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Oahu housing
market keeps
forging ahead

Home and condominium
purchases surged in September
while median prices were mixed

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By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Sales of previously owned homes on Oahu in September topped the year-earlier total for the 39th month in succession but house prices slipped, according to the latest report from the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

The trade association said 296 single-family homes changed hands last month, an increase of 18.9 percent over the 249 resold in September 1999. The median price among the single-family homes sold, the price half way between the highest and the lowest, was $280,000, down 8.2 percent from $305,000 in the previous September.

Condominium resales increased 11.6 percent to 346 last month, from a year-earlier 310, and the condominium median price in September was $130,000, up 1.7 percent from $127,800 in September of last year.

For the first nine months of the year, single-family home sales totaled 2,384, a 13 percent growth from 2,100 last year. Condominium resales through the first nine months of this year totaled 2,924, an increase of 21 percent from 2,416 in the equivalent period of 1999.

"Because average prices in some neighborhoods are also rising, the dollar volume in the market has increased even faster than sales," said Peter Freeman, president and chief executive officer of the 3,500-member Realtors association.

Sales in the first nine months of this year totaled $1.44 billion, up 22.5 percent from $1.18 billion in the nine months of last year, he said.

The Board of Realtors reports only on previously owned homes, gathering data from its computerized Multiple Listing Service. There is no comparable report available for islandwide sales of new homes.