Placer County’s foreclosure rate continued to gain steam in 2008, according to a year-end analysis of government records. And experts say to expect more of the same in 2009.

The number of foreclosures in the just-ended period was up more than 110 percent from a year ago, with 2,552 residential properties being taken over, compared to 1,193.

By comparison, in 2006 just 289 foreclosures were filed with the county, according to records provided by the Placer County Assessor’s Office. That’s a two-year increase of 772 percent.

Homes in all segments of the market – from “starter” homes to area mansions – showed up on county default rolls last year en masse, experts say.

“It’s pretty much going after all of them,” said Ben Herb, president of the Placer County Association of Realtors. “Even the houses that are a million-plus have been going into foreclosure.”

The guard-gated community of Morgan Creek in Roseville exemplifies the trend.

Bank-owned signs started appearing about two years ago in this upscale development located off Vineyard Road on the city’s outskirts, putting dozens of homes on the market in the golf community of about 550 houses.

“I think it was an extreme case of the whole microcosm of the problem,” said Shaun Hilton, a Morgan Creek resident and owner of Shaun Hilton Properties. “More people I think were overstretched here.”

Things are better there than they once were, he said; last year, residents complained to their homeowner’s association about a slew of foreclosed homes that invited vandalism and created blight, but the situation has improved, residents said.

Some 30 homes there were for sale on a recent week, and a little more than two-thirds of those were in some sort of distress, according to the Multiple Listing Service.

That’s better than six months ago, when the number was more like 60 homes in distress, Realtors said.

Listing histories tell part of the story. On Morgan Creek’s Waterstone Drive, a 3,560 square-foot five-bedroom, three-bathroom home sold for more than $850,000 in August 2005; it went into default in June of last year, and by October entered foreclosure. Today, the bank will take $497,900.

Records don’t list why homeowners lost their properties, shrouding the lives behind the numbers.

Experts say the reasons vary, and include poor financial decision-making, loans that reset at higher rates and job losses.

Charles Sayles sees the stories first hand as a loan modification specialist for Capital Investment Group in Rocklin. Homeowners are often desperate when they come to him looking for some way of staying in their house, usually by working out a new payment plan from lenders.

“Most people are upset, they’re losing their house,” Sayles said. “They’re in tears. The majority of people do care about their house.”

Like many real estate professionals, he blames overly permissive lending – especially so-called option ARMs and negative amortization loans – for many homeowners’ financial troubles.

In Morgan Creek, where even midsize homes flirted with $1 million a few years ago, many residents who bought in early expected to be able to flip the houses soon afterward for a profit. Those plans went bad when the market collapsed.

“We were in a huge appreciation spike when the homes started for sale here in 2003,” Hilton said. “I think that probably led to an added amount of investors. It was easy money for people at first.”

The epidemic of foreclosures has left some hard-hit neighborhoods in Placer County oddly quiet, with vacant homes and properties in disrepair, even when sale signs aren’t to be found.

“You don’t see them all when you drive through the neighborhoods,” said Jeff Medigovich, a Realtor who got out of the business when the market collapsed. “People don’t want the signs in their neighborhood. So what you got to look for is a lock box on the utilities. You could see five houses on neighborhood but there’s really 40.”

In the Doyle Ranch neighborhood across the road from Morgan Creek, at least 10 homes were in foreclosure on Tapederas Way. At one, a month-old newspaper yellows in the sun, while across the street the grass has turned an ugly brown. Another carries a sign taped it its door: the house was abandoned.

Still, all the bad news carries a silver lining. Hilton said prices for homes in Morgan Creek have been “phenomenal,” those who can obtain financing can purchase a home they might have been able only to dream about a few years ago.

“Prices are roughly 40 percent down from the peak and in some cases 50 percent,” he said.

Low-end properties are also going for a steal, Herb said.

“At no other time in my lifetime will opportunities be like this for first-time home buyers,” he said.

And despite the enormous spike in area foreclosures, Herb said the area still has strong qualities that make it better positioned to weather the storm. He said neighboring counties have been hit harder than Placer,

“We’re not going to be completely free of it,” he said. “But it isn’t hitting it as bad here (as some regions), mainly because the fact that we have a little wider employment base and I guess people want to live here.”