State’s households stay out of foreclosure

Rate is up in Hawaii, but not as much as in other states

While more than 1 percent of all U.S. households went into foreclosure in 2007, the rate for Hawaii was far less, data released yesterday indicates.

Although Hawaii's foreclosure activity jumped in December 2007, the state ended the year with only 0.197 percent of its households in foreclosure, according to a survey by the research firm RealtyTrac.

Hawaii had only 130 foreclosures in December and 1,270 for the year, ranking the state 43rd in the nation.

Still, Hawaii's foreclosure activity increased by 88.71 percent for the year, faster than the nationwide increase of 75 percent.

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Hawaii's foreclosure rate jumped in December, but the state is faring relatively well compared with the rest of the nation.

Hawaii had 130 foreclosure filings in December, up 202.3 percent from the same month in 2006, according to a nationwide survey released yesterday by research firm RealtyTrac. The state's monthly foreclosure rate also increased 15 percent from November, the survey found.

Nationally, December foreclosures increased 6.8 percent from the previous month and 96.8 percent year-over-year as consumers continued to default on loans and lenders continued to keep to tighter underwriting standards, according to RealtyTrac.

But for the year, Hawaii ranked near the bottom in the nation: 43rd out of the 50 states. RealtyTrac reported a total of 1,270 foreclosure filings in Hawaii in 2007. Hawaii's 2007 filings represented an 88.7 percent increase from 2006 and a 60.4 percent decrease from 2005.

A total of 215,749 foreclosures were reported nationwide in December, pushing fourth-quarter filings to their highest quarterly level since RealtyTrac began issuing its reports in January 2005, said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.

It also pushed the national foreclosure filing total for 2007 to well more than 2 million, Saccacio said.

Nevada, Florida and Michigan posted the top foreclosure rates in 2007 along with California, Colorado, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona, Illinois and Indiana.

Unless lender and government intervention efforts begin to gain more traction, more properties could enter into default in 2008, Saccacio said.

More than 1 percent of all U.S. households -- up from 0.6 in 2006 -- were in some stage of foreclosure during the year, he said. In Hawaii, only 0.197 percent of households were in foreclosure last year.