Hawaii foreclosures soared above 1,000 for the third time in four months and distressed property rates on the Big Island and Maui were above the national average for March and for the first quarter, RealtyTrac reported today.

A total of 1,097 Hawaii properties received foreclosure notices last month, according to RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure marketplace. The number of March foreclosures represented a nearly 52 percent rise from the year-ago month and pushed Hawaii's first-quarter tally up by more than 111 percent to 3,286. Still, March's increase was the lowest of the past 15 months and “;most of the foreclosures were in the last stage, indicating that Hawaii could be hitting a peak,”; said Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac's marketing manager.

“;We are continuing to see foreclosure increases, but not as dramatically as we were last year,”; Blomquist said, adding that he expects this pattern will remain through this year.

March foreclosures, which equated to one in every 468 Hawaii properties, were better than the national rate of one per 352 households, but the advantage narrowed for the quarter. One out of every 156 Hawaii properties was in foreclosure in January, February and March compared with one out of every 138 properties in the U.S.

Blomquist expects that rising unemployment and economic woes will continue to spread foreclosure problems to more local and higher-end neighborhoods throughout Hawaii. The broad range of foreclosure hot spots shows that the problem has moved past Hawaii's second-home markets and neighborhoods where more buyers took out risky loans, he said.

“;The distribution shows that no one is immune. The foreclosure problem is not just centered in the original places where it started out,”; he said. “;It's based on factors like unemployment that affect wider swaths of the population.”;

Although the Big Island's Kailua-Kona continued to be the state's foreclosure ground zero, six Oahu ZIP codes made it into RealtyTrac's Top 10 list of foreclosure hot spots—Ewa Beach, Waianae, Kapolei, Waipahu, Mililani and Kaneohe. Maui's Kihei and Lahaina, Kauai's Kaumakani and the Big Island's Waikoloa were also on the list.

Quarterly foreclosure hot spots included the Big Island's Kailua-Kona, Waikaloa and Pahoa. Haiku led the list of hot spots on Maui, which also included Kihei and Lahaina. Ewa Beach, which was joined by Waianae, Waipahu and Mililani, led Oahu's hot spots.

While the neighbor islands went into a deep foreclosure cycle first, Oahu is catching up, said Kalama Kim, area office leader and senior vice president for Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties.

On Oahu, as many as 17.6 percent of active listed single-family homes and 22 percent of those in escrow were either short sales or bank-owned, Kim said.

“;One out of five properties will close as a short sale or a bank-owned property,”; he said.

That's a problem for all of Oahu since these properties tend to depress neighborhood prices, Kim said.

For example, on average, properties sold through the MLS (multiple listing service) this year traded for 95.4 percent of the tax-assessed value, he said. However, on average, buyers of short sales paid 78.7 percent of the tax-assessed value and buyers of REOs (bank-owned properties) only paid 74 percent, Kim said.

Unfortunately, this cycle could continue for a while, said John Riggins of John Riggins Real Estate. While government programs, including the new Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program, have provided distressed owners with options, few have been able to take advantage of them, Riggins said.

“;Only 200,000 of the 1.1 million or so people who have applied for loan modifications have gotten them,”; he said. “;People don't understand their options and in many cases they have simply given up.”;