Home foreclosures could be on a downward trend in the five-county Pittsburgh region.

The combined foreclosure rate for the five counties for the first part of the year -- Jan. 1 to June 14 -- was down 24.1 percent from the same period last year.

If that pace continues, it would be the third year in a row that the foreclosure rate has dropped.

Daniel Murrer, vice president of real estate information service RealSTATS which compiled the numbers, said government efforts to prevent foreclosures could be having an impact, although he questioned the effectiveness of those programs.

Local foreclosures seemed to have peaked in 2006 when 4,319 properties were taken in the region. The numbers had steadily climbed since 2000 when just 1,744 properties faced foreclosure.

This year so far, the region has had 1,531 foreclosures in the first 51/2 months.

In a year-to-date comparison, foreclosure rates are down for Allegheny, Beaver, Butler and Westmoreland counties.

Only Washington County is above the pace it set at the beginning of last year with 4.8 percent more homes in foreclosure than at the comparable period in 2008.

In all of 2008, there were 3,949 residential foreclosures in the region, a drop of 6.6 percent from 2007.