Hawaii Real Estate Daily

It might be hard to persuade anyone that there is a national housing meltdown when the Multiple Listing Service offers deals on Maui like this:

“Two bedroom, 1 bath older home on a small lot that is zoned industrial - access to property is by footpath only. Being sold as-is - fixer upper. $200,000.”

The aggregate statistics for the third-quarter of 2008 released by the Realtors Association of Maui on Thursday also do not portray a cratering housing market.

True, the number of transactions for the first nine months of the year is down by about one quarter, but prices received for houses and condominiums that do sell are holding up.

For single-family houses, the median price this year is $594,500. That is down $44,000 from last year, but is only a 7 percent decline, compared to hard-hit areas of the Mainland where prices are down 15 percent, 20 percent and in some neighborhoods much more.

Average prices for single-family properties are down by the same percentage, but since Maui’s average was so high last year, $945,000, the fall as measured in dollars is $70,000, down to $876,615.

Condos averaged $783,000 last year and are up 21 percent to $947,000 this year, but thousands of Maui condos are not in the million-dollar class.

The biggest concentration of middle-class condos is in Kihei, where the average is up 9 percent this year to $493,000.

The median for condo units, the point where half sold for more, half for less, is up 7 percent, to $570,000 countywide, although only 5 percent to $415,000 in Kihei.

The most expensive condos are in Wailea-Makena, averaging $2,184,013 this year, which is up an impressive 37 percent, but that may reflect the late recording of sales contracts that were inked for new construction years ago.

Still, there is little sign that the South Maui luxury condo market is swooning. The number closing this year is 160, only 16 fewer than in the first three quarters of 2007.

As a resort, Wailea is an outlier, commanding room rates almost a third higher than any other luxury resort in the state. It may be an outlier in luxury condominiums as well.

The average condo sales price in Kaanapali this year is off 18 percent to $1,164,364, and the average in Kapalua is down 30 percent to $1,070,794.

In Kaanapali, the number of closings has fallen from 45 to 33, and at Kapalua from 27 to 17.

Lanai is also a market unto itself, where there were only two transactions, but for nearly $2 million on average.

Although prices received are waffling around what sellers received last year (which was down from 2006), the smaller number of transactions means the aggregate value of the turnovers is well down.

The total of condo transactions this year (672 closings compared with 916 at this point last year) is down by $80 million to $637 million.

The number of single-family closings is down from 893 a year ago to 706, and the aggregate transactions are off $226 million to $619 million.

Notice that the number of single-family closings topped the number of condo closings. That is a dramatic change from any year before 2006. when the number of condo sales was often nearly double the number of single-family sales.

The number of days on market is also down sharply from last year. In 2007, it ranged between 74 and 131 for single-family and between 73 and 115 days for condos.

This year, the wait has been between 57 and 95 days for house sellers, 48 and 95 days for condo sellers.

Terry Tolman, the chief staff executive of the association, said that the drop in days on market shows that “properties priced right will sell in a reasonable time frame.”

He also noted that the number of active listings “has grown considerably in the last 12 months,” though the rise has leveled off recently.

Active condo listings this month are up to 1,600, compared with 1,283 in October 2007. Active single-family listings are 1,114, up from 1,016 a year before.

Tolman said median prices in September were down across the board, which might be because buyers are now not able to qualify for as much or because sellers are willing to accept lower offers.

Credits: Maui News

The median price for single-family homes and condominiums on Oahu dropped more than 7 percent in September, according to the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

The median price for single-family homes on Oahu dropped $45,000 to $590,000. Condominiums lost $32,000 in the median sales price.The number of single-family homes sold went from 255 in August to 215 in September. The number of condominiums sold in September was 305. That is 40 fewer than the month before.”Oahu’s housing market is beginning to feel the effects of the changing economic market, as demonstrated by the decline in both residential sales volume and the median prices paid in September,” HBR President Dana Chandler said. “We hope that this period of weak market conditions is short-lived and that we’ll soon return to a more normal market.

“HBR officials expressed support in Congress passing a bailout plan that they said could help jump start loans and mortgages to spur the housing market.”It appears the Oahu housing market is reacting to the economic crisis that has been affecting financial markets worldwide,” HBR research economist Harvey Shapiro said.

Depending on if you are trying to sell your home or buy one the numbers are either good or bad. But homeowners trying to sell are facing obstacles including low consumer confidence and buyers struggling to get loans.

