Did you know that North Shore home prices and sales have dropped? This is David Buck with Harcourts Island Real Estate here to give you the local market report for October, 2021. Well, don't worry. Not everything is doom and gloom. I'm going to start off with some good news and then we'll get into some of that North Shore housing and there's also some good news on the North Shore as well.

Local Neighborhood Report for Homes

Single family homes from Downtown-Nuuanu were up 175% in regards to the number of sales. There were only just 4 sales a year ago in October of 2020 and there were 11 this past month. That central area is showing some strength in town, which we'll get into in the condos in a bit here. Meanwhile, sales of single family homes on the North Shore were down 69% from just a year ago. There were 13 transactions that took place in October of 2020 and this past month we only saw 4 homes trade on the North Shore. I'm not sure what's happening there? Maybe nobody wants to sell, but that's a bit of a drop in volume and we'll get into price here shortly because the North Shore popped again again regarding median sales price.

Well, the Windward Coast took the cake. They, by far saw the largest increase in median sales price from October of last year. If you were shopping for a home last year, you could get in that market for $787,500 (that was the median price). Fast forward to this past month, it was $1,337,500. Once again, that's a 70% increase year over year. So, the Windward Coast (which you can see in this backdrop) is gorgeous, definitely a place for social distancing and it was the strongest segment of the single family home market here on Oahu this past month.

Back to the single family housing market on the North Shore. Unfortunately, outside of seeing the largest decrease in the number of sales, it also saw the largest decrease in median sales price. It was down 10% from last year, where the median sales price was $1,070,000 and now it's $962,000. So, if you're looking to get in on a "correction in the market", maybe the North Shore is the time before the waves pick up this winter.

Local Neighborhood Report for Condos

Now let's jump into the condo market. Ala Moana-Kakaako saw the largest increase year over year, which was up 167%. That went from just 24 sales a year ago to 64 sales this year. To put things into perspective, in 2020 there was a lot of fear in the market with COVID. International travel has now opened back up, so I anticipate we'll see a lot more strength coming. back into the Ala Moana-Kakaako condo market.

Well, it's not all doom and gloom on the North Shore. The median sales price for condos there was up 237% from a year ago. That was at just $255,000 in October of last year and this past month we saw it at $860,000. Once again a 237% increase in median sales price, which is just kind of unheard of. My speculation behind that is we probably had a lot of lowers ended trades out in Waialua, or what they call "cement city" out there. Whereas more recently we've seen some crazy, record sales taking place at the Ocean Villas at Turtle Bay, which I'm sure helped bring up the price. The demand for condo product on the North Shore has really spiked this past year like no other neighborhood here on Oahu. 

To find out more about what's on in your neighborhood, because all real estate is local, feel free to give us a call. Mahalo.