Oahu home sales
surged in November

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Home sales on Oahu picked up sharply last month compared with November 1996 but prices were down, indicating that sellers had to lower their expectations to get properties to move.

The median price of an existing single-family home sold last month was $290,000, 12.1 percent below the November 1996 median, the point at which half the homes sold for more and half sold for less, according to the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

The November median for single-family homes was the lowest since April, when it was $279,000.

Condominium prices also fell, although by a lesser amount. The median price among condominium units changing hands last month was $145,000, down 9.4 percent from $160,000 in the year-earlier month.

Sales volume was up for the fifth straight month. In November, 161 single-family homes changed hands, up 9.5 percent from 147 in the previous November. Condominium sales totaled 183 last month, up 19.6 percent from 153.

"Recent residential sales have been so strong that on a year-to-date basis they've more than made up for the sales weakness during the first half of the year," said C. Scott Bradley, president of the 4,000-member trade association.

For the first 11 months of 1997, single-family home sales were up 13.4 percent and condominium sales were up 2.3 percent, he said.

"We continue to be encouraged by the stronger housing market," he said. Even though prices have been weaker than they were in 1990, the end of the Japanese investment splurge, there has been increased sales activity in all parts of the island and at all price levels, he said.

Sales this year have topped $1 billion, nearly $13 million more than at the same time last year, Bradley said.

The Board of Realtors tracks home sales through its computerized Multiple Listing Service which records transactions among existing homes only and does not track new homes.

Realtors have said that discount prices and special offers by developers of new homes, struggling to sell their properties in a depressed economy, have played a part in keeping prices down in the existing homes market.