I have to admit, I have been struggling to keep up with the blog as of late. It has been a busy start to the year between transactions and listings. On a personal level, we are finishing the remodel of a home and planning to move in on Friday. Needless to say, cobwebs and dust have been forming on the little corner of cyberspace known as our blog. I started the research for this post on the 6th and began to write this post over ten days ago. That said, I have a quick window this afternoon to finish up a look at the January numbers. January was a little bit off from last year’s numbers. I will give all the details below as well as a few thoughts on what it all means. Without further ado, here are the January 2016 Maui Real Estate Statistics.
January Sales Volumes and Median Prices
There were 73 homes sold in January with a median price of $630,000. Last January there were 75 homes sold with a median price of $577,000. That is roughly a 3% drop in volume and a 9% increase in median price.
Maui County Realtors reported 82 condos sold last month with a median price of $397,500. In January of 2014, there were 83 condos sold with a median price of $378,000. That is just over a 1% drop in volume and a 5% increase in median price.
It was a particularly slow month for land sales with 5 closes and a median of $850,000. Last year, there were 11 sales with a median price of $750,000. That is a 55% drop in volume and a 13% increase in median price.
Notable Numbers from the January 2016 Maui Real Estate Sales
While compiling the numbers above, I came across some other notable numbers that I thought were worth sharing.
- The highest priced home to sell in January closed for $3,975,000. That house is an oceanfront home in the Baby Beach area of Lahaina. That was the only home sold for more than $2,000,000 last month.
- The highest priced condo transaction closed for $3,300,000. That was a 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath top row unit at Ho’olei. It was one of the better located units in the complex.
- That was one of four condo sales for over $1,500,000 in January. The other sales included two transactions at Polo Beach and one sale at the Honua Kai Resort.
- There were no land sales for more than $1,000,000 in January. The highest priced land transaction for the month closed for $865,000. It was a 1.42 acre condominiumized lot in Launiupoko with entitlements to build a main house.
- There were 9 bank owned sales in Maui during January. There were also 9 bank owned sales in January of 2014.
- There was just one short sale that closed in January. Last year, there were 6 short sales that closed in January.
Pending Sales Activity in January
With the January Sales numbers down from last year, I was interested to see how many properties went under contract in January.
The number of homes that went pending in January was up 8% compared to January of 2015. The number of condos that were pending went down 8% compared to last year. Land was also down 26% compared to last year. That said, the 17 land pending sales is a nice improvement from the 5 closes in January.
Thoughts on the January Maui Real Estate Statistics
This is the first month since August 2014 where all three property types saw a decrease in sales volume compared to the year before. I can’t say that I am horribly surprised to see the decrease in activity in home sales. We saw accelerated demand in the later parts of 2015 as buyers were trying to grab properties before the anticipated bump in interest rates. After the rates bumped, albeit modestly, there was a a dip in demand. Looking at the pending numbers, this drop in activity for homes appears to be relatively short lived.
The condo market may be experiencing influences above and beyond fluctuations in interest rates. After seeing a decrease in sales compared to last January, condo pending sales were also down compared to January 2015. I would postulate that there are two additional factors at play. January was a bumpy month for the stock market. Purchasing a condo as a second home on Maui is a discretionary purchase that is more likely to occur when the potential buyer is feeling flush. If a potential buyer takes a big hit to their stock portfolio, that typically isn’t when they are reaching for their wallet to make a big discretionary purchase. The other factor that is dragging on our condo market is the weakened Canadian Dollar. From 2007-2014, the Canadian Dollar was at or near par with the U.S. Dollar. It is now sitting at roughly 70 cents on the dollar. A significant number of the Canadian buyers were from Alberta. The big dip in oil prices, one of the big drivers of the decrease in the Canadian Dollar, has been an extra hit to the oil driven Alberta economy.
The five land sales recorded in January was the second lowest monthly total since 2010. That said, we saw a pretty healthy number of land listings go under contract in January. The land market has never come close to reaching the sales numbers we saw during the last boom. Financing is harder and that is a factor. There also appear to be fewer lower priced lots on the market. We saw a little more activity a couple of years back as there were some lot prices that made more sense when doing a build vs. buy preexisting analysis. I am not saying there aren’t lots like that still on the market, but they appear to be fewer in number.
Overall, this remains a somewhat schizophrenic market with some parts of the market scorching hot while other segments are chock full of inventory with limited demand. Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you are considering buying or selling property on Maui. We would welcome the change to listen to your needs and give you our thoughts on market conditions for the type of property that might fit your needs.
