Fewer people were hit with bank notices this summer in foreclosure-pummeled Florida, California and Nevada, even as foreclosure filings rose across the rest of the nation, according to a quarterly report by a real-estate research company.

The number of homes entering foreclosure increased 2 percent nationally from the second to third quarter but fell 6 percent in Florida. Even on a monthly basis, as new filings fell nationwide in September from the month before, new foreclosures were down more sharply in Florida than elsewhere in the country.

``That would be the first step toward a shift in a trend,'' said Daren Blomquist, market analyst for RealtyTrac, the Irvine, Calif., company that produces the report. ``As those numbers go down, you'll see fewer properties going through the entire foreclosure process.''

Though it's difficult to know what is behind the decrease, he added, factors could include federal incentives to increase ``short sales'' of troubled properties and mortgage modifications of problem loans.

Florida still has a long way to go, Blomquist said, because property values continue to decline and the state still has plenty of homes in the foreclosure pipeline. The Sunshine State ranked fourth in the nation during the third quarter in terms of the proportion of households in foreclosure, with one in every 158 housing units in some stage of the process. For most of the past year, the state has ranked in the top five nationally.

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