Rents are rising on Maui. Borrowing costs remain low. In this type of market, a place like Keonekai Villages 14-103 is a compelling buy if you have money set aside for a down payment.

Keonekai Villages 14-103 is listed for $257,000. With 5% down at an interest rate of 3.92%, monthly mortgage payments are $1,154 a month. The current maintenance fee is $274 a month. That includes, water, trash, refuse and basic cable. Insurance would run roughly $300-$350 a year or $25 to $29.17 per month. That comes to $1,457.17 per month. Other expenses would include electricity, Internet and property taxes. The current owner is paying a $1,694 in property taxes annually. If you are a Maui Resident who paid local taxes in 2015, you could be eligible for a lower homeowner tax rate as long as you file for the new rate before the end of the year. With exemptions, your taxes would be $500 or less. I searched Craigslist to see if I could find any rentals in Keonekai Villages that might be comparable. The only recent listing I could find was asking $1,600 a month plus electricity. A Maui resident paying homeowner tax rates would be paying less to own the condo than the cost to rent.

Keonekai Villages 14-103 isn’t just a case study for buying, it also offers a great location. It is situated within a few blocks of the Kamaole II and III Beach Parks. These are some of the best swimming and snorkeling spots in South Kihei. Shops and restaurants are also within walking distance of Keonekai. The beaches and amenities of Wailea and Makena are anywhere from two to ten minutes drive.

This condo sold in 2016. Calculations on condo ownership changed with the Covid Real Estate Boom. Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you are a first time home buyer to discuss the current pros and cons of buying in this market.

There are so many attributes at 3035 Baldwin Avenue from the spectacular views, to the thoughtful design and construction, the privacy, the trails, the agriculture, the additional lot allocations etc. that it is easy to perhaps overlook one of the most outstanding features of all.

The location!

Situated at the epicenter of Maui, it is hard to find a more convenient location for a private estate on Maui.

• • 2 minutes and .5 mile to Montessori of Maui
  • 3 minutes and 1.2 miles to Makawao Elementary School
  • 4 minutes and 1.5 miles to Makawao town
  • 6 minutes and 2.4 miles to Seabury Hall
  • 11 minutes and 5.4 miles to Haiku town
  • 14 minutes and less than 5 miles to Makawao forest Mountain Biking
  • 15 minutes and 6 miles to Paia town
  • 17 minutes to Baldwin Beach Park

• • 17 minutes and 7 miles to Hookipa Beach Park
  • 18 minutes and 10.5 miles to Kahului Airport
  • 36 minutes and 28.7 miles to Keawakapu Beach

• 67 minutes and 29.8 miles to Haleakala Summit
• 75 minutes and 44.1 miles to Honolua Bay
• 110 minutes and 42.2 miles to Travaasa, Hana
• Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and Seattle – Approximately 6 hours
• Tokyo – < 12 hours
• New York 14 hours
• Paris – 20 hours

Whether is be cycling, surf, snorkeling, school, sushi, shopping or more…3035 Baldwin Ave. So Close and Yet So Private.

 This property is no longer for sale.  Contact The Maui Real Estate Team for assistance with other properties on Maui.

It’s almost the end of the month so I wanted to make sure I squeezed in a June stats post.This is something of an abbreviated post with more numbers and less analysis. I will give a few more thoughts on the state of the market in the July stats. Without further ado, here are the numbers.

June Real Estate Sales Volumes

There were 98 homes sold in June with a median home price of $657,000. Last June there were 101 homes sold with a median price of $650,000. That is a 3% drop in sales volume and a 1% increase in median price when comparing this June to last June.

There were 110 condos sold in June with a median price of $384,000. In June of 2015, there were 99 condos sold with a median price of $355,000. That is an 11% increase in sales volume and an 8% increase in median price.

There were 13 lots sold in June with a whopping median price of $1,200,000. Last June, there were 14 sales with a median price of $420,000. That is a 7% decrease in volume and a 285% increase in median price.

