The Maui Real Estate market saw its second consecutive week of strengthening buyer activity. Closings remain impacted by limited buyer activity from earlier in the pandemic. Buyers will find that there is more inventory starting to come to market. Find out more below as I delve into this week’s market activity in Maui County.

Maui Realtors reported 48 new escrows this week. That is a 4% percent increase over last week. It is just 2% below the number of properties that went under contract during the same seven day period of 2019.

I was somewhat surprised by the increase in activity last week in spite of the social upheaval happening around the country. I am even more surprised to see that demand actually increased for this seven day period. This doesn’t seem to be a unique phenomenon to Maui. Redfin’s Glenn Kelman reports the data for his national brokerage below.

1 of 10: Redfin just published our weekly report on housing demand, and once again it’s loaded with numbers & juicy insights from our agents. Demand is 25% above pre-pandemic levels. Buyers haven’t “batted an eyelash” over the possibility of a resurgent pandemic or now protests.

— Glenn Kelman (@glennkelman) June 12, 2020

To be clear, the Maui market is not seeing demand exceeding pre-pandemic levels. That said, just like on the mainland, Maui buyers have not been deterred by the increase in Covid on the mainland or the nationwide protests.

Notable Numbers From This Week’s Pending Sales

• The 48 new pending sales include 23 homes, 23 condos and 2 lots.
• This is only the second time since the stay at home order went into effect that condo sales have been equal to home sales. For the pandemic, pending home sales are higher.
• Of the 23 pending condo sales, 9 are vacation rentals. Another two pending sales are higher priced resort area condos that prohibit vacation rentals.
• Pending land sales continue to bounce between 0-4 per week with this week coming in at 2.

This Week’s Sales

Maui Realtors reported 16 sales between June 3rd and June 9th. This is a dip of 55% from last week and down 68% from the same seven day period from the year prior. Keep in mind that sales are a lagging indicator of buyer demand. I thought our sales numbers were past the influence of the slower demand from just after the stay at home orders went into place. Apparently, that isn’t the case. When you look at the pending sales chart, we should see better sales numbers ahead. Most transactions are taking 30-60 days to close after they go under contract.

New Listings for The Week

Realtors listed 77 properties between June 3rd and 9th. That is the same number as last week and 6% below the same seven day period of 2019. Inventory is slowly growing as new listings outpace new pending sales. The overall inventory numbers remain pretty low with scarcity a big factor in some towns and neighborhoods around the island.

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Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you have questions on the market or if you are interested in buying or selling property on island. Our experience and market knowledge is an asset to buyers and sellers in these dynamic market conditions.

It has been another week that feels more like a month. Or a year. That also means its time to check in again on the Maui Real Estate market. By a good margin, this was the busiest seven day period for pending sales since February 26th-March 3rd. I keep a close enough eye on the market on a day to day basis that I can’t say I am surprised by this week’s numbers. That said, they don’t really align with the general disorder of the world right now. Read further to find out more details about this week’s numbers.

Weekly Pending Real Estate Sales

Maui Realtors reported 46 new pending sales between May 27th and June 2nd. That is a 43% increase over last week. That is 16% below the same seven day period of 2019.

After a couple of weeks of relatively flat pending sales, this is a pretty healthy uptick in activity. This surge comes in the midst of a period of historic national upheaval. It’s a lot easier to report the numbers than to explain the numbers this week. If you are looking for other factors at play, some of Maui’s stay at home restrictions were eased on June 1. If that had an impact, it would be more of a psychological one as a good number of the seven day period’s pending sales came before the first of the month.

Going into this week, I remained somewhat surprised by the resiliency of our market. We have close to no off island visitors and our unemployment rate is somewhere between 30 and 40%. Under those conditions, you would expect our activity to be lower. Low and behold, during one of the biggest weeks of social unrest in recent U.S. History buyer activity increased to the highest level since Covid-19 came into the picture.

If there is one other takeaway besides the market’s relative resilience, it would be it’s overall unpredictability. Our market showed a nice bounce coming off the bottom. After a period of steadily increasing activity, it dipped and stalled for a couple of weeks. Now, activity is up again. I would anticipate that we will continue to see fluctuations in the market.

Details Behind This Week’s Pending Sales

• The 46 pending sales included 28 pending home sales, 15 pending condo sales and 3 pending land sales.
• The one clear trend in our Covid-19 impacted market is the shift towards home buying. Condo sales outpaced home sales the first three months of the year. Now for every week but one since the start of the pandemic, home pendings outpaced condos. I don’t believe it is a shift in preference. I think it is more due to a contraction in the pool of available condo buyers, particularly off island buyers.
• This week was the strongest week for pending home sales since February 26th-March 3rd. This comes after three straight weeks in which pending home sales decreased. Just as I was wondering if there may be a trend developing, this week blew that up.
• This week’s pending condo sales broke down to 9 pendings in condos that prohibit vacation rentals and 6 pendings in condos that allow vacation rentals.
• This is contrary to a general trend towards vacation rental purchases since the start of Covid-19.
• The three land pending sales is within the range of 0-4 weekly pending sales that Realtors reported over the last couple of months.
• One of the new pending land sales was particularly notable. A 1.7 acre beachfront lot in Kapalua listed for $9,900,000 went under contract.

This Week’s Sales Activity

Maui Realtors reported 35 closed transactions between May 27th and June 2nd. This is a 218% increase over the week prior. That said, it is still 48% below the same seven day period last year. The sales numbers are starting to pick up after being in the doldrums over the last couple of weeks. The increased sales now are reflecting the increase in pending sales that occurred in mid to late April.

