O'ahu median home prices fall

The Honolulu Board of Realtors reports that the November median price for an Oahu home fell 4.8% from last year. The median is at $610,000, down from November 2005's median of $640,500. This is the first drop since the late '90s.

On a year-to-date basis, sales of single family homes are down 14.1 percent from the first 11 months of 2005. Condo sales were down 20.5 percent during the same period.

Condo prices rose yet again, but volume of sales declined 19.1% for homes and 32.5% for condos from November 2005.

Forecast: Hawaii's economy will continue to slow

Hawaii's economy will continue to slow as the state's labor, housing and tourism markets remain tepid, inflation soars and personal income growth idles, according to the latest report from the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization.

Not much good news in this report.

Hawaii's economy isn't likely to sour as badly as it did in 1991 and 1992 after the state's last housing boom took its turn for the worse, he said.

"This is a much more stable slowing," Bonham said. "We have lots of military construction, the housing bubble wasn't as big and our population isn't downsizing. This is a slowdown; it's not a contraction."

"The housing bubble [isn't] as big"? Ahem.