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Steve Chiotakis: If you look hard at the latest statistics on home foreclosures out this morning, you can see a glimmer of hope. But you’ll find it in the middle of a lot of other numbers that are much more sobering for the economy’s future. From Washington, Marketplace’s John Dimsdale has the latest.

John Dimsdale: To accentuate the positive, there are signs that efforts by lenders to modify troubled mortgages may be slowing the spread of foreclosures. The online real estate database RealtyTrac reports today that in August, bank repossessions of homes dropped 13 percent from July. Also, RealtyTrac’s Rick Sharga says new foreclosure filings dropped last month, but only slightly.

Rick Sharga: The real news is that we nearly set yet another record for foreclosure activity in August. We’re only off by 1 percent from the record level set in July and still up over 18 percent over August from a year ago. So the trends continue to go in the wrong direction.

One in every 357 homes in the country dropped into foreclosure last month. Once again, Nevada, Florida and California topped the list. Sharga says banks and real estate companies are overwhelmed with the sheer volume of foreclosure processing.

In Washington, I’m John Dimsdale for Marketplace.