Neighbor isle home
prices leap
Neighbor island real-estate prices saw continued strong growth in February thanks to steady buying by mainland investors. Industry professionals said prices should remain buoyant as no significant new inventory is on the horizon.
The February data, the most recent numbers available for the neighbor islands, showed the median price for a single-family home on Maui blasted 37 percent higher to $550,000 compared to the previous March, according to the Realtors Association of Maui.
Prices on the Big Island grew 23 percent to $264,968, and on Kauai they gained 33 percent to a median price of $425,000, according to the Hawaii Information Service.
"Our market has been incredibly active. It's been one of our best years ever," says Larry Hull, vice president and broker-in-charge in Kailua-Kona for Clark Realty. "But the thing is, we're running out of inventory."
Median condo prices jumped 81 percent on Kauai to $435,000, exceeding the price of a single-family home there, and gained 29 percent on the Big Island to $192,000. However, brokers said the market was becoming so starved of inventory that it was skewing the price picture.
The skyrocketing median condo price on Kauai, for example, was due largely to a flurry of high-priced condo sales in Princeville near Hanalei, coinciding with only mild growth in the numbers of condo sales throughout the rest of the island.
On Maui, the median condominium price actually dropped 1 percent in February from the year-earlier month to $257,500.
"You can't read too much into that," says Terry Tolman, executive director of the Realtors Association of Maui. "There is so little inventory that a few sales can distort the numbers. It's like dropping a rock into pond. It sends out ripples but soon things are all calm again."
While welcoming the market's strength, real estate brokers expressed concern that kamaaina homeowners are being left out in the cold as well-heeled mainland investors, particularly from California, bid up prices.
Neighbor island real estate prices are comparable to or higher than those on Oahu, yet incomes on Oahu exceed those on other islands.
"There hasn't been the push for more affordable housing (on the Big Island) that we need," says Hull.