It's the one word homeowners fear more than any other.

Foreclosure.

The story is the same every year: Counties across the country hold sheriff sales, pawning off unpaid-for properties to the highest bidder.

But if the pain is worst for the evicted homeowner, the banks that doled out the failed loans aren't far behind. And as the country is fast finding out, the economy as a whole is a close third.

First the bad news. More than 1.4 million homeowners nationwide lost their homes to foreclosure last year, marking a 75 percent jump from 2006. Experts blame subprime lending -- the practice, essentially, of loaning beyond homeowners' financial means -- as the culprit.

Over the past five years, the number of subprime loans have skyrocketed. They now comprise 20 percent of the mortgage market.

If you're looking for a reason why the economy is slumping, experts say you needn't look further than the dismal housing market.

Now some good news. Foreclosures in the four-county area are a mixed bag. In Union and Northumberland counties, foreclosures are up fairly dramatically.

Union County foreclosures have climbed more than 300 percent since 2003, while Northumberland County foreclosures are up about 30 percent since 2004.

Foreclosures dropped in Snyder County in 2007, and Montour County's 2007 numbers are exactly the same as they were in 2003.

Mortgage lending makes up a sizeable portion of his business, said Donald Steele, president and chief executive officer of Northumberland National Bank.

In 2007, his bank granted 741 home loans. Steele said Northumberland National deals with just a handful of foreclosures each year, and most of those come from failed investments.

Landlords who have run out of revenue from tenants foreclose far more than families, Steele said.

"As I look at where we've had problems, that's primarily where they've come from," he said. "It's generally not a case of people not being able to afford the homes they're living in."

As a family owned local bank, Northumberland National doesn't deal with subprime loans, Steele said. That's fortunate, he said, because foreclosures can affect the value of entire neighborhoods.