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According to RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed properties, there were 306,627 foreclosure filings last month, making November the fourth straight month of decline (3% drop in October, 4% in September and 1% in August).  Nearly 307,000 households received a foreclosure-related notice in November, and banks repossessed about 77,000 homes last month.  Foreclosure filings were still up 18 percent from a year ago, and a new wave is expected next year as unemployment stays high and borrowers default out of loan modification programs.  "This is providing a welcome respite for the real estate industry, but a full recovery will only come when unemployment recedes to normal, healthy levels and when availability of credit reaches a more rational balance between the extremes of the past few years," RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said.  RealtyTrac spokesman Rick Sharga isn't convinced the decline is a natural outgrowth of improved market conditions.  "I really don't believe we're looking at a trend that suggests the problem is going away," he said. "Much of the drop was artificially induced."  He attributes the stabilization to mandatory mediation programs that some states have introduced. For example, in Nevada, where filings have declined for three months in a row, lenders are required to go through mediation with borrowers before moving forward with foreclosure documents. In many cases, Sharga said, these programs just delay the inevitable.  The "sand states" -- Nevada, Florida, California and Arizona -- continued to amass the largest numbers of foreclosure filings with Nevada the hardest hit state of all. One of every 119 households had a filing in November, nearly four times the national average of one for every 417.