Having just celebrated Thanksgiving, I am thankful and blessed to be living in one of the best places in the world. Honolulu is truly a melting pot for culture, climate and caring people that share the Aloha Spirit. We get the best worlds of "living in paradise", yet having access to one of the best metropolitan lifestyles anywhere.
Although higher than the national average, Honolulu is still a bargain
One of the challenges for both living and selling real estate here can be our cost of living. We've always been on the higher end of real estate and living costs when compared to the national average. However, unlike back in 1990 when we had the highest real estate prices in the country, today you can find many other parts of the country where we may even seem inexpensive. When compared to other big cities such as New York, San Francisco and LA our prices are less. When compared to other resort/ski areas such as Aspen, Jackson Hole and others, our prices are less.
San Francisco city skyline seen from a sailboat on the bay from a recent trip
I visited San Francisco last month for a family wedding. We had a great time and it's also such a special city. Since I do like to compare our Honolulu prices to other destinations I travel (such as our trip to Beaver Creek last year) here's my feedback:
San Francisco is a beautiful city with lots of history and culture. It's where my Dad's side of the family migrated to Honolulu from after World War II. Th catch with San Francisco is it's a little bit COLD! I left out the photos of us on the sailboat because we were freezing. From a positive standpoint, there's also a ton of money flowing in and out of the city for too many reasons to name. It's vibrant, thriving and doing well from an economic standpoint. We stayed in a house in the marina district that was conveniently located. Curious what real estate prices were, I jumped on some of the national real estate search sites to see what homes in the area were going for. Knowing that San Francisco prices were high, I was guessing the place where we stayed was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2-3 million? It turns out he home next door (similar size) just closed for $5.6 million this summer! For comparison, $5.6 million in Honolulu can take you a long ways.... Here are some current listings priced $5-6 million for comparison.
Not only is Honolulu a bargain compared to some U.S. cities, it's also nowhere on the radar when compared to global real estate prices. I read an article flying home on United Airline's Hemisphere magazine. The only U.S. city to make the top 10 list was New York. Here are the top 10 priciest cities in the world based on average price/square foot according to the article:
1. Monaco
$5,635
2. Hong Kong
$4,810
3. London
$4,095
4. Geneva
$2,865
5. Paris
$2,475
6.Singapore
$2,460
7.Moscow
$2,150
8.New York City
$2,135
9. Sydney
$2,125
10. Shanghai
$1,920
Once in a blue moon, we've cracked the $2,000/sq. ft. prices here on Oahu, however we're nowhere close to that being the average price. Take last month for instance: the average sales price of homes in Honolulu sold at $546/square foot and condos sold at $566/square foot. The highest sale was $2,073/square foot for a 1 bedroom condo at Trump Tower Waikiki. Case in point, Honolulu is still a bargain both domestically and internationally for real estate.