#first time homebuyer

The 100th family received their home-shopping letter on Tuesday through Maui County’s Ho‘okumu Hou First-Time Homebuyer Opportunity Program, which provides eligible households displaced by the 2023 wildfires up to $600,000 in assistance to purchase a home.

“It can take years – even decades – for some people to save the money it takes to make a down payment on a home,” said Lee Wang, Executive Director of Housing Hawai‘i’s Future. “This bill gives young people hope. It gives them a better chance to stay here, to raise a family here.”

Up to $3,000 more in funding is now available to each of the first 35 homebuyers in the Hale Kamaʻāina Mortgage Program, a state initiative aimed at offering first-time homebuyers below market rate mortgages.

Marking a significant chapter in rebuilding, the County of Maui Office of Recovery announced that eight families received First-Time Homebuyer Opportunity Program shopping letters today, which allow them to begin shopping for a house within their approved price range.

The County of Maui Office of Recovery has opened applications for its Hoʻokumu Hou housing programs supported by Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds.

The County of Maui Office of Recovery will host an additional community information session online from 2 to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025, to present finalized policies for the upcoming Hoʻokumu Hou housing programs.

The County of Maui Office of Recovery will be hosting a series of community meetings on July 30 and Aug. 1, 2025, leading up to the opening of Hoʻokumu Hou program applications on Aug. 11. Newly named Hoʻokumu Hou, which will cover all of the County’s recovery programs funded by federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds, will focus on housing initiatives intended to help wildfire survivors receive the means they need to stay, or return, home.

American Savings Bankʻs “This is HOME” program offers affordable financing solutions for first time home buyers and is designed to help hardworking kamaʻāina buy a home in Hawaiʻi.

Hawaiian Electric presented a $9,000 donation to Habitat for Humanity Maui to help more Valley Isle residents achieve homeownership.

The infilled neighborhood will consist of 100% owner occupied workforce housing units exclusively for local residents and all created with sustainable design and construction. The development itself will consist of 40 duplexes across three acres of land.

The live-streamed event is part of an ongoing monthly series designed to inform and inspire prospective homebuyers, particularly first-time buyers, in Maui County.

The program provides first-time homebuyers with down payment and/or closing cost assistance of up to 5% of the home purchase price, not to exceed $30,000. Applicants will be selected through a lottery drawing process.

Maui County and the Maui Chamber of Commerce will host a two-day Maui Nui Attainable Housing Forum, Oct. 15 and 16 at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.

The county has decided to suspend the acceptance of further applications for its new First-Time Home Buyers Grant Program. The decision was made after receiving an overwhelming response of 320 applications in the first week of announcing the grant program. The program, which began on November 1, was developed to help qualified first time homebuyers […]