Don’t be surprised to see a big spike in median home prices in Maui in the near future. Read on to find out why. This is our look at the May Maui Real Estate Statistics. We take a look at median prices, sales volumes, new pending sales in May and notable numbers. We also give a few thoughts on what it all means. Without further ado, here are the May numbers.
Maui Sales Volumes and Median Prices
By my count, there were 94 homes sold in May with a median sales price of $622,500. In May of 2015, there were 88 sales with a median price of $607,097. That calculates to a 7% increase in sales volume and a 2.5% increase in median price.
There were 118 condos sold in May with a median sales price of $423,500. Last May, there were 110 sales with a median price of $459,500. That calculates to a 7% increase in sales volume and an 8% decrease in median price.
There were 14 land sales with a median price of $378,500 in May. There were 12 sales in May of 2015 with a median price of $380,000. That is roughly a 17% increase in sales and around a half of a percent drop in median price.
Notable Numbers from the May Maui Real Estate Sales Activity
- The highest priced home sale last month on Maui was $6,000,000. The oceanfront estate in the Kuau area of Paia included a 4 bedroom, 4.5 bath home with 6,258 square feet of living space, a separate 1 bedroom, 1 bath cottage with 1,0125 square feet of living space on a 1.28 acre lot.
- That was one of 7 home sales over $2,000,000 in Maui during May. The other big closes included 2 sales in Wailea, 2 sales in Kapalua, and one sale each in Kula and Lahaina.
- The highest priced condo transaction last month closed for $4,150,000. That was a 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath condo with 2,789 square feet of living space at Montage Kapalua.
- The Montage sale was one of seven condo closes of $1,500,000 or greater in May. The other closes included 4 sales at Honua Kai, a Kapalua Ironwoods and a Mahana. I thought it was notable that all of those sales were in West Maui.
- The highest priced land sale for the month of May closed for $2,700,000. That lot is .429 acres of beachfront in North Kihei.
- There were 9 bank owned sales that closed in May of this year. Last year, there were 13 bank owned sales reported on the MLS.
- There were only 4 short sales this May. That was the same number as last May. Short sales remain a relatively small percentage of the total sales. With continued appreciation, that should remain the case for the remainder of this market cycle.
New Pending Sales
The bulk of the sales reported above went under contract sometime in March or April. To give us a sense of more current market demand, the chart below shows the number of properties that went under contract in May compared to the numbers in May of 2015.
This is the second month in a row when pending home sales have gone down. I would expect that we might see a dip in actual sales volume in June. Condos saw an increase in pending sales in May. That marks the 4th straight month of increased pending sales for condos compared to 2015. That bodes well for sales over the next couple of months. Land pending sales were down slightly after a slower April. Land pendings have been more up and down this year. We are also talking about a much smaller sample of sales so we may just be seeing some month to month variability.
Thoughts on the May Numbers
I started this post with a teaser that Maui Median home prices are likely to see a healthy increase sometime in the coming months. That might sound like a contradiction to my suggestion that sales volume is going to be decreasing based on the dip in pending home sales. In fact, the decrease in sales and the increase in median prices are likely tied together.
Anecdotally, it feels like inventory has been shrinking significantly for homes. The local real estate association keeps track of this information. When I looked at their data for the last few months, inventory is down almost 9% compared to earlier this year. That said, this is actually fairly typical. It mirrors shifts in inventory that we saw last year. So what makes the current market look different?
I decided to take a deeper look at the current inventory. Currently, there are 517 homes that are active. Of the 517 homes that are active, 307 of the homes are priced $1,000,000 or higher. That is an impressive 59% of the inventory. In May, the median price for a home was $622,500. Of the 517 active homes listed, there were only 83 homes priced for at or below the median sales price of $622,500. That is just 16% of the inventory. I also looked at the pending home sales. There are currently 277 homes under contract. Of that total, 147 homes of the 277 pending homes are listed for at or below the median price of $622,500. That is 53% of the pending sales. Of the 277 pending sales, 52 of the homes were priced $1,000,000 or more. That is roughly 19% of the pending sales.
Chewing on the numbers above, it is clear that there is strong demand and shrinking inventory at or below the median of $622,500. While the pending sales will likely help keep the median prices in check next month, it is likely we will see median prices start to rise unless the inventory of homes at or below the current median increases significantly. The increase will stem from fewer lower priced sales and to a lesser extent upward price pressure from the lack of inventory. The lack of inventory will likely also keep sales volumes down.
While the home market under $700,000 appears to be continuing to be tight marketplace, that is not true of other price points and property types. The market conditions also differ in different geographic areas of the island. Overall, there is a lot of variability in this market. Contact The Maui Real Estate Team to discuss your specific real estate needs. We will give you our take on market conditions particular to your interests.
