STOCKTON, Calif. -- A new report says Bakersfield was No. 4 in the nation in foreclosure activity in the third quarter of this year. Stockton ranked No. 1.

Metro areas were ranked based on the percentage of their housing units that had a foreclosure filing in July, August or September.

The Bakersfield metro area, which includes all of Kern County, had the fourth-highest rate of filings nationwide behind the Stockton, Las Vegas and Riverside/San Bernardino areas, RealtyTrac found.

More than 2.5 percent of Bakersfield’s housing units received some type of foreclosure filing during the third quarter, the report found. The Bakersfield area had 6,786 total foreclosure filings in that quarter.

California alone accounted for more than 27 percent of the nation’s foreclosure activity, according to RealtyTrac.

Nationwide, foreclosure filings -- default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions -- were reported on 265,968 properties in September. The good news: that's a 12 percent decrease from the previous month. The bad news: that number is a 21 percent increase from September 2007, according to RealtyTrac.

One in every 475 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing in September, according to RealtyTrac data.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 765,558 U.S. properties nationwide during the third quarter, up more than 3 percent from the second quarter and up 71 percent from the third quarter of 2007, according to RealtyTrac.