Well, there's one silver lining regarding the real estate stats here on Oahu. However, you're going to have to hang around to the very end to find out what's in store. This is David Buck with Harcourts Island Real Estate here to report on the market stats for November of 2023.

Single Family Home Stats

First, we're going to talk about the single family homes and there we saw a dip in the number of sales transactions year over year. We had 192 closings a year ago in November and this past month we saw 180 and that's down 6.3%. Meanwhile, we also saw a dip in the median home price, which was down 4.3%. A year ago, the median sales price was $1,149,500 and this past month we were at $1,100,055. It's a trend we're continuing to see with a softening in the market. But, we're down just single digits.

Meanhwile, days on the market are picking up. They're actually up 61.1% going from 18 days to 29 days. However, it's still considered a seller's market because anything less than 60 days is a seller's market according to the National Association of Realtors. Another stat to keep an eye on for homes would be the increase in months of active inventory. That's up 40.9%. That's going from 2.2 to 3.1 months. Once again, that's still a seller's market because NAR says anything under 6 months is considered a seller's market. Stay tuned and we'll jump into the condo stats.

Condo Stats

We tapered off with the home stats talking about how months of remaining inventory was up over 40%. It's actually up as well for condos, up 47.8%. That's going from 2.3 months to 3.4 months. Once again, technically a seller's market. Meanwhile, median days on market have also increased for condos. That was going from 18 to 23 days, which was a 27.8% increase. 

Condo sales have also been down. They're down 8.8%, going from 340 sales a year ago to 310 sales. No, finally that silver lining that I've talked about was the median condo price on Oahu. It was actually up 7.5%! So, in November of 2022, that median condo price was $480,000. It's now at $516,179. That's the silver lining we're seeing in the market right now.

Overall, there are deals taking place. The decrease in interest rates has helped with more buyer traffic back into the market. However, typically this time of year heading into the Holidays it's a little bit slower. But, I am seeing an uptick in due to rates and it'll be interesting to see what happens as we head into 2024. We are in December and I'll be up later in the month to cover the local market stats. Mahalo!

This past month we saw 2 major announcements with luxury conodel project on both Oahu and Maui.

Trump Tower Waikiki

First off, it was announced that Trump Tower Waikiki would be rebranded as Wakea Waikiki Beach by Irongate, who also developed both Trump Tower and the Ritz Carlton Waikiki. They're planning on a $100 million renovation and the transition is expected to take place in early February of 2024. It will be interesting to see how this affects the inventory in the building because historically ever since it was built, Trump Tower Waikiki has the most inventory, if not the most, it's now 2nd most to Ritz Carlton Waikiki. Both of those projects are carrying a lot of inventory and the reason why it it's really hard for those owners to pencil when renting their place out. Irongate is set up to make all of the money there.

With the new rebranding of Wakea, I don't really envision things changing as far as income goes. It will be interesting to see how it affects the homeowners with that renovation. Just to put things into perspective, as of today there are 54 units for sale in Trump Tower Waikiki and that's out of 469 units total in the building. That's 11.5% of the building's inventory is on the market for sale. Traditionally, for other (condo) projects on Oahu, it's in that 1-3 percentile. The Ritz Carlton is actually higher than Trump right now with 11.7% of available inventory (67 for sale). 

We're going to jump into another exciting announcement that took place over on the Valley Isle of Maui.

Montage Kapalua

Meanwhile, it was announced that Tennessee based KWC Management is acquiring the Montage Kapalua. It hasn't been announced yet if they are going to rebrand or get rid of the Montage name, however KWC was the company that is behind Holiday Inns. In the meantime, the big difference between Montage Kapalua and Trump Tower Waikiki is that the Montage isn't flush with inventory. There's actually only 4 units available there today that range between the low $4 million range up to the high $12 million mark. It's kind of dichotomy there on how things are run and how much inventory is for sale. 

Rebranding and Effect on HOA's

Existing Branding of Trump Tower Waikiki and Montage Kapalua

It'll be interesting to see how the HOA's (Home Owners Associations) are run going forward because it's not too often you see the name of an entire complex change. There's one instance that come to mind. There's a building on the opposite site of Waikiki from Trump currently named Makee Ailana and it used to be called the Scandia. What's different about Trump is it was developed as Trump Tower Waikiki, so it's going to be interesting to see how it affects the HOA and all their documentation. Whether it's just going to be from a marketing standpoint where they change the name or if everything is going to get rebranded. 

Management companies come and go. Some of the names that come to mind in Waikiki are Aqua Hotels, Castle Resorts, sometimes they run the front desks of these condotels. However they come and go. Sometimes, those contracts come up for bid, but in general the names of the buildings don't change. That's what's significant about this Trump Waikiki scenario.

