CNN this week named Myrtle Beach one of 10 cities with the fastest-growing foreclosure rates in the country.

With a 44 percent increase in foreclosures last year from 2009, Myrtle Beach was third behind Spartanburg and Albuquerque, N.M.

Spartanburg had a 228 percent increase in foreclosures in 2010, when compared with 2009.

Cities such as Las Vegas and states such as California and Florida still have higher foreclosure rates than many of those that made the list.

In 2010 the Myrtle Beach area had about 3,896 foreclosure filings, or about one for every 44 homes, according to RealtyTrac, a national company that tracks foreclosures.

Nationally in 2010 about 2.23 percent of all housing units, or one in 45, received at least one foreclosure filing. The CNN report cited high unemployment and a tourism industry hit hard by the economic downturn as causes for the high foreclosure rates.

Tom Maeser, a real estate analyst with the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors, said that the area likely made the list because of the high proportion of second home or investor owners. About two thirds of properties in the area are owned by investors or as a second home.

“An investor has no emotional ties. Once the value gets lower than the mortgage…they just let it go into foreclosure,” he said.