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SANTA FE — Before the foreclosure crunch really started to hit the nation about six months ago, finance counselors at United South Broadway Corp. in Albuquerque received about three calls a month from people looking for advice.

Now, the phone rings 20 times a day with calls from all over New Mexico, said the group's executive director, Diana Dorn-Jones.

"We've been doing lots of foreclosure counseling," she said. "Lots and lots and lots of it."

While the increase in calls indicates New Mexico has not been spared from the nation's mortgage crisis, the state still has fewer foreclosures than the rest of the nation, according to recent figures released by the prominent foreclosure tracking database, Realtytrac.com.

In fact, the number of homes foreclosed in New Mexico in October was lower than the national average.

Nationally, one in 555 homes, or 224,451 homes, were foreclosed, compared with one in 1,747, or 480, in the state in October, according to Realtytrac.com.

Foreclosure happens when a bank sends a notice to a mortgage holder that a house will be repossessed by the bank for nonpayment. In recent months, many of those foreclosures have been linked to higher monthly payments coming due in the subprime mortgage market.

Although October figures have put New Mexico in a better position than some other areas of the country, there are indicators of concern.

Between July 2006 and June of this year, Valencia County had been about twice the national average in foreclosure rates, according to figures from Realtytrac.

New Mexico has also seen its foreclosure rate rise. Since October 2006, foreclosures in the state have gone up about 44 percent. Nationally, they've gone up 94 percent since last year, according to Realtytrac.

And the worst might be yet to come for New Mexico.

"Our Consumer Division keeps track of this stuff, and all the trends they are looking at say it's finally going to hit New Mexico in the next couple of years," said Phil Sisneros, spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office.

That's in part, experts say, because the once-popular adjustable rate mortgages are starting to rise -------------- at a time when housing values are going down.

"You're going to be getting a higher payment, and your home is worth less," he said.

Valencia County, just south of Bernalillo County, in recent years has seen a boom in new housing that generally is more affordable than in many parts of Albuquerque.

It's also home to many subprime loans, mortgages given to residents who don't qualify for the lowest interest rates, typically because of bad credit history. The subprime mortgages often end up being more expensive per month than at-market rates.

"If we look at Valencia County and what the poverty rate is and the increase in what's supposed to be affordable housing, it's a perfect storm for people to lose their houses," said Ona Porter, executive director of Community Action New Mexico, an Albuquerque group that works to help low-income New Mexicans save for a house.

A similar storm is brewing on Albuquerque's West Side, Porter said, for many of the same reasons.

That's why organizers of an upcoming event to teach the public about avoiding foreclosure chose the West Mesa Community Center as the location for a workshop on Saturday, Dorn-Jones said.

Until then, she'll keep fielding the phone calls and helping as many borrowers as she can.

While going into foreclosure can be tough for the homeowners, it can also affect neighbors, she said.

"You may not be in trouble, but when five, six, seven homes on your block are foreclosed, your value goes down, and you haven't done anything wrong," she said.