It'll be interesting to see how things play out going forward. If you have any interest in luxury brands, either on Maui or Oahu and looking for a condotel product or something that's just a little more luxury lifestyle to turnkey and you don't want to put it into a hotel pool, we're available for all the above. Mahalo!

Aloha! It's another Wednesday and today we're going to touch on another episode of We Need Inventory. Today, we're going to talk about La Pietra here in Diamond Head, adjacent to La Pietra School for Girls. There, we have 38 town homes at the base of Diamond Head. It's a beautiful gated community. There's been 3 trades that have taken place so far this year, but the last sale was in July at $2,900,000. We have not had a listing hit the market since. So, traditionally every year we have several that sell. Now, we're going on 5 and coming up on 6 months without a sale or listing at La Pietra. 

No Inventory = Great Time to Sell

If you know anyone looking to sell their town home there at La Pietra, now could be a great time because inventory is tight and we need inventory. In particular, for a quality product near Diamond Head.

Aloha, We're here to talk about the local market update for October of 2023 and we're finally starting to see a leveling off or balance in home and condo sales.

Local Report on Homes

First off, we're going to start off with the single home sales and Downtown-Nuuanu saw the largest increase year over year from October of '22 to this past month. There, we saw 4 sales a year ago and we had 8 take place this past month (100% increase). In the 21 major neighborhoods on Oahu (tracked by the Honolulu Board of Realtors), only 10 were down regarding sales volume. That's a big change relative to what we've been seeing with the majority of the neighborhoods being down. So, only 10 of the 21 or half were down regarding the number of sales.

Regarding the median sales price for October, Aina Haina-Kuliouou saw the largest increase year over year, which is up 62% and that was going from $1,496,625 to $2,427,500. That significant gain of 62%, there's normally a story we see behind that when there's a jump like that because more trades were probably taking place in Hawaii Loa Ridge vs. say Aina Haina, Niu Valley and Kuliouou, where you can see homes trade in that $2 million range. However, normally when you see the median price north of $2 million, it's because we're seeing more sales volume taking place in Hawaii Loa Ridge. 

Local Report on Condos

Waialae-Kahala saw the largest increase in sales year over year. It's up 100%, however that was only going from 1 sale a a year ago to 2 sales, but it was the largest percentage increase. Another promising thing here for our market is that although sales were down in 11 of the 21 neighborhoods, it's still roughly half. That's a big turnaround from earlier this year and last year, when we were seeing 80 and 90% of the neighborhoods being down. Now, it's just roughly half. 

The largest condo appreciation was found between Kapahulu-Diamond Head. There, the median price was up 35% year over year, going from $825,000 to $1,115,000. To find out what's happening in your specific neighborhood, because they are all different, and they're constantly changing, feel free to reach out to our team here at Harcourts Island Real Estate. We can be reached at 808-777-4880.

In the meantime, have a Happy Thanksgiving. Mahalo!

Aloha! It's another Wednesday and today we're going to talk about another episode of We Need Inventory.

WANTED: Marco Polo Condos

Right now, we're going to talk about the Marco Polo off of Kapiolani Blvd. There, at the Marco Polo, there are 572 units in the building. There are only 4 for sale today. There's a lack of inventory at Marco Pollo. When you think back to the history and what we saw there with the fire several years back, things have come a long way with sprinklers and new plumbing in the building. A number of owners have opted in to some new branch line plumbing, which will prevent leaks and the building is on solid ground going forward.

With that said above, we have buyers out there and in particular, there's one we're working with that wants a '17 stack in the building. That is makai or ocean facing unit and there's none available right now. There's been 2 trades over the last year, but if you know of anyone that owns a '17 stack at Marco Polo or if you know someone that owns one in general, now could be a great time to sell because there's literally only 4 units, that's less than 1% of the inventory is available for sale there. So, we need inventory and give us a call @ 808-371-3509. Mahalo!

Alright, this month we have 2 different stories going on between the home and condo markets here on Oahu. This is David Buck with Harcourts Island Real Estate here to report on the home and condo stats for October of 2023. First, we're going to dive into the single family homes.

Single Family Home Stats

Here, we saw a 4.1% dip in transactions (year over year) going from 222 sales to 213 sales. However, a silver lining is we saw an increase in median sales price, which was up 4.6%. That was going from $1,050,000 to $1,100,000. So, you'll start to see as I go through these stats that things are a little bit better on the single family home front. Alright, next we're going to jump into median days on market and that was down just slightly for homes. So, it's taking homes a little bit quicker to sell, dropping 5.3% from 19 days to 18 days. 

New listings on market were down 4.6%. So, once again, there's less inventory. Pending sales are down 5%. Less deals are happening and less on the market. Active inventory is actually down 4.6% from a year ago. So, there's a lot less homes to chose from. Total inventory in escrow is down 3.5%. There are less deals taking place, however there is a larger supply overall (not just this past month in October) with months of remaining inventory up 38.1% and that's going from 2.1 to 2.9 months.

