Honolulu makes the top 100 for third-quarter foreclosures

Honolulu routinely has the lowest rate of foreclosures among counties in Hawaii, but when it comes to big U.S. cities, its ranking isn’t so good.

Real estate research firm RealtyTrac said Honolulu tied for the 93rd highest foreclosure rate among 206 major domestic metropolitan areas in the third quarter.

The city moved into the top, or worst half, of the RealtyTrac survey compared with the same quarter last year when it was ranked 133rd. At midyear, Honolulu ranked 112th.

There were 1,843 Honolulu properties in some stage of foreclosure during the third quarter. That equated to one property for every 183 homes in the city, or 0.55 percent of homes.

The metropolitan area of Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, Va., had the same rate as Honolulu.

The worst foreclosure rate was in the Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., area at one property in foreclosure out of every 25 homes, or nearly 4 percent.

Utica-Rome, N.Y., had the best rate at one property in foreclosure out of every 8,003 homes, or 0.01 percent.

Nationally, the average was one property in foreclosure per 139 homes, or 0.72 percent.

RealtyTrac said 133 of the 206 cities had year-over-year increases in foreclosures. But the total number of foreclosures was down 0.79 percent, in large part because nine of the 10 worst markets had foreclosure decreases. Honolulu’s count was up by 55 percent from 1,186 properties in the 2009 third quarter.

Twenty-two other cities had bigger increases than Honolulu.

RealtyTrac’s report includes cities with populations of at least 200,000. Foreclosure data is collected from more than 2,200 counties nationwide, representing about 90 percent of the U.S. population.