Foreclosures are still pouring into the market and are set to flood the system over the next year – and that is just the new ones. The tremendous backlog of existing residential foreclosures in the system that have been initiated over the past five years still exists and could take, according to analysts, a long time to clear.

Like decades.

That is the latest study from LPS Applied Analytics, a real estate consultant that calculated the approximate time required to fully process and sell foreclosed homes in various states across the country. On average, the housing market will need at least eight years for 2.1 million homes that are already in foreclosure or are delinquent. But when broken down state by state, the impacts are much more dramatic.

Take New York, for example. One of the most affected states in the country when it comes to foreclosures, New York has roughly 217,350 home foreclosures in the pipeline (which includes foreclosures waiting to be sold and homes that are at least 90 days delinquent). At a monthly sale rate of 317 foreclosure listings, this backlog – assuming no other properties are added – would take a staggering 57 years to sell.

This is because New York is a judicial foreclosure state that requires an extensive judicial process before a foreclosure can be completed. Other judicial states, like New Jersey, have similar waiting periods (New Jersey’s is 52 years long). Plus, states have largely cracked down on overprocessing and fraudulent mortgage-servicing practices, which have drawn out the process even further. This is the case for Maryland, which is number 4 with 21 years worth of homes.

D.C. is second with 57 years; Connecticut (20), Vermont (18), Maine (16), Illinois (10), Hawaii (10), and North Dakota (9) round out the top 10.

By contrast, Arizona, Wyoming, and Nevada had the lowest processing times in the country, under two years for all three states and under 18 months for the first two.

Calculations for this study may not have even taken into account homes that are not 90 days delinquent but fit the profile of future foreclosures. Such a number just adds to the backlog, which serves to keep home values lower than they normally would be otherwise and prolongs the foreclosure crisis.

Solutions at this stage would necessarily involve some sort of government-sponsored foreclosure purchase plan available to investors, similar to a private-public partnership proposed by the Obama administration in August. Whether or not one is enacted before the 2012 elections run their course is difficult to project.

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Written by Alex Rolim.