Housing & Real Estate

About 12,000 low-income households across Hawaiʻi, including Maui wildfire survivors, rely on Housing Choice Vouchers, commonly known as Section 8, to help pay rent, according to a recent study by the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization. But now the program is undergoing increasing financial strain as rising rents make it much more expensive to help local families.

Three Kīpūola residents show how deeply affordable housing creates stability and opportunity.

The County of Maui Department of Housing is seeking applications for affordable housing projects that will be funded by its Affordable Housing Fund in Fiscal Year 2028. The projects must propose housing for families earning 140% and below the County of Maui’s median family income.

Maui County’s housing market saw increased sales activity in August, with closed sales rising for both single-family homes and condominiums compared to the same month last year, while median sales prices declined, according to the REALTORS Association of Maui. In August, 64 homes sold for a median price of $1.2 million, while 68 condo unit sold for a median of $564,950.

Hale Makua Health Services invites the public to attend a meeting regarding its proposed workforce housing project at Maui Lani. The meeting will be held at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026 at Maui Economic Opportunity’s Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Family Center in Wailuku.

The Maui County Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee voted 5-4 last week to adopt criteria for which apartment-zoned vacation rental properties can be recommended to the Maui Planning Commission for hotel-district rezoning, tying eligibility to how deeply a property sits within the county’s Sea Level Rise Exposure Area.

Ground breaking was recently held for the Kehalani Apartments, a new 35-unit affordable rental community in Wailuku for households earning 60% or less of the Area Median Income, with construction slated for completion in January 2028.

A public hearing on bills to update the Maui Island Plan and Wailuku-Kahului Community Plan for Central Maui’s Hoʻonani Village Mixed Use Development is scheduled for Thursday at 4:30 p.m. online and in the Council Chamber, Councilmember Tamara Paltin announced today.

This plan reduces the 900 housing units proposed in the EISPN to 652 housing units, including 109 onsite residential workforce housing units mauka of Mākena Alanui Road.

Three amendments proposed by Maui County Council members would add 16 properties—some overlapping between proposals—to a list of apartment-zoned properties used as vacation rentals and slated for rezoning into newly created hotel-zoned districts. The move would further shrink the pool of units that the much-debated Bill 9 would convert to long-term housing, opponents of the resolutions argued.

Condominium sales in Maui County continued to strengthen in July while single-family home sales cooled compared to a year earlier, according to data released by the Realtors Association of Maui.

The Hawaiʻi Intermediate Court of Appeals ordered the Maui Planning Commission Thursday to reconsider whether developers of the Honuaʻula master-planned community in South Maui—formerly known as Wailea 670—need to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement, although the court upheld the commission on other points raised by groups challenging the project. In a summary disposition order […]

Homes are gradually being rebuilt, while some businesses impacted by the wildfires have since reopened. Yet for thousands of survivors, the emotional impact of Aug. 8, 2023, continues every day.

After hearing nearly three hours of public testimony Wednesday, a Maui County Council committee recessed without voting on two resolutions that would refer proposed bills to the Maui Planning Commission to rezone additional apartment-district properties into newly created hotel districts.

As infrastructure improvements progress, Pacific Rim Land is preparing for groundbreakings on 122 future homes in the Kūlani at Līpoa subdivision and the 175-unit affordable Līpoa Apartments later this year.

The County of Maui has extended the Hoʻokumu Hou application deadline to Dec. 31, 2026, and expanded eligibility for wildfire recovery programs following an increase in federal income limits.

Hawaiian Community Assets, a statewide nonprofit housing counseling agency, announced that the first four Wailuku homes offered through its Ua Hale Aʻela program for Maui wildfire survivors will be available for occupancy beginning Aug. 28, 2026. 

The Maui County Council voted 7-1 twice Friday to send the Maui Planning Commission a pair of resolutions that could permanently move roughly 2,056 apartment-district transient vacation rental units into new hotel zoning, over the objection of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Council Member Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, who cast the lone “no” votes.

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands awarded a total of 815 project leases on Saturday in the department’s largest residential offering for the island of O‘ahu this year.

US Rep. Ed Case, who represents urban Oʻahu in Congress, has introduced a bipartisan bill intended to encourage more affordable housing construction in areas designated for transit-oriented development, an approach that could offer new financing tools for projects statewide, including Maui.

To ease the island’s severe housing shortage, Maui County has adopted new rules that allow qualifying residentially zoned properties on Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi to be eligible for up to two accessory dwellings in addition to a primary residence — a potential of three residential units on a single lot, the County Department of Planning announced.