Condo Stats

As we jump into the condos, there we saw a decrease in the number of transactions year over year. That was going from 435 sales a year ago to 399 sales. That's down 8.3% year over year. The median sales price is also down for condos. Not by much, but $520,000 last year to $515,000 this year. That's a 1% drop and unlike the single family homes we saw an increase in median days on market, going from 19 to 21, which is up 10.5%.

With inventory, we're seeing a 9.4% increase with condos on the market. New listings to market has increased by 6.4%. Pending sales are down 5%. Overall, months of remaining inventory is up 57.1% from a year ago. That's going from 2.1 to 3.3 months. That is not a reason to panic for homeowners because anything less than 6 months is still considered a sellers market according to the National Association of Realtors. 

Recap

There's a dichotomy between the homes and condos as we started off with and every neighborhood is different. We're going to jump into the local neighborhood stats later in the month. Hope you're enjoying your early stages of November. Mahalo!

Professor X and Cerebro

Charles Xavier here. I came here to Cerebro to reflect back on some properties that my friend Logan told me about. He's been coming to Hawaii for many years to check out a sophisticated real estate brokerage called Harcourts Island Real Estate. Since then, Captain America stopped through. All hell has broken loose since then. We had Spider Man go to town then Dr. Strange... the literally cracked the multi-verse. So, now there's so many variations of myself and other mutants, some of which has taken on the personalities of selling properties.

Mutants in Real Estate

We've got some in Beverly Hills, Orange County and San Diego County. We've also got one in New Zealand and another that runs auctions in New Zealand. These mutants are popping up all over the place in the multi-verse. However, I do want to talk about some properties I've seen through Cerebro. 

Awesome Listings by Harcourts in Hawaii

We've got a number of awesome listings and I've seen the value in these properties in Hawaii. First off, there's an upcoming listing on the North Shore for $3.9 million. Then, we've got some cool properties on Maui. One is listed in Kula for $3,125,000. We've got another for $1,250,000 in Kihei. Then, we've got some cool auction listings. One is taking place in Makakilo and another in town in Dowsett Point. There's also a really cool condo in Waikiki for those mutants that really want to get out there to see. Last, but not least, we've got a beachfront property in Makaha on the west side of Oahu. 

Happy Halloween from Harcourts

To recap, there's some really cool things that Harcourts Realtors are working on in Oahu and on Maui and for all those out there, we're wishing you a wonderful Halloween. Aloha!

Can you believe that home sales in Wahiawa were up 400% from a year ago? This is David Buck with Harcourts Island Real Estate here to report on the local market update for September of 2023.

Local Market Update for Homes

First off, we're going to talk about home sales on Oahu and there we saw Wahiawa showed the most strength with sales increasing from 2 sales a year ago to 10 sales this year. That's a 400% increase year over year. Two thirds of the neighborhoods on Oahu or 14 of the 21 major neighborhoods saw a decrease in sales. So, Wahiawa was definitely an outlier with a 400% increase in home sales.

The North Shore of Oahu saw the largest increase by far for median sales price. It was up 77% from a year ago. A year ago that median sales price was only $1,050,000 and this past month in September, we saw it at $1,857,500. So, the North continues to "buck all the trends" (no pun intended) as far as appreciation goes and sales go. Month after month this has been a trend ever since COVID and people want to get away and have some space and privacy. With that said, I've got an exciting new listing coming up next month on the North Shore.

It's over 2.5 acres on the North Shore near Turtle Bay in a gated community zoned Ag. We'll share more about it in the coming weeks, but I'm really excited about this upcoming listing. I think it's going to be a hot commodity, given something a fraction of the size across the street is under contract well into the mid $3 million range.

Local Market Update for Condos

Makaha-Nanakuli saw the largest increase in condo sales on Oahu. It was up 20% from a year ago. That was going from 15 sales in September of 2022 to 18 sales this past month. Meanwhile, there's a similar trend we saw in the single family homes in that the bulk of the neighborhoods (15 of the 21 major neighborhoods on Oahu) saw a decrease in sales transactions. So, to be up 20% was nice to see out there on the Leeward Coast. 

Diamond Head-Kapahulu saw the largest increase in median condo price this past month and that was up 161% from a year ago. A year ago, the median sales price was $687,500 and now it's at $1,795,000. This is an outlier because not all of the neighborhoods were up that much. What most likely happened here year over year is we probably saw transactions taking place off Kapahulu and Pualei Circle, because in Pualei Circle you're looking at $500-600,000 for a 1 bedroom and the prices on the Gold Coast are going to be a lot more. So, that's why we saw that spike in price year over year. It's a different product, but in the same region. 

