Hawaii moved into the No. 2 slot nationwide for the percentage of homes for sale with discounted asking prices, according to the latest research from real estate search engine Trulia.com.

While Trulia has begun to see lower levels of nationwide price reductions, Hawaii was one of five states where sellers and buyers continued to disagree more frequently on a fair home price, said Ken Shuman, Trulia company spokesman.

“;About one in four homes has been discounted in Hawaii,”; Shuman said, adding that results for Hawaii and Maryland were tied.

Prices for 24 percent of Hawaii's active inventory were reduced at least once between March 1, 2009, and March 1, 2010, he said. The only areas with a higher percentage of discount inventory than Hawaii and Maryland were Arizona, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., where 25 percent of active listings dropped prices, Shuman said.

About 19 percent of homes nationwide took at least one price cut, which represented a 10 percent fall in reduction levels from the prior month and marked the first time that price reduction levels fell below 20 percent, he said.

“;The average discount in Hawaii is 13 percent—that's rather high,”; Shuman said “;Nationwide, state discounts are averaging around 10 percent.”;

The average seller priced their home in Hawaii at $797,895, the highest list price in the nation, according to Trulia. However, Hawaii sellers who dropped their asking price on average had “;to chop more than $100,000 off of the price”; to get their homes sold, Shuman said.

By comparison, homeowners in Massachusetts, where the average home price was $478,000, lost about $40,000 to reductions, Shuman said.

In the aftermath of the U.S. recession and global financial crisis, higher-priced markets like Hawaii have had to make the largest price cuts to move inventory, Shuman said.

“;Hawaii has been one of the top five hardest-hit markets for the last three months,”; he said, adding that the state moved up in the rankings from fifth in January and third in February.

Discounting in Honolulu—which enjoyed less investment, resort and second-home buying than the neighbor island markets during the last upswing—applied to less than one in five homes, Shuman said. As of March 1 about 20 percent of Honolulu real estate listings marketed on Trulia.com sometime during the past year had dropped prices. The average price reduction was 8 percent.

As a result, Honolulu ranked 33rd out of 50 large cities whose price reductions were tracked. Last month, Honolulu ranked 41st on the same list.

Nationwide, Trulia reported that $21.6 billion was slashed from metro home prices and that the average discount was 11 percent off the original listing price. In comparison, Hawaii lost $334.6 million and Honolulu lost $25.1 million.

While Honolulu's price reductions essentially remained unchanged, Trulia reported that many major metros across the U.S. have seen a steady easing of price reductions.