Big Island of Hawaii January 2019 Market Stats

ALOHA! The latest data from Hawaii Information Service for North Kona residential market shows the Active Listings continues to climb.   Current active listings priced below $4.0M stands at 246, up 33% from last year.  Pending Sales improved from last report, but is still 15% less than the count this time last year. Median Prices continue to be up a very sustainable +3% from the previous 12 months sales. If past seasonal sales trends prevail we should be seeing further improvement in Pending Sales and Sales numbers as we move into March.

For your copy of the informative Griggs market report please send me an email request.

The price range data at the top of page 2 shows the 12 months sales numbers were off (-9%)  from the previous 12 months. It is interesting to note that in recent West Hawai’i Today article tourism stats for Hawaii county in December were off (-9%) according to Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism.  A further look at DBEDT data shows Oahu was up +3.1%,  Kauai + 1.8% and Maui  was off (-1.3%). The up news is the tourism trend for Hawaii county shows a noticeable improvement since  last summer. Numbers had been off as much as (-15.7%)  in October. In April, prior to the Kilauea rift zone eruption, tourism numbers were up +10%. The Hawaii Island Pending Ratio data shows an increase after declining since the start of the rift zone eruption. This is largely due to the seasonal improvement in Pending Sales.

Overall the percentage of listings of REO or Short Sales on the market is showing a little change from a year ago and averages island wide a 9%.  The REO numbers in Chart 6 show an average decline in properties owned by Fannie Mae, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo and Bank of America. The numbers have fallen from last year’s 85 to the current 64. It had been 250 in 2010.   

The Condo stats continue to be strong.  Pending sales jumped from 72 two weeks ago to 101 in this report. One reason could be that Condo prices are still well below their last peak price of 2006 unlike Residential which are at that 2006 peak level. Buyers might rightfully feel there is more upside for prices in the condo market. Affordability and the improving demand for vacation rental property vs. hotels are other likely factors. The Pending Ratio is well into Seller market designation. Prices are up +8%. from the previous 12 month period.

The Land stats are weak across the board.  Average and Median Prices are still off from the previous 12 months. The data is still showing a Price decline of (-3%) from the previous twelve months. If you look at Chart 9 you see the Land Median Price declined in 2017 and then stabilized in 2018-19.

See Page 6 for the Pending Ratio Summary.  This page offers a quick glance of the Pending Ratio trend for North Kona Residential, Condo, Land and  Hawai’i Island. Page 6 Hawai’i Island ratio is probably the best indicator of the residential market trend. In this report we see a nice increase since last report two weeks ago. This represents the seasonal upswing we have been hoping to see.

See page 7 for the Kona Residential Price chart since 1972 has now been updated with the new 2018 data. This maintains a data pool of similar homes many of which were new sales or have resold over the years. The total number of sales that make up the data pool now stands at 7,644 in the 23 subdivisions in the study. The year/year price change for this Mid-level housing group for 2018 is $615,100, up from 2017’s  $587,100. This represents a 5% price increase for 2018.

As always mahalo Nui to Michael Griggs Broker for allowing industry colleagues to share this valuable data provided in this report and in the pdf report on file and available upon request.

Until next time…A Hui Hou!

Renee H. Kraft Realtor (s) Hawai’i Beach and Golf Properties