Notable numbers from the June Real Estate Sales Activity
While compiling the stats above, I came across some other notable numbers worth sharing from the June sales activity.

• The highest home sale price in June was $7,000,000. This Makena property includes almost 10 acres of land and two pole homes. It is close to Big Beach.
• That was one of 5 home sales over $2,000,000. The other sales were for properties in Kihei, Kapalua, Launiupoko (Lahaina), and Hana.
• The highest price condo to close in June is located in Wailea. The 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath condo Ho’olei in Wailea sold for $2,850,000.
• That was one of 8 condo sales in June sold for $1,500,000 or more. There was one more Ho’olei sale and two sales in Wailea Elua. There were individual sales of $1,500,000 or higher at Ka’anapali Ali’i, Maui Ka’anapali Villas, Honua Kai and Makena Surf.
• The highest priced land transaction closed for $2,950,000. This oceanfront lot in the Kuau area of Paia consists of 18,861 square feet of land.
• This was one of 7 land sales over $1,000,000 in June. That is a pretty extraordinary number. Five of these sales were in Launiupoko. They were part of the new Makila Ranch subdivision of Launiupoko. The one other sale was in Haiku.
• There were 12 bank owned sales that closed in June. That was down just a little from the 13 REO sales in June of 2015.
• There were 2 short sales that closed in June. That is down significantly from the 8 short sale transactions that closed in June of 2015.

June Pending Sales
All of the numbers discussed prior to this point were from properties that sold in June. We also wanted to take a look at the properties that went under contract with buyers in June. This will give us a little better sense of more recent market activity and demand.

June marked the second month in a row where pending home sales were down. I don’t believe this is a reflection of decreased demand as it is a reflection of limited inventory for first time home buyers. I expect this trend to continue with lower sales volumes and higher median prices due the decreased number of entry level homes available for sale. The condo market continues to follow recent trends of outperforming 2015. The land market pending sales are skewed a little by new development sales that showed 0 days on market. These were contracts that were likely written before this month.

Wrapping it all up
I don’t have a whole lot of in depth analysis to offer this month. We have seen fairly steady market demand overall with pockets of greater activity based on geography and price point around the island. As mentioned directly above, I believe the lack of lower priced home inventory will continue to impact the total numbers of homes sold. Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you are thinking of sticking your toes into the waters of the Maui Real Estate market. We would welcome the chance to sit down and learn about your real estate needs and give our thoughts on market conditions specific to the properties that might fit your needs.

Maui County has opened the spigot a little more when it comes to water fixtures. It is now allowing property owners to purchase a limited number of additional fixtures units for their water meter. I realize this post may sound like Greek to those who haven’t ever looked into adding bathrooms on to an existing home or adding a new accessory dwelling. with that in mind, I wanted to give a little background on fixture count, why it is an important issue and what the new rules are about.

In the county of Maui, different water fixture counts are applied to different sized water meters. The process can be a little bit confusing. The limitation on water fixtures is not applicable to when a home is first built on a property. However, if you want to expand on that home or build a cottage, you are capped at a certain number of water fixtures based on meter sizes. The most common water meter is a 5/8ths inch meter. The base configuration allows for 31 points worth of water fixtures. Different water fixtures are assigned different points. For example, a water spigot is assigned 3 points, a low flow toilet is assigned 1.7 points while a conventional toilet is assigned 3 points. If an existing structure has fixture totals that are equal to, greater than or even close to 31 points; the county would be unlikely to approve any additions or accessory dwellings that have additional plumbing. For parts of the island where additional water meters are available, the owner of the property would need to have a new water meter installed. That in itself is an expensive and not necessarily a quick process. For areas like Upcountry Maui and parts of the North Shore, that may not be an option. Those parts of the island have a closed waiting list for water meters. It will be many years before the county makes its way through that list.

