The number of homes listed for sale by the York County Sheriff’s Office has fallen for the second consecutive auction.

But that might not signal the end of foreclosure worries for the area.

There have been 16 percent fewer sales listed this year than during the same period in 2010. That means 91 fewer homes, with the number dropping from 547 to 456.

There were also slightly fewer listings when April’s sale, scheduled for April 11, is compared to the most recent sale, in February. There are 227 sales listed for the April sale, and 229 for the last sale.

Last April, there were 300 listings, said Belinda Feeser, who organizes the sheriff’s sales.

There is also a corresponding drop in the number of foreclosure filings processed at the office of York County Prothonotary Pam Lee.

While the number of foreclosures filed at her office has doubled since 2004,

jumping from 1,028 to 2,080, they have been slowing in recent months.

There were 127 foreclosures filed in January and 102 filed in February, the lowest the number has been since 2007, Lee said.

A trend? But Lee — echoing area housing professionals — has warned that the current slowdown might not be permanent.

Lee said the numbers started slowing last fall, after the “robo-signing” scandal broke and there was increased scrutiny on foreclosure documents. It was revealed that some loan servicers had been pushing the documents through without even reading them first.

“They had one attorney listed as signing more foreclosure verifications than was humanly possible for one day,” Lee said.

When lenders become adequately staffed and start to deal with the mounting paperwork that’s delaying foreclosures, there could be an influx, she said.

The number of foreclosures is likely to continue to increase for at least a couple of years because of adjustable-rate mortgages that were still being written in 2008, she said.

Commonly called ARMS, they throw some homeowners into default when they adjust and the monthly payment jumps five years after the mortgage was issued.

–Reach Christina Kauffman at 505-5436, ckauffman@yorkdispatch.com, or follow her on Twitter at @dispatchbizwiz.