Tracking New Inventory

Over, the last couple of weeks I added new inventory into our weekly analysis. Today, I took the time to graph weekly inventory between the week of February 26-May 3rd and the seven day period from May 27th-June 2nd .

While not as drastic, there are some similarities to the trends shown in the chart for pending sales. New listings dropped in early and mid-April with a rise in new listings towards the end of the month and mid May. There was a similar dip in activity in the second half of May.

As with pending sales, there was a pretty big uptick in new listings this week. The 77 new listings is a 63% increase over the week prior and a 35% over the same seven day period of 2019.

Maui went into Covid-19 with a shortage of inventory and strong demand. We saw a decrease in supply and a decrease in demand in April. At this point, our inventory remains relatively limited but growing. Demand is below pre-pandemic levels. The current balance is keeping prices stable. It is difficult to guess how things will play out moving forward. We see how demand has fluctuated. We are also seeing some fluctuation in new inventory. Overall, this balance between supply and demand will dictate pricing moving forward.

Contact The Maui Real Estate Team

In these uncertain times, it pays to work with experienced agents. We strive to keep our clients well informed on market conditions and inventory so they can make informed decisions. We take pride in being your strong fiduciary. Send us a message if you are thinking of buying or selling Maui property. One of our agents would welcome the chance to sit down with you to discuss your real estate needs.

Somehow in this strange time space continuum that is the Covid-19 pandemic, another week passed. Once again, that means its time to take a look at the weekly real estate activity in Maui County. This week’s numbers are almost identical to the numbers from last week. Keep reading for more of the details.

Maui Realtors reported 32 pending sales in the seven day period between May 20th and May 26th. That is the same number of pending sales as last week. It is 49% of the 63 pendings from the same seven day period last year.

Having followed Maui real estate statistics pretty closely over the last seventeen years, I am reticent to read too much into a couple of weeks of data. That said, the chart above isn’t looking like a V shaped recovery. It is looking a little ragged if it is a check mark shaped recovery. It will be interesting to see the the numbers of the next couple of weeks to see if anything resembling a trend emerges.

Some Notable Numbers from This Week’s Pending Sales

• The 32 pending sales broke down into fifteen pending home sales, 14 pending condo sales and 4 pending lots.
• Pending home sales have outpaced pending condo sales for all but one week since the stay at home orders.
• This is three straight weeks where pending home sales are down from the week prior. I am reticent to read into this too much as of yet. That said, this will be something to monitor going forward.
• The vacation rental/second home condo market continues to outpace the non-vacation rental condo market. Eight of the thirteen pending sales are in complexes that allow vacation rentals.
• The land market continues to fluctuate. The four pending sales for the week is tied for the most since the start of stay at home orders. This comes after zero pending lot transactions the week prior.

This Week’s Closed Transactions

Only 16 transactions closed in the seven day period between May 20th and May 26th. That is one fewer transaction than last week. It is 20% of the 80 transactions that closed during the same seven day period of 2019. These two weeks reflect the really slow pending sales of late March and April. I would be surprised if we don’t start to see an increase in closings either next week or the week following.

A Quick Look at Inventory

Last week’s post looked at the number of new listings since the pandemic. I would like to put together charts showing weekly new inventory since the start of the pandemic, but I am limited by time constraints. I may try to address that on a future post. That said, new listings continue to lag behind last year’s numbers. There are 204 new land, condo and home listings for the month to date. Last year, there were 254 new listings over the same period. That is a 20% drop in new listings.

While the drop in listings is less than the drop in pending sales, it is worth noting that inventory levels were pretty constrained prior to the start of the pandemic. There is another point worth consideration. Quite a few sellers pulled their property from the market since the start of Covid-19. Since March 1, 2020, 364 sellers pulled their listings off the market. Over the same period of time last year, 249 sellers pulled listings off the market. That is a 46% increase. While inventory is growing, there is far from a glut of properties for sale.

The Big Picture

There were a couple of significant announcements related to the local economy over the last week. As of June 1, medium risk businesses will be opening on Maui. That includes restaurants with reduced capacity, fitness centers, and most county parks. As of yesterday, the governor indicated that the mandatory 14 day quarantine for inbound visitors will be extended through at least July 1.

The announcements over the last week points to a local economy that will be opening some, but the main economic engine of tourism will remain throttled for at least another month. I don’t think I am going out on too big of a limb by saying that a lack of tourism will continue to constrain the island’s second home market. While some second home buyers are comfortable with the current norm of sight unseen purchases, not all buyers share that sentiment.

The Maui Real Estate market continues to see activity albeit at reduced numbers. With still no tourism and a struggling local economy, it speaks to the desirability of a home on Maui. We live in a special place. There are local residents who still desire a home to call their own. There are off island residents who still want a place for when it is safe to fly back to Maui. Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you are thinking of entering the Maui Real Estate market. We look forward to be of assistance.

That’s right. Once again, its time for our weekly glance at real estate activity on Maui during the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent numbers reflected a slow but steady increase in buyer activity. This week, the new pending sales numbers came in a little lower than the week prior. Today’s post provides information on the new pending sales numbers and the sales numbers for the last week. I also am going to delve into the impact of Covid-19 on new listings. Together, the information on buyer demand and the supply of listings will give us some insights on market values.

This week’s pending sales

After four consecutive weeks of pending sales increasing over the week prior, this week’s pending sales came in lower. The 32 pending sales are down 18% from last week’s 39 sales. They are 47% lower than the same seven day period of 2019.

I would urge caution about reading too much into this decrease. