic said the number of households with negative equity fell slightly in the second quarter to 11 million, down from 11.2 million in the first quarter.

While this might seem like good news, CoreLogic said the drop was less because of price appreciation than the many underwater households being foreclosed and thus falling out of the category.