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Atlanta foreclosures for sale continued to grow in number as banks posted bigger losses in their residential and commercial property loan portfolios.

In the July to September quarter, Atlanta-based SunTrust and Columbus-based Synovus posted substantial losses – $377 million for SunTrust and $423.7 million for Synovus. SunTrust lost 76 cents per share while Synovus lost $1.27 cents per share.

SunTrust’s losses increased sharply because it wrote off bad real estate loans and set higher loan reserves for expected losses in the next quarter. Reserves for real estate loan losses climbed up by $171.7 million, pushing total reserves for bad loans above $1.1 billion.

Synovus in the meantime posted big loan losses when it aggressively marked down its non-performing loans and sold off $339 million of its troubled assets at liquidation-sale prices to clean its balance sheet.

Richard Antony, chief executive of Synovus, explained that the bank needed to cut its exposure in the real estate sector to be able to survive and grow after the recession.

SunTrust is historically a conservative bank, but it lent heavily during the boom to the residential housing construction sector and made a lot of home loans. The July to September quarter was the fourth quarter that SunTrust posted losses, accumulating a total loss of $1.8 billion during the four quarters and adding a lot of residential properties to lists of Atlanta foreclosures for sale.

Georgia had more than 33,300 foreclosure postings in the third quarter, with more than 11,200 of these already in banks’ REO listings.

James Wells, chief executive of SunTrust, said the bank continues to face difficult challenges, but he added that SunTrust has raised over $2 billion to protect its assets and to maintain its capital at regulatory levels.

FIG Partners analyst Chris Marinac remarked that SunTrust has been successful in writing down its non-performing real estate loans, but the bank may not be able to be profitable until next year.

According to Sterne Agee analyst Adam Barkstrom, he was not surprised that SunTrust was still struggling with its loan problems, but the third quarter figures were worse than he had expected.

Agee added that SunTrust may continue to struggle because of its troubled loans to commercial property developers who built office buildings and retail centers in Atlanta. A lot of these developers have been facing difficulties in meeting their financial obligations because of high vacancies and business failures.

San Francisco bank foreclosures are still growing and prices are still falling, based on data released by a San Diego-based real estate research company and by information analyst Fiserv.

In the Bay Area, a total of 18,812 default notices were sent to distressed homeowners in the July to September quarter, an increase of more than 25 percent from the third quarter last year but marked a drop of nearly 6 percent from the previous quarter.

Across California, the number of default notices increased to 111,689 in the third quarter, an increase of nearly 19 percent from last year’s third quarter, but marked a drop of more than 10 percent from the previous quarter.

The quarter-over-quarter declines indicated that loan modification efforts have been working for some homeowners as the Obama administration and other groups continue to push lenders to step up their foreclosure prevention efforts.

Analysts in the area also contend that many banks are deliberately slowing down on their foreclosure actions because they do not want to add more low-priced properties to the already overloaded lists of San Francisco bank foreclosures and they do not want to douse the fragile signs of recovery.

Based on the report, the highest rate of increase in defaults occurred in the wealthiest counties. San Francisco had 607 default notices, San Mateo had 1,263 and Marin had 428. The increase rate in San Francisco was a staggering 72 percent while the increase rates in San Mateo and Marin were 58.5 percent and 65.9 percent, respectively.

Trustee deeds meanwhile in the Bay Area dropped by more than 38 percent from last year’s third quarter to 7,462, but this marked nearly 8 percent of increase from the previous quarter. Statewide, the number of trustee deeds dropped by more than 37 percent from last year’s third quarter to 50,013, but marked an increase of nearly 10 percent from the previous quarter.

Out of all foreclosure homes in the Bay Area, 7,700 houses or 16 percent have not been resold in the third quarter.

According to Fiserv, the current median home price of $675,000 in San Francisco metropolitan area marked nearly 26 percent of total loss in value since 2006. Fiserv expects prices to fall further by another 8.3 percent in 2010 and then starts to gain by a soaring 14.3 percent between the middle of next year and June 2011.

San Diego bank foreclosures slowed in September, but mortgage defaults continued to rise as unemployment continued to be above the 10 percent level.

Based on a report from a California based real estate research firm, a total of 1,101 foreclosures were posted for trustee deed sales in September, marking a drop of 7.6 percent from the previous month and a decrease of over 39 percent from September last year.

The number of default notices, meanwhile, increased by nearly 3 percent from August to 2,726 in September. The number was more than twofold than the 1,206 default notices filed in September last year.

Foreclosure postings in San Diego hit their peak of 2,004 in July last year and default notices reached their highest level of 3,832 in March this year.

In contrast to the San Diego trend, foreclosures statewide increased in the July to September quarter. A total of 50,013 foreclosures were posted for trustee sales, marking an increase of 9.5 percent from the previous quarter but a drop of more than 37 percent from last year’s third quarter.

Default notices decreased to 111,689, marking a drop of over 10 percent from 124,562 in the previous quarter but posting an increase of 18.5 percent from more than 94,200 notices sent in last year’s third quarter.

San Diego bank foreclosures that are still in market listings dropped in number to 3,800 units, comprising almost 18 percent of total foreclosures. The percentage marked a drop from the 34.7 percent share one year ago.

Statewide, the number of foreclosure homes that have not been resold dropped to over 57,000 units or 18 percent of all foreclosures, marking more than 50 percent of decrease over the past year.

The researchers observed that foreclosure properties no longer dominate total home sales, but they expect the percentage to climb up again when lenders complete their delayed foreclosure actions.

In the July to September quarter, the number of default notices sent to borrowers in San Diego County climbed up to 8,702, an increase from 7,062 in last year’s third quarter.

The drop in foreclosures was attributed by the researchers to efforts of lenders to regulate the flow of low-priced foreclosures into the market. They know that overloading the market with foreclosed properties will put out the small indications of recovery shown by the market.

Pittsburgh bank foreclosures continue to drop in number as the city continues its successful transformation from a place battered by the collapse of its manufacturing enterprises to a city flying high with its mix of growing steel, biotechnology and clean energy industries.

Philadelphia bank foreclosures have not increased in number as fast as in other cities because of various programs launched by the city and the state of Pennsylvania, in addition to the federal loan modification and refinancing programs.

New York bank foreclosures in the housing sector rose in two foreclosure charts released by an online real estate research firm.

Prices for Jacksonville bank foreclosures rose slightly in August, according to a real estate research firm.

Indianapolis bank foreclosures will be auctioned off at deep discounts at the downtown Mariott Hotel this weekend. The starting bids for the foreclosure homes will range from $500 to $59,000.

Hialeah bank foreclosures will have a significant impact on the census count in the city next year, just like in every other area of the U.S. affected by foreclosures.

Fort Worth bank foreclosures are also now including a lot of condos, just like other cities with a glut of distressed condo units, according to Addison-based real estate research firm and based on data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.