February foreclosures cut in half compared with a year ago

Foreclosure filings in Hawaii fell by 50 percent in February from the same month a year earlier as a state law intended to protect homeowners continued to constrain the volume of cases filed by lenders.

The number of foreclosure actions against Hawaii homeowners fell to 473 in February, the lowest level in four months, according to a report released today by real estate research firm RealtyTrac. The number of foreclosure filings has fallen by double digits on a percentage basis in every month since last May. That’s when Act 48 reformed rules for nonjudicial foreclosures, which used to be how lenders handled the vast majority of Hawaii foreclosures because it was cheaper and quicker than going through court.

Hawaii was one of 28 states where foreclosure activity declined in February on a year-over-year basis, RealtyTrac reported. Hawaii’s decline in February was the eighth largest drop nationally.

Act 48 gave qualified homeowner-occupants facing foreclosure the option of requesting their case go before a mediator. Mediation was intended to curb what consumer advocates said were lender abuses, while allowing foreclosures to proceed in cases where homeowners had no realistic prospect of staying current on their mortgage.

However, most lenders chose not to pursue mediation, citing a provision in Act 48 that they said could potentially render a nonjudicial foreclosure sale void. So they instead opted to pursue the foreclosures in court.

Repossessions by lenders accounted for 102 of the total filings in Hawaii last month. Only 17 filings were notices announcing the public auction of a home. The majority of the filings — 354 cases — were notices of default.

By county, Honolulu had the most foreclosures at 134 but the best rate at 1 per 1,861 households. Hawaii island had the next highest total at 123 and the worst rate at 1 per 484 households. On Maui there were 68 filings or 1 per 838 households. Kauai had 29 filings or 1 per 784 households.

Although the number of foreclosure filings nationally fell in February from a year earlier, the rate of decline has been slowing, according to RealtyTrac. February’s 8 percent decline was the lowest since October 2010.

Brandon Moore, RealtyTrac chief executive officer, attributed the shift to a removal of "some of the barriers that have been holding back foreclosures." He said the main factor was a $25 billion settlement reached last month between the nation’s biggest mortgage lenders and state officials over the industry’s alleged foreclosure abuses.

Major banks temporarily put foreclosures on hold in the fall of 2010 after claims surfaced that lenders and mortgage servicers were processing foreclosures without verifying documents. As a result, many homes that normally would have ended up in foreclosure were left in procedural limbo until a settlement was reached.