These policies have been grumbled about by property owners for some time. That said, it first entered the public discourse in the fall of 2015 when the issue was raised in a county council meeting. The county has been looking at addressing some of the island’s housing shortage via infill development. In other words, they were looking at where they could add density by allowing people to build more accessory dwellings. They are even considering lowering the lot size requirements for accessory dwellings. The current fixture count limits were a potential impediment to property owners building more accessory dwellings.

As of July 1, the county has given homeowners a path to raise their fixture counts. Owners can increase their total number of fixture units by paying a fee per each additional fixture unit. There are limits to the number of units each home can purchase. This is the run down on the new fixture count rules by meter size.

Fixture unit costs and allocations are as follows:

• The standard 5/8 inch water meter currently has 31 fixture units. At a cost of $389 per fixture unit, an additional 8 fixture units may be purchased.
• A 3/4 inch water meter currently allows for 53 fixture units. You can now by as many as 14 additional fixture units at cost of $356 per fixture unit.
• A 1 inch water meter allows for up to 128 fixture units. Property owners can now pay to raise their capacity by an additional 32 fixture units at a cost of an additional $261 per fixture units.

These new rules are a positive step in creating some infill development on Maui and at least addressing a portion of the limitations on housing inventory. They also make it easier for people to add a new bathroom if they had previously tapped out their fixtures. Here is a link to a Maui County Plumbing Worksheet to show the full list of values of different plumbing fixtures. Check out the Maui County Department of Water Supply for more information on the county water system. The Engineering department is the group that handles water meters.

Updated Maui County Property Tax Rates for the New Fiscal Year

The new fiscal year for Maui County starts on July 1 and that means new property tax rates. The Maui County Council approved a new budget that saw a reduction in property tax rates for almost every property tax classification. Some of the reduction in rates may be offset by increased assessed values for properties. This is following a general pattern with Maui County Property tax rates. When the market is going up rates are decreased. When market values go down, property tax rates go up. You can see the new rates compared to the old rates below.

• The Residential tax rate will be $5.30 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is a decrease of 10 cents from the 2015/2016 tax rate of $5.40.
• The Apartment tax rate will be $6.00 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is unchanged from last year’s tax rate.
• The Commercial tax rate will be $6.60 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is also unchanged from last year.
• The Industrial tax rate is $6.69 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is a decrease from $6.85 last year.
• The Agricultural tax rate is $5.66 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is down from $5.75 in 2015/2016.
• The Conservation tax rate is $5.80 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is a decrease from last year’s rate of $5.90.
• The Hotel and Resort tax rate is $8.71 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is a decrease from the previous rate of $8.85.
• The Time Share rate is $14.31 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is a healthy decrease from the old rate of $14.55.
• The Homeowner rate is $2.70 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is a down from last year’s rate of $2.75.
• The Commercialized Residential rate is $4.35 per $1,000 of assessed value. That rate remains unchanged.

Property tax rates are paid biannually in Maui County. The first bill comes due in August with the next payment made in February. Tax rates for the next fiscal year will be debated again in the Spring with the County Council approving new rates sometime in late May or June.

As we hit the midpoint of May, I wanted to give an update on the April Maui Real Estate Statistics. April is the last month of Maui’s “peak” home buying season. Once we get past April 15th, visitor numbers typically dip reducing the number of potential buyers. That said, the bulk of the sales that we see in April are from contracts written earlier in the buyer season. These stats take a look at the number of properties sold, median prices, properties that went under contract in April and notable numbers from the April sales activity. I also give a few thoughts on the state of the market and the numbers that stood out to me in April. Without further ado, here are the April numbers.

April Maui Real Estate Sals Volumes

There were 99 home sales reported in Maui County during April with a median sales price of $680,000. In April of 2015, there were 87 homes sold with a median price of $581,000. That calculates to roughly a 14% increase in sales activity and a 17% increase in median price.

There were 125 condo sales reported in Maui during April with a median price of $445,000. Last April there were 105 condos sold with a median price of $410,000. That is a 19% increase in sales volume and roughly a 9% increase in median price.

