The punishing wave of foreclosures hitting Americans has finally dropped for the first time in five years.

According to RealtyTrac, the number of U.S. households facing foreclosure fell in April by 2%, compared with the number of people foreclosed upon a year ago. The numbers don't put the housing market in the clear -- not by any stretch of the imagination. But it could signal the beginning of the end to what's been a long and arduous downward spiral in real estate.

RealtyTrac and other experts from Economy.com and elsewhere are still predicting that we could see 3 million or more foreclosure filings in the U.S. in 2010. That would come on top of 2.8 million foreclosure filings in the U.S. in 2009. RealtyTrac's foreclosure statistics count all types of foreclosure letters, including default notices, auction notices and bank repossessions.
Housing Problems Tied to Unemployment Woes

In any economic crisis, there are always "winners" and "losers" -- for lack of better terms. In the case of housing, the people losing their homes are sometimes seeing those homes sold or auctioned off to first-time home-buyers, investors or others eager to jump into a more affordable housing market.

Housing prices have dropped more than 20% in many parts of their country during the economic downturn. And more than 1 out of 8 homeowners in the country are now "underwater," meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. That has spelled opportunity for buyers, particularly when tied to the current low interest-rate environment.

However, one big challenge for all homeowners and would-be buyers is the job market. As unemployment has remained persistently high -- it's now officially at 9.9% and roughly 16.5% in the African American community -- the housing crisis has intensified. Recent employment data showed a slight improvement for Americans seeking work, as U.S. employers added 290,000 workers to the payrolls in April.

Let's hope that the latest data on foreclosures is also the beginning of a string of numbers showing that the worst of the foreclosure crisis is truly coming to an end.

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Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, an award-winning financial news journalist and former Wall Street Journal reporter for CNBC, has also been featured in top newspapers, including the Washington Post, USA Today, and the New York Times, as well as magazines ranging from Essence and Redbook to Black Enterprise and Smart Money. Check out her New York Times best seller 'Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom.'