You'd think a 33 percent jump in home foreclosures would be sign of a deeper downturn for the Dallas-Fort Worth housing market.

But the surge in foreclosure postings for next month has more to do with how the calendar falls than more woes for borrowers.

Last July, the county foreclosure auctions were scheduled for the day before Independence Day, so many lenders took a holiday.

That's made July foreclosures this year – which are set for the first – look abnormally high. Even so, the 3,747 area homes set for foreclosure next month is high.

"We are not at those record levels we saw [last year] when we were over 4,000 a month," said George Roddy, president of Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service, which tracks North Texas sales. "But I think this is where it's going to stay for a while. And we are still at a very unhealthy level of foreclosures."

Many of the loans in default are subprime mortgages with rising payments.

A year ago, only about 2,800 D-FW homes were set for foreclosure because of the July 4 holiday – 25 percent less than the previous month.

The foreclosure postings for this July are actually down 2 percent from June. July foreclosures are down in Dallas and Denton counties and flat in Collin County compared with June.

Even so, almost 29,000 homes have been posted for foreclosure in the area so far this year, according to Foreclosure Listing Service, up 22 percent from 2007.

Between 50 percent and 60 percent of the monthly foreclosure postings result in an actual forced sale of the property. The sales are delayed, or the borrower can reach a new agreement with the lender.