RALEIGH - Record numbers of homeowners in the Triangle and North Carolina were threatened with losing their homes through foreclosures last year.

Foreclosure proceedings were filed against 6,451 homeowners in Wake, Durham, Orange and Johnston counties last year, up 4.5 percent from 2005. Statewide, foreclosure filings jumped 6.1 percent to a high of 45,512 during that period. And this year's numbers could be even worse, experts say.

"It's horrible," said Shawn Kornegay, whose Knightdale home was sold at auction in January.

Foreclosure filings don't always end up with owners losing their homes. Foreclosure filings, which are recorded at courthouses around the state, mean that a lender has gone to court claiming that a borrower is behind in payments. The lender wants the house to be sold to pay the debt, but the homeowner can prevent that by refinancing, filing for bankruptcy or making back payments.

Because proceedings can be stopped many ways, statistics aren't available on how many foreclosure filings result in owners losing their homes. But some housing experts say more than 50 percent end up with owners losing their homes.

In Wake County, which had the majority of the Triangle's foreclosures, at least 40 percent of homeowners in foreclosure are estimated to lose their homes, said Lynne Murray, a former assistant clerk of Superior Court who handled foreclosure cases for 18 years.

The number of people who actually lose their homes has risen, Murray said. About 25 percent of foreclosures resulted in people losing their homes in the 1990s, she said.

"People weren't borrowing as much money then," she said. "It was easier to work things out."

Kornegay, 30, got behind on $880-a-month payments when her marriage broke up. Her husband had taken out an interest-only loan at 8 percent interest. When he left, she couldn't qualify for a new loan to make the payments.

"I had to come up with $4,000 in 48 hours," she said.

Kornegay, who works as a call center customer representative and is the mother of two girls, ages 2 and 11, was also having trouble coming up with the big deposit that many apartment complexes wanted.

She settled into a $675-a-month apartment in Raleigh after the landlord agreed to spread the $1,300 deposit over two months. "It's a new start," Kornegay said.

But "losing my home ... is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You have to uproot your family; you have to start over."

The surge in foreclosure filings shows a downside of the housing boom that powered the national economy through the economic downturn at the beginning of the decade.

Fueling the boom were the lowest interest rates in a generation, many on variable rate mortgages at 3.5 percent or lower.

Homes offered opportunities for first-time buyers, and in many markets, began appreciating rapidly. Buyers and speculators rushed to buy bigger homes or flip homes for a quick profit.

But a succession of rate increases by federal policymakers slowed the housing market.

Though home prices are dropping in many areas, the Triangle, which experienced slow but steady growth in sales and appreciation, was largely spared. As a result, Triangle foreclosure filings have increased more slowly than in many other parts of the country.

Nationally, foreclosure filings were up 42 percent in 2006 compared with 2005, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties.

In December, Colorado had the highest foreclosure rate, with one new filing for every 376 households. North Carolina was 26th nationally, with one filing per 2,794 households, RealtyTrac said.

In North Carolina, Mecklenburg County had the highest annual concentration of foreclosures, with 35 filings per 1,000 homeowners.

The Triangle had 20.5 filings per 1,000 households. The local breakdown by county:

* Orange -- 9.5 per 1,000 homeowners

* Wake -- 19.5 per 1,000 homeowners

* Johnston -- 23 per 1,000 homeowners

* Durham -- 27.8 per 1,000 homeowners

Although the Triangle has not seen the same increases in foreclosures as the rest of the state, the same factors are at work here: high-interest, interest-only and adjustable-rate subprime mortgages.

There will be more fallout. This year through Feb. 14, foreclosure filings were up 4.4 percent statewide and 1.8 percent in Wake, Durham, Orange and Johnston counties compared with the year-ago period, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts.

Consumer advocates say lenders often tell borrowers they can refinance before their monthly payments go up. But many people find out they don't qualify for refinancing or can't afford the penalties charged for paying off their first loan early.

"There are people stretching to buy homes they can't afford," said Ellen Schloemer, director of the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending in Durham. "But in many cases, it's people going to mortgage brokers who said they can get them into a bigger home with an adjustable rate mortgage." Lenders offer low introductory teaser rates, she said, that are soon replaced by much higher rates. "The burden is on the consumer to make the right decision, but mortgages aren't the simplest thing in the world," she said. "Sometimes that's kind of challenging."

Subprime mortgages are a particular problem. They offer consumers with credit problems who can't qualify for traditional loans a chance to own a home, but they also carry much higher interest rates. In Wake, subprime loans make up 10 percent of mortgage loans, Schloemer said.

Rates on the subprime loans might begin at 7.5 percent and adjust to 12 percent in a few years. When that happens, monthly payments can jump from $700 to $1,200, said Mal Maynard, director of Wilmington's Financial Protection Law Center. "For a lot of people, it exceeds their household income," Maynard said.

But the new mortgage options hurt more than just those with lower incomes.

Many middle-class buyers bought homes with an adjustable rate mortgage, hoping to turn a quick profit or move into a bigger home. In 2004, rates of 3.5 percent were commonplace, but those rates have adjusted upward to 5.5 percent. That means the payment on a $250,000 home went from $730 a month to $1,145. Some owners can't afford that. And those who opted for interest-only mortgages owned houses with little or no equity.

Ed Best, who tracks foreclosures in Orange, Durham and Alamance counties on his Web site, Trianglepreforeclosures.com, saw a half dozen $800,000 to $1 million homes in foreclosure last year.

"It's not just the middle class, it's the upper middle class in the same thing," said Dan Gabrielli, who tracks Wake foreclosure filings on his Web site, ePreForeclosures.com. Gabrielli said he sees foreclosure proceedings on 10 to 15 homes worth $300,000 or more each month, double the number in 2003 and about a fifth of current filings.

Gabrielli said about 80 percent of the homes being foreclosed on have no built-up equity.

"The rise in foreclosures ... is not a bad credit story," said Gordon Miller, founder of DNJ Mortgage in Cary. "It's a bad investment story, a greedy investment. ... Real estate speculation became the ... [dot-com bust] of the 1990s. The rates got so low, nobody thought about tomorrow. Everybody ran to the free money and said, 'I'll get rich quick.' Now the rates have gone up, they get behind, and next thing you know, you lose your house."

Miller and other housing experts say foreclosures haven't peaked yet because the initial term on many variable rate loans is just starting to expire. When that happens, rates and monthly payments on more mortgages will rise and so will foreclosures. "There's no option out there to save them with low rates," he said. "The Federal Reserve has driven all these rates up."

(News researcher Paulette Stiles contributed to this report.)