Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- New foreclosures rose 50 percent in New York City and more than doubled in Seattle in October from a year earlier as falling prices and stricter mortgage standards kept homeowners from selling or refinancing, PropertyShark.com said.

Foreclosures increased 35 percent in Miami and 11 percent in Los Angeles, according to PropertyShark, a Brooklyn-based online seller of real estate data. The New York increase came from defaults in the borough of Queens, which had 12 of the city's top 15 ZIP codes with the most foreclosures, the company said.

``The economy is on the decline and exotic mortgages are resetting,'' Bill Staniford, chief executive officer of PropertyShark, said in an interview. ``Credit was available too freely, and that caused inflation of demand and overdevelopment.''

A recession that began in the third quarter is deepening the housing slump and adding to mortgage defaults as companies shed jobs, according to Jay Brinkmann, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association. Home prices fell 5.9 percent in August from a year earlier, the biggest drop since 1991, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The U.S. median sale price declined the most on record, the National Association of Realtors reported Sept. 24.

PropertyShark defines a foreclosure as a property scheduled for auction for the first time. In October, Los Angeles led with 2,389, followed by Miami with 861, New York City with 336 and Seattle with 150. The company compiles its data from published default records, Staniford said.

U.S. foreclosure filings rose to a record in the third quarter as 765,558 properties got a default notice, were warned of a pending auction or were foreclosed on, according to Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dan Levy in San Francisco at dlevy13@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 4, 2008 16:35 EST