Total foreclosure deeds in 2011 fell 2.3 percent to 3,863 for the year despite an 81 percent uptick in December and a record-setting single month in March, according to a report Wednesday from New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority.

The year-end figure compared to 3,953 in 2010, while the 368 in December 2011 compared to 203 the same month a year before.

But the figure for 2010 was held back by a freezes on foreclosures by several large mortgage lenders, Bedford-based NHHFA said in its monthly Foreclosure Update. The moratoria lasted from October 2010 through February 2011, but there were no similar moratoria in December 2011.

When the freeze lifted, a record 543 foreclosures deed were recorded in March 2011, the highest in 35 years of tracking.

“Just as December 2010 was kind of an artificial low, March of 2011 was kind of an artificial high,” NHHFA spokeswoman Jane Law said.

The nonprofit agency noted foreclosure auction notices, an indicator of future foreclosure deeds, decreased in December 2011 by more than 21 percent compared with December 2010, and 19 percent for the year.

“We are still seeing a general downward trend, so we’re hoping the foreclosure deeds will follow,” Law said.

“We don’t expect it to be any dramatic change,” she said. “It’s going to be a long, slow haul to get back to quote-unquote normal. It’s going to take a couple years anyway.

Homeowners who face difficulty paying their mortgage or who already received a notice of foreclosure may still have resources available to them to assist in saving their home. One of those resources is HomeHelpNH.org, a website created by the state of New Hampshire that is designed to help troubled home owners find answers to their questions.