Real Estate

American Savings Bank joined forces with Hawaiʻi Community Lending to make a $4.3 million investment in homeownership opportunities for eligible native Hawaiians residing on Hawaiian home lands.

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday, marking the start of a $17 million capital improvement project to install infrastructure for the planned Puʻunani subdivision in Waikapū. DHHL reports the funding is the first from the $600 million appropriated under Act 279 to serve beneficiaries on the DHHL waitlist.

The County of Maui Department of Finance will hold a real property tax sale on Tuesday in Kīhei to auction properties that have been delinquent for three or more years and have received their final notice of tax sale. As of May 18, there were seven properties scheduled to be sold.

Armstrong Builders recently received a 2023 Gold Nugget Merit Award in the Best Multi-Family Housing Community category for Makali‘i at Wailea.

The Pulelehua housing project in West maui has received its grading permit for the first phase of Mahinahina Hills. The project still needs a building permit to begin vertical construction according to West Maui Taxpayers Association President, Joseph Pluta.

Maui County condo prices increased nearly 25% year over year to $908,000, according to a Realtors Association of Maui market activity report released this week. About a third of the condos that sold last month were in luxury areas with medians well over $1 million to $2 million.

Maui County is far behind its goal of creating 5,000 affordable homes for local people over five years, according to an update this week on the Maui County Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan. Since the plan was finalized a couple years ago, 675 homes are being built and another 943 homes are approved for construction. Assuming that 600 rent and homeownership opportunities are secured through other projects outlined in the plan, roughly 3,000 homes are needed in under three years.

Media mogul and billionaire Oprah Winfrey recently purchased about 870 acres of Kula agricultural land for nearly $6.6 million in recent months, adding to hundreds of acres of real estate she already owns in Kula and in Hana. Winfrey bought four parcels total, according to sales deeds.

About seven acres of land beneath Kula Community Center and tennis courts are slated for public foreclosure sale in a couple weeks — but residents, including tennis and pickleball players, are hoping the county can serve up a plan to net the parcel.

Although some counties saw a drop in home prices at the start of the new year, Maui County was the only one in the state to exceed a $1 million median for single-family homes.

The grant funds will allow HCL to launch the 3-year Native Hawaiian Owner-Builder Project on Moloka‘i. The project will serve 58 Nāʻiwa lessee families and five Native Hawaiian builders to increase their capacity to build and own homes on Hawaiian Home Lands.

The Maui County Council will consider overriding former Mayor Victorino’s veto of Bill 103 (2022) relating to residential workforce housing deed restrictions and resale at the upcoming council meeting on Jan. 27, Councilmember Tamara Paltin announced.

The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement will use the $4 million to grow its loan program from currently at $12 million, to $16 million. More specifically $3 million will be utilized for new home construction loans for Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) beneficiaries building a home on an awarded lot.

Although Maui County’s real estate market is facing uncharted territory after the frenzied homebuying of the pandemic, Realtors Association of Maui said signs point to slightly softer prices heading into the new year. Low inventory, though, will keep home prices relatively high, and potential buyers shouldn’t expect costs to plummet to pre-pandemic numbers.

In one of the priciest sales in Maui history, a Mākena mansion overlooking the ocean was purchased for $32.76 million Friday. The 7,400-square-foot home known as “Mākena Modern” at 4572 Mākena Road was the highest listed property sale recorded on Maui, according to listing agent Chelsea Dimin of Compass. Other top-dollar property sales were done off the market and not posted on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

More out-of-state residents bought Hawaiʻi houses in the first three quarters of last year compared with the same time in previous years, according to a state report.

Saying that DHHL beneficiary demand for homesteading opportunities is “very high,” Villages of Leialiʻi 1-B units would go toward beneficiaries currently on the waitlist for a residential lease on Maui. Approximately 3,891 beneficiaries were on the wait list for a residential homestead as of June 30, 2021, the report said.

Owned by developer Greg Brown, the eight-bedroom, 45-foot-tall house at 5385 Lower Honoapiʻilani Road drew strong community opposition in 2021 over its height and its intended short-term rental use. The unfinished, two-story home originally called for two rooftop pools, eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms, along with multiple dens and media rooms.

Nationally, applications for new mortgages have fallen by more than 40%, and figures for Hawaiʻi showed a 56% year-over-year drop in October.

Driven by relatively low inventory, Maui County condominiums last month hit an all-time high for median sales price at $856,250. The staggering median comes as sales continue to slow due to high mortgage rates and out-of-reach home prices, according to the latest report from Realtors Association of Maui.