Hawai'i home foreclosure filings last month rose above 200 for the first time in recent years, according to a count by RealtyTrac, presenting another weakening — yet still not alarming — sign for the local real estate market.

There were 210 foreclosure filings statewide in April, or roughly triple the rate of the same month last year when there were 66 filings, the California-based real estate research firm said in a report.

Hawai'i's foreclosure rate, at one filing per 2,381 households, diminished the state's ranking among other states to 15th lowest in April from sixth lowest in March. In the past 12 months Hawai'i's ranking has fluctuated between sixth lowest and 11th lowest.

Still, foreclosures are relatively low for the state historically, and haven't dragged home prices down dramatically as they have in some markets on the Mainland.

During Hawai'i's mid-1990s housing slump, there were 300 to 400 foreclosures per month as measured by foreclosure lawsuits filed.

Today, most foreclosure cases in Hawai'i occur outside court, with some estimates of nonjudicial foreclosures as high as 90 percent of the total. While judicial foreclosures can be easily tracked through court documents, nonjudicial foreclosures are more difficult to quantify because some of the information, such as default notices, typically aren't public.

Although RealtyTrac said its data include judicial and nonjudicial foreclosure sale notices, it's not clear whether the company's count might overstate or understate the number of actual foreclosures. RealtyTrac counts a range of document filings, from default notices to auction notices, so its data may include more than one filing on the same property. Auction notices are typically publicized for three consecutive weeks.

But even under RealtyTrac's methodology, Hawai'i foreclosure actions have been on a steady rise since mid-2007, and in every month since August 2007 have totaled more than 100, with the peak that month at 145.

Local foreclosure attorney Marvin Dang said that anecdotally it's clear that foreclosures are rising. "Obviously the pendulum has shifted," he said. "But I don't think it's increasing at an alarming rate."

Though job losses, divorce and health problems are traditional causes of financial difficulty that lead to foreclosure, many consumers are now losing their homes after mortgage interest rates reset at dramatically higher rates on exotic loans that were heavily marketed to subprime borrowers over the past several years.

In Hawai'i, local lenders say borrowers generally were more conservative and didn't take out as many of the riskier loans as in some Mainland markets.

Also helping the local housing market avoid a foreclosure deluge have been mostly stable home prices, relatively low unemployment, rising personal income and an economy that is still growing, albeit only slightly. Constrained land supply also prevented developers from over-saturating the market with unsold new homes.

According to RealtyTrac's count, a consistent rise in Hawai'i foreclosure actions began in June 2007. Between June and March, the increases over the same month a year prior ranged between 24 percent and 414 percent. The year-over-year increase for April was 218 percent.

In many Mainland markets, plummeting home values, a glut of inventory and weak buyer demand have prevented troubled owners from refinancing or selling their property. In some extreme cases, foreclosure waves have eroded property tax bases and placed municipal budgets in peril.

Nationally, the foreclosure rate in April was four times higher than Hawai'i's at one filing per 519 households, or a total of 243,353 that represented a 65 percent increase over April 2007.

While only about 2 percent of households nationwide are in foreclosure, the number of foreclosure filings in April was the highest for any month since RealtyTrac began its report in January 2005.

The highest foreclosure rate measured by RealtyTrac was in Nevada, where there were 7,276 filings, or one for every 146 households. The lowest rate was in Vermont, where there were no filings.

Efforts by government and the mortgage industry to stem the tide of foreclosures aren't keeping up with the rising number of troubled homeowners. The April data show nearly half of the properties received an initial notice of default, suggesting many homes were new entrants to the foreclosure process.