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Isle residents compete
for affordable homes

THE ISSUE A sizzling housing market has lined the pockets of some while leaving others out in the cold.

HUMAN instinct drives individuals to buy homes. A home is physical and emotional shelter, the center of family life. It represents stability, standing in a community.

It can bring financial security in the long term, but this requires buying the right place at the right time at the right price. Judging from the eight-day series of articles in the Star-Bulletin, not many people in Hawaii have had the good fortune of that experience.

Low mortgage rates, doubts about the stock market, an improving economy and a notion of immediacy have fueled a blistering frenzy of buying and selling across the state. With more people competing for a limited inventory, prices have escalated in the typical low supply-high demand pattern. And as equally typical in such situations, some win and some lose.

Renters and moderate- and low-income people count among the latter. Those in the real estate industry gain from the boom, putting behind the lean years when sales were sluggish. Investors burdened with property bought at Japanese-bubble highs are now seeing a return.

Homes in Hawaii have seldom been bargains. As with all goods and services in the islands, geography binds residents to paying more. Combined with the abiding desire for the quality of life here and the intense ties that kamaainas maintain, the population continues to grow.

The result is that many people just can't afford to pay the going rate either for purchase or rent, and, as in previous years, look to the state's political leaders for help.

Lawmakers' response has been measures that offer excise tax exemptions for developers to build new rentals or renovate older ones, and grants or loans for construction with the condition that some of the units are made available to lower-income occupants. The Legislature also approved a risky endeavor to fast-track permitting and set aside zoning and construction regulations in an attempt to get houses on the market quickly.

Government has extended incentives before, requiring moderate-priced units as part of development approvals, but more often than not releases builders from those conditions in exchange for cash, "open space" or land swaps, setting itself at cross purposes.

It might be that while government can build low-cost housing or homeless shelters, it cannot control the powerful forces that drive the market. There are too many factors that have stronger influences, such as economic conditions on the mainland, the ups and downs on Wall Street and lending rates set by the Fed. The state might be able to ease the way for more supply, but it cannot direct demand.

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