Home foreclosures have soared across the country, causing ownership to hit the lowest levels in a decade.

Bloomberg News Service reported the number of foreclosures will probably top one million this year. About 18.9 million homes stood empty in the second quarter, the news service said. That helped push the number of new home sales last month to the second-lowest on record.

The combined number of foreclosures and home loan delinquencies affects about one in every seven U.S. mortgages.

A record 4.6 percent of U.S. mortgages were in foreclosure in the first three months of 2010, according to a May report by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Patrick Newport, an economist with IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., said when people lose their homes, they move in with family members or rent a place to live.