It's hard enough to find a place to rent in Honolulu during the peak summer months, but dozens of soon-to-be malihini like Kathy Falwell are trying to do it from thousands of miles away — without any luck.

Like Falwell, they've already accepted jobs or will start school in a couple of weeks and find themselves competing against kama'aina families and other new arrivals who are all scrambling to find rental units and get settled before Fall.

"It's like a bad game of musical chairs and I can't seem to get a seat," Falwell said from 4,200 miles away in New Orleans.

Falwell arrives in Honolulu on July 17 to work as an architectural historian researching Tripler Army Medical Center. Every time Falwell has inquired about a place to live on the Internet, it's either rented or she doesn't even get a response.

So if Falwell doesn't find some place — any place — when she steps off the jet, "I guess I'll sleep in the office and try to get somebody's sympathy."

Frank Brockerman started looking for an apartment — or even a room — six months ago from his home in Chico, Calif. and finally arrived two weeks ago still homeless. He has blunt advice for Falwell and all of the other frustrated newcomers peppering the Internet with their pleas for rental housing:

"Forget it," said Brockerman, who hopes to land a community college job teaching political science.

"You have to be on-island," he said. "It's a moot point to try and find anything unless you're here. I went on the Internet every day looking for a place to live but people want to meet you, which you can't from 3,000 miles away."

Brockerman, 29, slept on a mattress for a week in the Hawai'i Kai garage belonging to the family of a college friend. His second week on O'ahu, Brockerman finally got a bedroom for $500 in a house rented by three strangers who are now his roommates.

The average monthly rent on a partially furnished apartment in Honolulu this year jumped 28 percent from the same time last year — from $1,134 to $1,453, according to an analysis of classified listings compiled by local real estate consultant Ricky Cassiday.

At the same time, the average monthly rent on a partially furnished home jumped 27 percent — from $1,950 last year to $2,477.

Despite the increased prices, fewer condominiums and homes on the rental market mean that landlords and property managers can choose from as many as 50 applicants for a single unit, Cassiday said.

"It's higher than it has been and there's certainly more demand and more competition," Cassiday said. "I would say it would be hard to find a worse time to try and rent."

Conventional wisdom in the property management trade says that July 15 represents the annual peak of the industry, said Brett W. Schenk, who runs a rental finder service to help newcomers to the islands, www.rentalsearch hawaii.com.

But Schenk, a Realtor associate with Woodstock Properties, believes the worst of the season is still a few weeks away.

"July 15 is when everybody wants to check in or check out," Schenk said. "But I have found that the masses and hordes will get to the real panic stage from Aug. 1 to Aug. 15. By Aug. 1 you'll have 10 people standing on your doorstep. By Aug. 10 you'll have 10 more. And by Aug. 15 there'll be 30."

The crush of wannabe renters only fuels the stress levels of people like Cyntia Silva of Durham, North Carolina, whose husband, Alex, will start teaching this Fall at the University of Hawai'i.

"We're looking at everything by the Internet, but so far nothing," Cyntia said.

They currently rent a one-bedroom apartment in Durham for $500 but expect to pay as much as $1,500 for something smaller that's close to UH.

"For the price they're asking for a one bedroom, you can live very nicely over here," Cyntia said. "But we really don't know how expensive it's going to be because no one's talking to us."

The plight of potential renters who aren't even in the Islands yet only adds to Hawai'i's super heated rental market — which continues to shock kama'aina families like J.D. and Lisa Wriston.

They grew up on O'ahu, moved to the Mainland three years ago and couldn't believe the market when J.D. returned ahead of the family in May for a new job with Maui Divers.

"She's been stressing with the move, so I've tried to keep my frustrations to myself," J.D. said. "But it is stressful."

Lisa arrived two weeks ago and can't help thinking about their two-story, four bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house across a lake from New Orleans that they're selling for $215,000.

If they were listing the same home on O'ahu, Lisa said, "we could get $1 million easily."

In the meantime, they're all crammed into Lisa's three-bedroom, childhood home in Maunawili that belongs to her parents. Since one of the bedrooms has been converted into a den, their daughter Marisa, 16, and son Shaun, 12, sleep on a fold-out bed in the living room.

When they left Hawai'i for the Mainland, J.D. and Lisa had been renting the top half of a house in Kane'ohe for $1,750.

"It was a spectacular place but I thought we were paying too much," Lisa said. "Now I would pay $500 more a month to get it back and it would still be cheap."

When they returned, J.D. and Lisa had hoped to rent a three-bedroom home — preferably on the Windward side — for no more than $2,000 for them, their children and the family dog and cat.

Instead, they're now willing to pay as much as $2,500. Shaun has offered to give up a bedroom and sleep in the living room so that J.D. and Lisa can consider two-bedroom rentals.

The kids are willing to have the pets stay at their grandparents. And J.D. and Lisa are even looking on the other side of the island in 'Ewa Beach.

"Now that we've stretched our budget as high as $2,500, we still can't find a place," J.D. said. "That's a lot of money for rent but we've got to have a roof over our heads. One place we looked at we couldn't even fit our bed into what they were calling a bedroom."

J.D. and Lisa have a letter of recommendation from their old Kane'ohe landlord. A relative will guarantee their rent to their new landlord. And J.D., who majored in agriculture at UH-Hilo, has offered to do yard work and keep up with any repairs — just as he did in Kane'ohe.

But after filling out 20 applications and constantly being told that he's just one of 40 to 50 candidates, frustration is starting to give way to fear.

"It's getting scary now that our things are here on the docks and there's no place to put them," J.D. said. "I really don't want to have to pay rent just to store our stuff."

Newcomers like Janice Robinson of Canada refuse to be discouraged.

She arrives Aug. 3 from the Toronto area to work as a physical therapist at the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific and has no idea where she'll live.

Robinson, 28, went on the Internet looking for roommates in Honolulu "but I had a few scary encounters," she said. "Some very strange guys responded so now I'm trying to find my own place."

She had hoped to rent a one-bedroom apartment for $800 but is now prepared to pay as much as $1,000 for just a studio.

So far, no nibbles.

"I hear it's tricky," Robinson said. "But I'm coming for sure so I guess it's all a matter of luck."