A rising number of Valley residents and businesses threw in the towel last month, filing nearly twice as many bankruptcy petitions in December compared with the previous year.

Total filings in metro Phoenix, primarily from consumers, increased 97 percent in December, driven by a surge in Chapter 7 liquidations related to real-estate problems and a softening job market. "There's obviously an impact from the downturn in the housing market, subprime-loan problems and the increase in foreclosures," said Chris Bayley, a partner focusing on bankruptcies at Phoenix law firm Snell & Wilmer.

"All that impacts us harder than the nation as a whole."

It was the third straight month when the number of filings in the Valley topped 700, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix reported.

Chapter 13 filings, which involve reorganizations rather than liquidations, also rose but not nearly as briskly.

Chapter 7 petitions accounted for three-quarters of all petitions locally and statewide last year. They allow for a discharge of debts and a fresh start.

For the year, Phoenix-area filings jumped 63 percent, to 7,204. Bankruptcies throughout Arizona also rose 63 percent, to 10,570 in 2007.

"We're seeing people with fewer options," said Mike Sullivan, director of education at Phoenix debt-counseling firm Take Charge America. "The debt load is so heavy for so many people."

Nationally, consumer-oriented filings jumped 40 percent, to 801,840 last year from 573,203 in 2006, according to data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center.

The 2007 increase "presages even higher filings this year, as the heavy consumer-debt load is made worse by the home-mortgage crisis," predicted Samuel Gerdano, executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute.

The weakening job market is exerting an effect, as well, with the nation's unemployment rate rising to a two-year high of 5 percent in December from 4.7 percent in November.

Bayley said he thinks lenders may intensify foreclosure efforts in coming weeks in keeping with seasonal trends from prior years.

"Many financial institutions don't want to recognize too many losses before year-end," he said, adding that debt-strapped consumers sometimes delay bankruptcy filings until the holidays pass and after the start of a new year.

Sullivan said his firm is fielding an unusually high volume of calls this time of year from debt-strapped consumers, which he called ominous.

"It's still early in the cycle," he said. "A lot of credit-card bills from Christmas expenditures still haven't arrived yet."