A waterfront home on the Hawaii Kai Marina has sat on the market for the past two and a half months. The owner received two offers, but both were lower than asking price.The properties real estate representative said the slumping market has forced sellers to be patient and to pay attention to selling details.”What I tell my sellers is that we just have to make the best product we can so that just means staging, making sure the house is really clean, fixing up all those little things, maybe projects they didn’t get to before getting it on the market,” said Maile Hain of East Oahu Realty.

Scott Higashi is the vice president of sales for Prudential Locations. He agrees presentation is key and pricing your home correctly is essential to making a sale.”If you price high and you adjust buyers are going to be waiting for you to make that next adjustment,” Higashi said.One reason for the decrease in sales is the challenge buyers face with getting a loan.If you are able to secure a loan, Higashi said now is the time to buy.”There’s lots of opportunities for buyers out there the inventory interesting enough hasn’t grown really dramatically, but if you qualify for a loan and you find a house that you like you should definitely buy it,” he said.

Credits: KITV

O’ahu home prices took their biggest hit of the year last month to upset what previously had been a mild downturn, as frightened consumers and battered credit markets appeared to shatter stability in Hawai’i’s largest housing market.

Median sale prices of previously owned single-family homes and condominiums each dropped about 10 percent in September, according to the latest data from the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

The median single-family home price fell 9.2 percent to $590,000 last month from $650,000 a year earlier. The median price has not been below $590,000 since April 2005.

The median condo price fell 11.6 percent to $296,000 last month from $335,000 a year earlier. The last time the condo median price was below $300,000 was April 2006.

Harvey Shapiro, Honolulu Board of Realtors research economist, said destabilized global financial markets that have rocked consumer confidence and restricted credit for home loans and other lending have begun to hurt local home sales.

“It appears that the O’ahu housing market is reacting to the economic crisis that has been affecting financial markets worldwide,” he said. “I think it’s scaring people into doing things they hadn’t planned on doing.”

Some observers expect that home sale prices will see similar or worse weakness in the coming months given the continued uncertainty in financial markets.

The gloomy outlook also stems from the fact that September sale statistics reflect deals typically made one to three months before. So a purchase agreed to this month in the midst of the planned federal financial industry bailout probably won’t close and show up in the sale data until sometime from November to January.

Ron Lee, an agent with Honolulu-based brokerage firm Real Estate Inc., said all the bad economic news is leading buyers, including investors, to really lowball sellers.

“They think they can get a really good deal,” he said, adding that offers $100,000 below an asking price are not uncommon nowadays. “It’s a challenging market.”

Lee said that at the extreme he’s seen some homes sell for 20 percent less than earlier comparable sales. One Waipahu house he has in escrow for a seller is contracted to sell at a price that he said is 5 percent below the sale price of a smaller house next door.

“The sellers understand what’s happening in the marketplace,” he said.
8.8% drop in june

Single-family home prices up until last month mostly had been down about 3 percent, as reduced demand led to dramatically fewer sales and mild price softness.

There was one month — June — when the median dropped 8.8 percent to $625,000 from a year earlier, but that was due in large part to the median price having set a record of $685,000 in June 2007.

Last month, there were 215 single-family home sales, down 15.7 percent from 255 a year earlier. The decrease was on the light side compared with drops near 30 percent in recent months. Inventory and the median number of days property took to sell were little changed from prior months.

Condo prices suffered an even more surprising drop last month, because this year up until September the median sale price had been up slightly in six of eight months, despite dramatically fewer sales.

However, it appears that the median condo price decline last month was influenced by significantly fewer sales in neighborhoods with luxury condos such as Kaka’ako and Hawai’i Kai. Sales in those two areas were down 40 percent to 50 percent.

Still, broader price weakness was evident in the market, with:

# A 6.7 percent dip in the median price of condos sold in the Pearl City-’Aiea area.

# An 11.1 percent decline for Makiki-Mo’ili’ili condos.

# An 18.5 percent drop for Waipahu condos.

# A 19.7 percent fall in O’ahu’s largest condo market, Waikiki.

The number of condo sales was down 26.3 percent to 305 last month from 414 a year earlier, a decline that was in line with recent months. Inventory and the median number of days property took to sell were little changed from prior months.

Besides financial market gyrations, weakness in the local economy, including a string of layoffs by major Hawai’i companies in recent months, has added to the pressure on the local housing market as some people who lose their jobs struggle to hang on to their homes.

The number of home foreclosures hasn’t been alarming in Hawai’i, but they have been consistently rising for about two years and are clearly affecting property values.

One home seller on O’ahu, who didn’t want to identify himself or his property so as not to harm sale prospects, said foreclosure sales in his townhouse complex are damaging his ability to attract decent offers since he listed the property about six months ago.

“It’s driving everything down,” he said. “It is dead.”

