Like a lot of houses, the yellow split-level south of Muncie was somebody's dream. But its yard is now overgrown and the backyard pool is unused. A vine wreath with sunflowers hangs askew on the front porch.

The house on Kepner Drive was home to Charles Minton, his wife and four kids, until a series of events -- his father's death and the resulting expenses, an injury at work that kept him from drawing a paycheck, escalating property taxes -- caused him to fall behind on payments, prompting Huntington National Bank to foreclose on the house.

"It all collapsed in a hurry," Minton said.

Minton's house was scheduled to be sold in a Delaware County sheriff's sale of foreclosed properties this month. The former Minton home and hundreds of others like it are now in Delaware County's foreclosure process.

Home foreclosures in Delaware County increased an average of 20 percent a year between 2000 and 2006, and this year's numbers are likely to equal or top those for last year.

In Delaware County, 394 properties have been scheduled for sheriff's sales in the first seven months of this year. That appears to be similar to the pace for 2006, when 698 properties were in sheriff's sales by the end of the year.

The number of foreclosed homes in Delaware County each year has risen steadily from 223 in 2000 to 700 or more likely for this year.

"The numbers are still way up there and we're not seeing an end in sight," said Lisa Scroggins, who oversees sheriff's sales for Delaware County.

'A double-whammy'

The boom in the national housing market in the early 2000s -- followed by a downturn in housing sales in many areas -- sparked a jump in home foreclosures.

Foreclosures spiked as many new homeowners -- some with mortgages worth as much as 125 percent of the value of their home, and many with adjustable rate mortgages -- were hit hard on two fronts: Their monthly mortgage payments jumped as their adjustable interest rates increased two years after their initial financing, and their first property tax bills came due.

"The hit after two years is a double-whammy," said Bill Sultan, president of the not-for-profit Momentive Consumer Credit Counseling. "It can add $500 a month to your housing bill."

Job losses, particularly high-paying manufacturing jobs, left many with less money for mortgage payments.

"Between 2000 and 2006, the state lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs," Sultan said. "In many cases, those have been replaced with service sector jobs that pay a lot less money.

"We'll have roughly 30,000 foreclosures in the state of Indiana this year," he added. "That's up, but not as much as between 2005 and 2006, when there was a 50-percent increase. It will be half that this year."

While there's no dispute that foreclosures have increased dramatically in Delaware County in recent years, the exact number of local homes in the foreclosure process varies depending on the source of information.

Delaware County sheriff's sales account for 394 scheduled so far this year. Two national foreclosure clearinghouses have differing numbers. Foreclosure.com says 295 are in the process in Delaware County, while Realtytrac.com says 446. Realtytrac has been criticized for including homes in every step of the foreclosure process.

In Indiana, Foreclosure.com records 6,876 properties in foreclosure, while on the national level, Realtytrac reported 147,708 foreclosures in April -- up 62 percent from a year earlier.

No matter whose figures are cited, home foreclosures are a continuing concern.

"It's still increasing in some areas," Sultan said. "But in some areas there's been a leveling off."

Some bad decisions

Minton's foreclosure, filed by Huntington National Bank of Columbus, Ohio, was typical of many cases that result in sheriff's sales.

The effort to recover the $131,000 foreclosure debt began shortly after the Mintons made their last monthly mortgage payment, on May 1, 2006. By October 2006, a local court had, at the bank's request, issued a complaint. By March of this year, a default judgment was filed. The property was recently scheduled for a sheriff's sale.

The foreclosure process -- from first missed payment to auction -- took one year.

Minton said his father's death "cost me all my savings," and shortly afterward, Minton said, he crushed his hand in a press at work.

"I haven't been back to work and didn't have a paycheck," he said. "The property taxes skyrocketed, almost doubled. With all that, I just couldn't pay it."

Minton said he made some bad decisions, including not having private mortgage insurance.

"I didn't have the greatest credit in the world, and I bought out of my means, when all is said and done," he said.

Sultan said Minton's story sounded familiar.

"Most foreclosures begin with people who are 60 days or more delinquent on a payment, and most likely they've had some life-altering event," he said. "They've lost their job, gotten divorced, the main wage-earner died. That (Minton's situation) was the perfect storm."

Minton and his family now live with his mother.

"I made the choice to save this house my mom lived in," he said.

Contact your lender

Foreclosure doesn't have to be inevitable, however. Steps can be taken to prevent the loss of a home and credit record.

One early step for people who have fallen behind in mortgage payments is to contact their lender.

"Over 50 percent of people in arrears never contact their lender," Sultan said. "If there's any one step they should take, it's contact the lender.

"The bank does not want your house back," Sultan added. "They want people to live up to the commitment the loan calls for."

Momentive oversees Indiana's Mortgage and Foreclosure Helpline. Calls to the line have increased, from 1,000 calls in 2004 to an expected 8,000 calls this year.

Momentive, which has a Muncie office, will help homeowners at risk of foreclosure by gathering information about the loan, helping to restructure it and minimizing other expenses so the mortgage loan can be repaid.

Muncie attorney Elizabeth Costello also noted that a Chapter 13 bankruptcy can be filed before a sheriff's sale is held. Bankruptcy can give the debtor up to five years to catch up on mortgage arrears.

'It's heartbreaking'

The foreclosure problem has drawn attention from many quarters.

Local real estate agent Cindy Welch serves on the housing needs committee of the Indiana Association of Realtors. Part of the group's mission is to help find housing for people in need.

"We've been trying to educate our members about what we can do to stave off foreclosures," she said.

Welch's interest in the statewide effort is influenced by her day-to-day dealings with people who have lost their homes. Once foreclosure is underway, the mortgage company will frequently ask a real estate company to check to see if a home's occupants -- either the unsuccessful owner or renters -- have moved out.

"They have us approach the people living there and offer cash for keys," Welch said. "It's heartbreaking. The whole process is. I don't have to do that very often, thank goodness."

Welch noted that foreclosure can, in some small way, have a good outcome.

"In our market here, our foreclosure properties are selling," Welch said. "They're not sitting out there, and they're selling for what they're worth. Some markets have a lot of foreclosures and they're not selling. We have a lot of foreclosures and they're selling.

"And In a lot of cases, buyers are improving properties and making neighborhoods better."

In the meantime, though, Welch agreed that there's no immediate change to the foreclosure problem on the horizon.

"I think the market is going to be like this for a couple more years."