Do you think right now is a good time to buy a condo on Oahu? This is David Buck with Harcourts Island Real Estate, and today we are going to talk about the market stats for June of 2024. First off, we are going to dive into single-family homes, and stick around towards the later we are going to dive into the later are going to dive into the dynamic part of our market which is actually the condo market.
Single Family Home Stats
So, first with the single-family homes, we saw the median sales price up 6.7% as that was going from $1,050,000 in June of 2023 to $1,120,000 this past month. Meanwhile, transactions as far as sales go were up 4% year-over-year and that was going from 248 sales a year ago to just 258 sales. So, that's 10 more sales 4% increase. Meanwhile, the median days on market were down 11.8% and that was going form 17 days to 15 days, so stay tuned and we’re going to dive into the condo stats.
Condo Stats
Well, we started this off asking "is now a good time to buy a condo on Oahu"? On the initial glance, you might not think... well, prices are actually up so the first stat we’re going to talk about is median sales price, and there we saw an increase year over year of 3.9%. A year ago, that median sales price was $510,000. This past month it was at $530,000. Now, from a buyer's stand point, that might seem like now is not a good time to buy with rates and all this stuff. I’m going to share with you a few reasons why now might be a good time to buy a condo on Oahu. The second stat we’re going to cover is sales volume. The number of condo sales this past month were down 24.5%, a year ago there was 470 condo sales on Oahu, and this past month there were only 355, so thats a lot less deals taking place, so if you’re a buyer, now might be a good time because of that. Meanwhile median days on market have increased, they’ve gone from 18 days on market a year ago to 26 days on market this past month.
Now there’s a few other factors I want to talk about here, and why it’s been challenging in the condo market. We’ve talked about these on a few of my videos and one is because insurance is becoming more and more of an issue due there’s a number of condo buildings in town that were underinsured. Some were going through some growing pains within older buildings with plumbing and infrastructure. Third, we've covered a while back which was an ordinance 19-4 regarding upgrading fire protection or fire life and safety evaluation for condominiums. So with all of those factors, and there is one more factor I’m going to share is that just in the news this past week, it talked about how the Yen was at the lowest it’s been against the US dollar since 1986, so we’re seeing in our marketplace right now is a lot less international buyers from Japan, we’re actually seeing a lot more Japanese sellers of condos on Oahu. So I think that trifecta with sales volume being down, days on market taking longer and then less competition from international buyers. I think all those factors play into why now might be a good time to be a condo buyer on Oahu. Because if we fast forwards a year or two for now, I can’t predict the future, although I’ve predicted the future on a few other buildings that were down on Oahu in the past, other buildings that were down on Oahu because of financing issues, such as the Marco Polo, and Ilikai, and how they’ve rebounded, once again taking take this witha a grain of salt, I cant predict the future, but if you look back a year or two from now, I think right now might not be a bad time to buy a condo on Oahu. That’s just my two-sense, and thanks for tuning in. This is David Buck with Harcourts Island Real Estate. If theres anything we can help with Real Estate here on Oahu, homes, condos, land we got some good land offerings coming up on the North Shore, feel free to reach out. GIve us a shout, I can be reached at (808)371-3509. Mahalo.