The number of completed foreclosures in Mesa County more than tripled in September of this year compared to September 2008, according to a report released Thursday by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs.

Mesa County had 12 completed foreclosures in September last year and 38 this September, according to the department.

Meanwhile, the county had 127 filings for foreclosure, which shows there are many more people who enter and successfully emerge from foreclosure than lose their homes, said Ryan McMaken, a Local Affairs spokesman.

From August to September this year, Mesa County’s completed foreclosures went from 26 to 38.

For Colorado’s largest counties, foreclosure sales at auction fell 5 percent when comparing September of this year to September of 2008.

But when comparing foreclosure sales at auction from August to September of this year, they rose by 21 percent.

Across the state, new foreclosure filings are up 72 percent year over year, but down 0.5 percent from August to September of 2009, according to the Department of Local Affairs.

The foreclosure wave that swept across the country had, for a time, avoided Grand Junction, but, McMaken said, “That doesn’t seem to be true anymore. Mesa County should expect to be affected by the same things that have affected the rest of the state in the short to medium term.”

That is not to say the foreclosure knife will cut as deep here as it has elsewhere, mainly because the state’s and the country’s economies are starting to show signs of recovery, he added.

“You don’t necessarily have to go through the same stuff everyone else went through,” he said.

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