According to property records, one bank-owned unit in the same complex sold recently for about $100,000 less than what it sold for nearly three years ago.

Despite all the economic woes and weakened median prices, the market isn’t all that bad, according to many brokers.

“I still think Hawai’i has the strongest prices (among many U.S. markets),” said Lauren Ige, an agent with ‘Aiea-based firm Realty Group. “People are still buying. People are still selling. People still have needs.”

Mike Gallagher, broker-in-charge at RE/MAX Honolulu, predicted that median prices for the full year will settle at $620,000 for single-family homes and $320,000 for condos, respective changes of minus 3.7 percent and minus 1.5 percent.

The University of Hawai’i Economic Research Organization last month forecast a 3.6 percent decline in the median home price this year, and a 1 percent rise in the condo median price.

For the first nine months of the year, the single-family home median price is down 3.5 percent to $625,000, and the condo median price is unchanged at $325,000.

Credits: Honolulu Advertiser

Sales of Oahu’s single-family homes and condominiums continued to decrease, as did prices, in the three-month period ending in August.

The number of single-family homes sold in the period dropped 29.8 percent compared to the same period last year, 736 sold this year compared with 1,048 in 2007, according to the latest report from Prudential Locations. Condominium sales slipped 30 percent from 1,109 the previous year to 1,058 this year.

The median price for single-family homes was down 5.2 percent to $626,000. Condo prices were down slightly to $332,500.

Credits: Biz Journals

A report on housing prices by Global Insight says that although prices for single-family homes are still heading downwards across the country, the rate of decline has gone down and “extreme overvaluation of house prices is essentially non-existent.”

The only states that had extreme overvaluation in the second quarter were Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and Utah.

The country’s housing prices are down 4.8%, falling in 152 of the 330 metropolitan areas included in the study. This is an improvement from the 6.6% decline seen in the first quarter of 2008 and the drop off seen in 295 (89%) of the 330 areas in the fourth quarter of 2007.

The most severe losses are in California, Florida and Michigan. Indeed, 43 of the 50 worst metropolitan areas are found in these three states.

Still, though the numbers paint an improving picture the report says “real estate markets are not ready to recover. The building and financing excesses of the boom years have yet to be worked off. There remains a huge inventory of unsold homes on the market with foreclosures adding more daily.”

The House Prices in America study looks at 330 of the top metropolitan real estate markets in the United States, representing 78% of the country’s housing units.

Credits: Economic News

Single-family home and condominium resales on Oahu plummeted in July, compared with the same month last year, the Honolulu Board of Realtors reported.

Median sales prices also dropped - 3.1 percent to $620,000 for homes and 1.5 percent to $329,000 for condos, it said. Median price means half the prices were above and half below the given price.

The board said on Monday that 251 homes sold last month, compared with 339 in July 2007, for a 26 percent decline, while condo sales fell 20.1 percent from 457 in July of last year to 365 this July.

In all, single-family home resales decreased 25.7 percent over the first seven months of 2008, while condo resales were off 26.6 percent, the group said.

From January through July, the median sales price for single-family homes on Oahu fell 2.8 percent to $627,000 while the median sales price for condos increased 1.5 percent to $330,000, it said.

“The number of resales in the Oahu housing market may be starting to stabilize at these reduced levels,” board research economist Harvey Shapiro said.

“The rate of decline has softened a bit and this could signal that we’re nearing the bottom of this slower market, but we need to see a few more months of data to confirm this,” he said. “Our prices are still staying near current levels, although these softer market conditions may require more seller concessions to make a deal.”

Board president Dana Chandler said July sales figures showed an increase in the time a property was on the market before a sales agreement was reached.

“Single-family homes needed an average 52 days to sell and condominiums took 42 days, both increases from last year’s 44 and 38 days,” Chandler said. “Buyers may be more cautious with the current state of the economy, but so far our markets still seem to be operating normally, and Honolulu continues to provide a stable environment for both buyers and sellers.”

Credits: Forbes

The number of existing single-family homes and condominiums sold on Oahu in August plunged nearly one-third from August 2007.

The Honolulu Board of Realtors reported that the 255 homes that traded hands last month represented a 33.1 percent fall from the 381 that sold in same month last year. The group said condo sales dropped by 30.3 percent from 495 to 345.

Meanwhile, the median sales price for homes slipped 2.3 percent from $650,000 to $635,000.
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Median means half the homes were sold above the price and half were sold below.

The median sales price for condos inched up 0.9 percent from $325,000 to $328,000.

Board president Dana Chandler said the figures show Oahu’s housing market continues to cool, while median prices are being maintained.

Credits: KITV