The volume of new foreclosure cases filed in Hawaii remained subdued in August, according to new data from the state Judiciary.

There were 221 new cases initiated during the month statewide in Circuit Court. It was the third straight month that new-case volume stayed below 300, after 234 cases initiated in July and 219 in June.

During the first five months of the year, the new-case count per month ranged from 346 to 450.

Three months of relatively low numbers of foreclosures initiated by lenders suggests that a wave of Hawaii homeowners getting into foreclosure trouble is subsiding after remaining persistently high for several years.

Observers including local foreclosure attorney Marvin Dang have said the improving economy, reduced unemployment and more efforts by lenders to modify loans and avoid the state’s lengthy court foreclosure process may finally be tapping down new foreclosure cases.

The view that foreclosures are on the decline is also supported by the latest report on mortgage delinquency rates from real estate and financial services firm CoreLogic. The report covers July and says 5.55 percent of Hawaii home mortgages were delinquent more than 90 days, down from 6.6 percent a year earlier.

It is, however, difficult to get a clear or more certain sense of whether or to what degree foreclosure trouble is clearing up in Hawaii because of issues with comparing year-over-year data.

The tally of foreclosures initiated in August can’t be meaningfully compared with the same month last year because changes to state foreclosure law made by the Legislature last year triggered a slowdown in case filings that began in July 2012.

Changes to the law included requiring that attorneys attest to the accuracy of all documents filed by lenders in court, which hampered the process of lenders filing new cases. As a result, the number of new cases plunged from 458 in June 2012 to 74 the next month. Lenders and attorneys gradually adopted new practices, and by November and December case volume was back up above 300.

The peak for any month this year was 450 new cases filed in March.

There also was an overhaul of state foreclosure law in 2011, which caused similar bounces in case volumes.

Some uncertainty also exists with more recent data because the Judiciary has revised some counts of new cases in subsequent months because of difficulty tallying cases in some counties. For instance, the count in February was amended three times and rose to 399 from an initially reported 364.

The Judiciary revised its June figure to 219 from 207 about a month after releasing the June data but did not revise that count again or the count for July in the report for August filings.