Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Friday, October 3, 1997

Oahu home sales pick up,
prices still sagging

Oahu home sales picked up speed in September as prices turned lower, according to the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

The trade group, which monitors sales of existing homes, said resales of single family homes last month totaled 203, a 39 percent increase from 146 in September 1996. The $310,000 median price among single family homes was down 2.4 percent from the $317,750 September 1996 median, the price at which half the homes sold for more and half for less.

Condominium resales numbered 212, up 35 percent from 157 in the previous September, with a median sales price of $159,300, down 7.9 percent from $173,000 in the year-earlier month.

C. Scott Bradley, president of the 4,000-member trade association, said he didn't want to be over-optimistic on the strength of one month's figures, but "all of the indicators that are routinely analyzed by our Research Department seem to confirm that residential markets are shifting to a higher level."

September was the third month in a row in which sales volume was higher than in the corresponding period last year, he said.

Honolulu homes still
most expensive in U.S.

For the price of a four-bedroom in Honolulu, a typical family of four could buy two homes in Atlanta with change to spare, according to a quarterly report on housing prices.

Runzheimer International, a Rochester, Wis., management consulting firm, said that a middle-class family in Honolulu would have to pay $370,100 for a four-bedroom, 2.5 bathroom home, making it the most expensive market in the nation.

That same size house in Atlanta would cost $147,600. In San Francisco's suburban areas, the survey's next costliest housing market, the four-bedroom home would cost about $321,600.

The Runzheimer study surveys more than 300 metropolitan areas nationwide and based its values on 2,000-square-foot homes purchased by buyers earning about $50,000 a year.

Aviation negotiations
reset for next week

WASHINGTON -- Japan and the United States have pushed back this week's working-level talks for liberalizing the civil aviation market until next week, a U.S. official said.

The two-day talks have been rescheduled for Thursday and Friday, the official said.

The official said the postponement was "purely for technical reasons to give both sides more time to get a position together," adding that "the talks are too soon after the end of the last talks for them to get everything."

The two nations failed in their talks in Tokyo last week to reach an agreement before the Sept. 30 deadline.

$730 mil fiber-optic cable
to link Hawaii

SYDNEY -- Construction of a $730 million (1 billion Australian dollars) optical fiber cable linking Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and the U.S. west coast will start next year and be completed in 1999, Optus Communications said today.

The three sponsors of the project -- Optus, Telecom New Zealand and U.S. carrier Worldcom -- will design, build, finance and operate the trans-Pacific submarine optical fiber cable, to be called the Southern Cross Cable Network.

The network, the first direct high capacity cable to North America from Australasia, will provide 40 gigabits of capacity.

Boeing scales back
production of jets

SEATTLE -- Boeing Co. won't build any new 747 jetliners for 20 days and focus on catching up with production delays brought on by a huge surge in orders from airlines, Boeing said today.

The company also is scaling back production of the latest versions of its 737 jets -- installing parts as they become available.

Boeing said last month that a rapid increase in jetliner production had forced it to delay delivery of a dozen planes to 10 airlines from September to the fourth quarter of the year.

Boeing said it will deliver 335 jetliners this year, compared with 340 to 350 projected before.