Housing & Real Estate

Despite this significant economic impact, home buyers remain extremely resilient. With mortgage rates remaining near record-low levels and home purchase mortgage applications up from a year ago, high buyer activity is expected to continue into the late summer and early fall market.

In Hawaiʻi, more than forty thousand households earn $30,000 a year or less. For them, housing they can afford barely exists.

Once complete, Kuaʻāina Mauka will be composed of 16 cottages and 16 houses. The project consists of seven workforce housing homes and 25 market-priced homes. The first sales have already closed; there are currently a number of pending sales, and more than 20 houses and cottages are still available.

Mayor Victorino will deliver a presentation titled “Maui County Outlook in 2021.” Dr. Chan’s presentation is titled “Taking a Closer Look at Local and National Housing Market Trends as they are Impacted by the Domestic and Global Economic Outlook.”

After Covid19 struck in the early part of March, in most every sector in the economy, we experienced a sharp fall in numbers. Pending sales fell and this resulted in the decrease of sales the last couple of months. Surprisingly, pending sales have increased since mid-April and June pendings were only 10 transactions off from 2019.

Former UH-Maui College dormitory buildings were blessed Tuesday morning for Huliau, a project to make safe housing available for people who’ve fallen into homelessness. “Huliau” means “turning point, time of change.”

The Maui Vacation Rental Association along with four homeowners on Molokaʻi filed a lawsuit in federal court on Friday against the County of Maui seeking to reinstate their permits to operate as Short-Term Vacation Rentals.

Two affordable housing projects on Maui–Kahului Lani Phase I in Kahului and Kaiwahine Village in Kīhei–opened amid the Coronavirus pandemic.

Catholic Charities Hawai’i earlier this week welcomed the first tenants of its new Kahului Lani senior affordable housing complex on Maui. The first phase of the 165-unit senior affordable rental complex is located along Kane Street across from the Kahului Foodland.

There are 81 units in the completed first phase. Another 83 units will be built in a second phase on the same property directly across the street from Foodland at the Queen Kaʻahumanu Center in Kahului. County officials say residents are expected to move in soon.

The County of Maui reminds residents that rental assistance may be available to those who have lost their job or have reduced income by more than 25% as a direct result of COVID-19.

The project is proposed on 6.943 acres located at South Kīhei Road and Kilohana Drive. The change is zoning request is from Open Zone to an R-1 Residential District.

Maui’s Lahaina/Kahului/Wailuku area (which was lumped into one district), was identified as the third most unaffordable small metro area for renters in the US (behind Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA at #1; and San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles-Arroyo Grande, CA at #2).  

The Kulakane is an oceanfront resort with 42 units, located at 3741 Lower Honoapiʻilani Road on the border of the Honokōwai and Mahinahina neighborhoods, close the Honokōwai Farmer’s Market and shopping, just north of Kāʻanapali, about five miles north of Lahaina town.

This week two families received keys to their new home as part of Habitat for Humanity Maui’s affordable housing project in Lahaina. Both homes were completed in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in a decrease of volunteers for the project.

April 2020 Maui Real Estate statistics are recorded and this Maui map is a breakdown of information for the first 4 months of 2020. (January 2020 – April 2020)

“In times of crisis and with so much uncertainty, it is truly a measure of a person that places others’ needs before self,” said 2019-20 RAM President Mike Trotto. “Our members demonstrate this commitment to the community each and every day by their unselfish acts of kindness and dedication to the people in need here in Maui.”

The property overlooks the Royal Kāʻanapali golf course, with sweeping views of the ocean and outer islands.  The low-rise, low-density development, lends a feeling of privacy and space, with 200 units on approximately 38 acres.

A sense of the slowdown in real estate activity during the month of April is apparent in the Sales vs. Pending graph from January 2019 through April 2020. There were only eight fewer recordings in April 2020, including all the escrows that canceled in mid-March. Only 39% of deals went pending for April 2020 vs. April 2019, for a total of 106 vs. 271.

Wailea Realty Corp. + Windermere Real Estate has donated $5,000 to the Maui Food Bank so it can continue to provide hunger relief to residents in need.

Team Vacation-Maui, a vacation condo rental sales and management team, has pledged more than $100,000 in free short-term accommodations to the front-line workers fighting against COVID-19.