There were 10 land sales reported in Maui County for the month of April with a median sales price of $453,500. In April 2015, there were 12 sales with a median price of $417,500. That calculates to a 17% decrease in sales and an 8% increase in median price.

While compiling the median sales prices and sales volumes, I came up with some numbers that I thought were worth sharing from the April numbers.

Notable Numbers from the April Maui Real Estate Sales

• The highest priced home sale in April closed for $6,550,000. This Kula Estate included a 4 bed, 4 bath home with 7,809 square feet of living space, 2 cottages, a 9 car garage building and a lot more on 23 acres.
• It was a busy month for luxury home sales with 13 closes more than $2,000,000. In addition to the big Kula sale, there was one additional Kula sale, 3 sales in Wailea, 3 sales in the Launiupoko area of Lahaina and one sale each in Paia, Haiku, Kapalua, Kihei, and Ka’anapali.
• The highest priced condo sale in April closed for $5,490,309. This Honua Kai Condo has 3 beds, 3.5 baths with 2,770 sq feet of living space and a 2,200 square foot lanai.
• The big Honua Kai close was one of 13 condo sales over $1,500,000. Other sales included 4 more closes at Honua Kai, 2 Wailea Point Condos, a Montage Kapalua Bay, a Polo Beach, an Alaeloa, Mahana, Kaanapali Shores and a Masters Ka’anapali Unit.
• The highest priced land sale in April closed for $850,000. The 1.45 acre condominiumized agricultural lot in Launiupoko has the entitlements to build the main house for the condo.
• There were 11 bank owned transactions that closed in April. That is up slightly from the 9 bank owned sales in April of 2015. There were 4 successful short sales that closed in April 2016. That is the same total as April 2015.

Pending Real Estate Sales in April
Sales are a lagging indicator. They do not show current buyer demand. That is why our stats posts include the number of properties that go pending in that particular month.

The number of properties that went pending in April was lower compared to April of 2015. New contracts for homes and lots were down while condos were up. I am not sure that is indicative of any sort of trend. As a whole it is something of a reversal of what we saw during the first quarter of the year where home sales were up significantly, land was up slightly and condo sales were down. One month of varied market activity is one thing. If we were to string a few months together, we might be seeing a trend.

Thoughts on the April Sales Number and The Maui Real Estate Market
Of all of the sales figures from April, the luxury property sales stood out the most to me. There were more homes sold over $2,000,000 in April than the previous three months of the year combined. The 13 condo sales over $1,500,000 wasn’t too far behind the 17 total sales during the first quarter of 2016. After a slower start to the year, there appears to be a little bit of a bump in high end sales activity. It makes some sense as the stock market has seen a recovery from the doldrums of earlier this year. It will be interesting to see if that was just one month or if this increased activity will sustain itself.

The high median sales price for homes was noteworthy. This was the second highest median sales price since the recovery of the real estate market. The high median is related to the high number of higher priced sales. It is also due in part to a shrinking inventory of lower priced homes. Rising values and just a tight overall market have resulted in a shrinking pool of homes available for sale for less than $500,000.

The condo market numbers were also somewhat notable in that sales were up and pending sales were up compared to April 2015. The condo market was slower during the first quarter of 2016 when compared to 2015. This may be a blip or it may be the start of an uptick in activity in the condo market. It will be interesting to see the numbers in the next couple of months.

While the April condo market bucked the first quarter trends, the home market continued the momentum of the first quarter. April home sales were well above the totals for April 2015. That made it something of a surprise to see April pending home sales were well below April 2015. As mentioned above, one month may just be due to variability in the market. We will see what unfolds in the coming months.

If you are a buyer or a seller thinking of entering the Maui Real Estate market, you will find that market conditions are not monolithic. While this blog post discusses the generalities of the Maui market, market demand and inventory varies by geography and price point. Contact The Maui Real Estate Team to discuss market conditions specific to your real estate needs. We look forward to being of service.