The number of properties sold on the courthouse steps in Nye County due to foreclosure almost tripled in 2008 over the year before.

Statistics from the Nye County Recorder's Office show 495 homes were sold due to trustee sales, up from 184 in 2007.

During May and June 2008, the figure reached 53 and 52 respectively, or more than two properties auctioned off in Tonopah for each business day. The peak month was August, when 59 homes were auctioned.

Realty Trac, a nationwide real estate Internet service, estimates 382 homes in just the four Pahrump zip codes were repossessed by lending institutions in 2008, more than eight times the 46 homes in 2007. That is what is referred to in the industry as REO homes.

Realty Trac estimates 672 property owners received default notices in the Pahrump area in 2008, compared to 372 in 2007.

Mary Greenspan, who handles a lot of foreclosure sales at her Pahrump brokerage, said Realty Trac statistics that show median home values in the 89048 Pahrump zip code dropped 20.3 perecent in 2008 to $207,151 are probably accurate. But she thought the company estimates of the average foreclosure sales price of $124,121 was low.

"We sell a lot. The inventory has gone down. Normally when the inventory goes down, your prices go up. This has not been the case this time. So your inventory's still going down, your prices are still in decline," Greespan said.

She calculates home prices continue to drop 2 to 4 percent per month in the Pahrump area.

Greenspan said 194 of the 708 homes listed for sale right now on the Multiple Listing Service are homes repossessed by the financial institutions in foreclosures, about 28 percent of the total.

"Our market, it's not as dramatic here as it is in Las Vegas," Greenspan said, noting in Las Vegas as many as 40 percent of the homes on the market are foreclosures.

But she said, "Twenty-eight percent is still a considerable number of listings. I've been doing this for 12 years. We've never had this many."

Greenspan said 241 foreclosed homes were sold in Pahrump last year, 188 stick-built and 53 manufactured dwellings.

The number of foreclosed homes for sale on the market now includes 103 stick-built and 43 manufactured homes. Another 33 stick-built homes and 15 manufactured homes have sales pending.

While her statistics include homes in the MLS system, Greenspan said only a couple of brokerages in town don't subscribe to the Multiple Listing Service, and they don't handle foreclosures.

Mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae placed a moratorium on foreclosures over the holidays, which took effect in late November and expired Feb. 1, Greenspan said.

"We haven't gotten any real new assignments since, oh, I'd say probably sometime the end of October, November is when they instituted that and they just released that, they just released the moratorium. The floodgates are going to be released somewhere, I don't know if they're going to open up here in Pahrump, but something's going to happen because the foreclosures are still out there," she said.

While some real estate professionals have taken on second jobs to get by during these slow times, business is still brisk at her brokerage in the foreclosure trade.

"That's the nature of what I do. It's unfortunate, when times are bad my business is good," Greenspan said.

Real estate commissions don't pay as much as before though, when it comes to selling foreclosures. For one thing, the sales prices aren't as high; for another, the amount commission agents may collect could only be 2 percent.

"But something is better than nothing," Greenspan said. "The banks do negotiate the commissions. There's different structures. They have very strict rules what they'll contribute to the buyer's closing cost. It's entirely different but everybody knows how to play the game. You either play it or you're left out in the cold," Greenspan said.

About 80 foreclosed homes were sold in the last three months and about 160 in the last six months, meaning two-thirds of the homes were sold off in the last half of the year. Prices eventually came down later in the year to what people were willing to pay, Greenspan said.

Thirteen of the 241 foreclosed homes sold in Pahrump last year were listed in poor condition.

Sellers of regular homes are being affected by the competition from the cheaper foreclosures. Greenspan said that's what's happening in Mountain Falls, where homes built only a few years ago are being sold for under $200,000.

While both buyers and sellers are looking to where the bottom might be before home prices start rising again, Greenspan doesn't think we're there yet.

"We're in different times today -- unprecedented," she said.