The foreclosure rates continue to climb, and Bay County isn't being spared.

We are looking well over a 100% increase in foreclosures from April and May of 2007.

Last April in Bay County, there were 74 residential foreclosures and this year, it topped out at 161. And, it gets worse.

In May of last year, we had 72 foreclosures. This May, we had a whopping 174. That’s 335 in two months!

Panama City Attorney Michael Reiter, who defends homeowners facing foreclosures, says his business is booming right now.

However, when we showed him the number of foreclosures in Bay County, even Reiter was taken aback.

He says he knew the number of foreclosures had increased, but didn't realize it was more than a 100% jump.

He says you can't just blame one person for the housing crisis. "These aren't the ‘our father's’ mortgages and if the ‘I think the responsibility goes to all the party's involved’, including the consumers, the originators, the brokers, the people who did the appraisals, people who did the bonds, the investors, but I believe it was all originated by the greed."

Reiter not only defends people in foreclosures, but he also deals with Chapter 13 bankruptcies and says in the last six months, those have doubled also.