Hawai'i improved one spot on a national home-foreclosure ranking in November, though foreclosure activity was still higher than it was in the same month last year.

There were 113 foreclosure filings last month in Hawai'i, a 53 percent increase over 74 filings in November 2006, according to California-based real estate research firm RealtyTrac.

But at one filing per 4,346 households, the state's foreclosure rate was seventh-lowest in the nation, down from eighth-lowest in October.

In November 2006, Hawai'i was 10th-lowest in foreclosure filings.

Nationally, foreclosures rose 68 percent to 201,950 last month compared with a year earlier, and equated to one filing per 617 households.

The highest rate was in Nevada, where there were 6,694 filings, or one per 152 households. The lowest rate was in Vermont, where there were six filings, or one per 51,224 households.

Compared with earlier this year, Hawai'i's jump in filings was the smallest since May, when filings decreased 1.5 percent. In five months this year, Hawai'i's foreclosure rate has been up by 100 percent or more over the same month last year, so November represented a bit of a slowdown in the trend.

Foreclosures are rising nationwide because many consumers can't keep up with mortgage payments and face difficulty trying to refinance or sell their property as the housing market slows and prices drop in some areas.

In many cases, defaults are rising because interest rates are resetting at dramatically higher rates on exotic loans heavily marketed to subprime borrowers over the past several years.

While Hawai'i's housing market is tightening, it has maintained relatively low foreclosures thanks to mostly stable home prices and a strong job market. Local lenders also say borrowers generally were more conservative and didn't take out as many of the riskier loans as in some Mainland markets.

By comparison, Hawai'i foreclosures during the mid-1990s housing slump roughly ranged between 300 and 400 a month. Since the recent ballooning of foreclosure filings began in June, the monthly average is 120.

RealtyTrac for its report counts a range of document filings in the foreclosure process, from default notices to auction notices and bank repossessions.

Because of the methodology, the data may include more than one foreclosure filing on the same property, so the data are a somewhat imprecise measure of homes lost to foreclosure.

The data also miss nonjudicial foreclosure notices that aren't recorded publicly, and situations in which homeowners in mortgage default are working with lenders in hopes of avoiding foreclosure action.

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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