Hawaii foreclosures up; the beginning of the end?

TheHawaiiChannel.com reports that foreclosures have risen sharply on Oahu this month:

"Six months ago, we were looking at maybe 30 foreclosures a month. Today, we are looking for 100 new foreclosures a month," foreclosure investor Courtney Brown said.

Keep your eyes open - Hawaii follows Mainland trends by several years. It's about time all the sub prime loans came to pay the piper.

Is the Hawaii housing market becoming more "balanced"?

The Advertiser runs a sunny story on the good health of the housing market in Hawaii.

The number of O'ahu single-family home and condominium sales peaked in 2005 at 12,607. Sales dropped 17 percent to 10,421 last year, and have continued to decline this year but at a slower pace.

Homes that a couple of years ago spent a median 15 to 30 days on the market before selling have spent a median 40 to 70 days on the market this year.

Inventory, which dropped to roughly 1,700 units in mid-2005, has been around 4,000 this year.

Median prices, meanwhile, began to wobble late last year after doubling since 2001. This year through April, the single-family home median price is up just 1 percent to $630,000. The year-to-date median condo price is $322,000, up almost 6 percent compared with a 15 percent rise last year.

The article also touches on "lending challenges" created by the fallout from the subprime lending fiasco currently taking place on the Mainland.

"It has a tremendous effect," she said. "I find that more challenging than selling. I have the product, but it's the mortgage companies now providing the pressure."

The Hawaii housing product is unique, certainly, but this bubble was built on "creative financing" and "exotic mortgages".

Forbes: Honolulu has 6th least affordable housing in US

It doesn't come as a surprise to anyone in Hawaii, but Forbes just named Honolulu one of the top 10 most overpriced housing markets in America.

With a median home price of $630,000 and P/E ratio the 3rd highest in the nation, you aren't just imagining things when you look around at all this pricey real estate and wonder how people are buying on Hawaii's low wages.

It hasn't popped yet - Oahu prices rise

The Star-Bulletin reports that prices on Oahu are still on the rise.

Home sales were still brisk:

The median single-family home price on Oahu climbed to $665,000 in April, beating out the median last month by 3.3 percent and last year by 8 percent, according to the latest data from the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

Home sales were strong, with 342 existing homes changing hands, compared to 332 a year ago.

While condo sales slowed:

The condominium market on Oahu reached a median price of $325,000 in April, 9.6 percent higher than a year ago. Condo sales fell, however, by 9.8 percent to 527.

I know I've been away for awhile, but it's still a jungle out there, folks!

Neighbor island sales and prices down in 2006

While Oahu saw sales slow and prices rise slightly in 2006, both sales and prices were down on the neighbor islands last year. The Star-Bulletin has the breakdown:

Sales remained fairly steady for homes on Kauai in December: Half sold for more than $592,500, and half for less, as the median price dropped 2 percent. In December 2005, the median price of a Kauai home was $605,000.

At the market's height of summer 2005, Blachowiak recalls the median sales price on Kauai reached close to $700,000.

The Big Island is seeing the same housing trend:

On the Big Island, the median home price dropped 18 percent to $353,500 from December 2005. Despite the drop in prices, the number of homes sold declined by 41 to 160 in December.

Maui trended similar to Oahu, with home prices slightly up while sales slowed. The Maui News reports:

For the year just ended, the average price of a single-family house was $941,434, according to the Multiple Listing Service of the Realtors Association of Maui.

The median was $679,000, which means half sold for that amount or less.

Prices rose just 2 percent, after four years in which they rose by 23 percent to 25 percent per year.

The pace slowed a bit, but unlike sob stories from the Mainland, Maui’s real estate market continued active. The total of single-family closings was 1,088, which was down from 1,316 in 2005.

Oahu prices up, sales off for 2006

No surprises here: as we've been following all year, prices were up but sales slowed in 2006. The Advertiser reports that the number of homes sold was the fewest since 2002.

Last year, single-family homes sold for a median price of $630,000, or 7 percent more than $610,000 in 2005. The median is the point at which half the prices were higher and half lower. For condominiums, the median was $310,000, up 15 percent from $305,000 during the same comparable period.

Jim Wright of Century 21 says he "expects prices to decline around 5 percent and sales to rise by about 5 percent in 2007."

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.