I hope that helps and wishing you all a great Halloween! We'll talk soon. Aloha!

Do you feel like a betting person? Well, I bet if we were to take a straw poll across Oahu and ask people if it's a Buyer or Seller's market for real estate, I think 99% of people would say it's a Buyer's market right now. That's because everything you hear about in the news is that things are slow, homes aren't selling, there's a ton of inventory.

What Defines a Buyer's Market?

Well, one of the major stats that the National Association of Realtors looks at is months of remaining inventory. That basically says that if no new homes were to come to market, how long it would take all the existing inventory to sell. Anything more than 6 months of remaining inventory is considered a Buyer's market as far as the National Association of Realtors goes. 

What's Months of Remaining Inventory Like on Oahu?

I've got some stats up here behind me that might debunk some of what's going on out there and actually confirm what some of you are believing. In general it is NOT a Buyer's market. It's still a Seller's market here on Oahu for the majority of the market. 

If you look at the stat in the bottom left, it's 2.7 months, which is well under 6 months and that's similar to just about every category (of sales price range) with the exception of homes over $3 million. Furthermore, in the chart behind me here, everything is less than 6 months of remaining inventory in every single category of pricing here on Oahu. However, once you get above $3 million, it's 10.3 months. So, it's definitely a Buyer's market.

If you have a lot of cash (I know a lot of people out there don't), it's time to go shopping if you're in that luxury home market because there is a lot to chose from. Another thing I'd like to point out behind me is that orange number. That's going to be homes above $2 million and it kind of broke through that 6 month (of remaining inventory) mark midway through this year. 

Id bet is if we had homes worth more than $3 million (on the orange chart), we would have cracked into that Buyer's Market earlier this year or even going back to last year. Because, we've been noticing some of those luxury home sales slowing down. They're still activity taking place on the luxury home front. There's no doubt about it. 

Ready for Luxury Home Shopping?

If you're in that market north of $3 million and have some money to spend, there are some good deals out there. There's a lot more to chose from than in that $1-2 million range, so if you're a shopper in that market, give us a call @ 808-371-3509. If you're a seller in any market, give us a call. We'd love to help. Mahalo!

I can't believe we're into the 4th quarter already. We're starting off October and looking back on the September sales stats for 2023. This is David Buck with Harcourts Island Real Estate.

Single Family Home Stats

First off, we're going to continue on a trend we've talked about for months now where we're seeing a drop-off in sales volume and that was down 16.5%. A year ago, there were 278 single family home sales here on Oahu and this past month we saw just 232. Meanwhile, we saw a drop in median sales price as well, going from $1.1 million to $1,050,000. That's a 4.5% decrease. Then, median days on market are creeping up 11.1% and that was going from 18 days to 20 days.

This is compounded on the fact that from 2 years ago we saw a drop through last year. Overall, single family homes sales on the island are down 45%. So, stay tuned. It's not all doom and gloom. We're going to have a little bit of positive news on the condo front.

Condo Stats

I take that back. There's a little more bleak news regarding the condo market. There, we saw a 24.2% drop in the number of transactions. That was going from 496 condo sales a year ago to just 376 this year. That's the end of the bad news. The good news is that the median condo price on Oahu is up 6% and that was going from $502,500 to $532,500. So, there's a little bit of silver lining for sellers in the market right now. 

The good news for sellers is there's a still a little amount of inventory in the big scheme of things. Similar to the single family home report, we're seeing this compound effect. So, year over year from 2 years ago, there's a 47% drop in the number of condo transactions. Because, a year ago we were down in the 30 some odd percentile off the top of my head. Then, it took an additional 24.% drop in deals this year.

Summary of Market

Deals are still happening out there. Interest rates are taking a toll on our market. However, the good news is there's a lot less competition if you're a buyer out there. From a seller's standpoint, there's not a lot of inventory. So, every market is different. If you have questions about your market, we're really excited we're launching a few new listings this week.

Harcourts Auctions and Our Team Growing

We're actually going to be re-introducing Harcourts Auctions to the marketplace here on Oahu. Last, but not least I wanted to share with you that we hired 2 new agents this past week. This first of which is Cynthia Scott:

Cynthia Scott, Realtor Associate

She was with Harcourts Prime in San Diego and loved the brand so much. She's been working the Las Vegas market the last few years with Douglas Elliman, but she's newly licensed here, living on the windward side. So, keep Cindy in mind. We also hired Michelle Belch over on Maui. 

Michelle L. Belch, Realtor Associate

She lives on the west side of Maui, but she services the entire island. She just took a new listing to market yesterday in Kihei. It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom legal vacation rental for $1,295,000.

Maui Vista #1410 for $1,295,000

So, feel free to reach out to Michelle if you've got questions about that. In the meantime, I'll be back later this month to talk about the local market report and enjoy this fall season. Aloha!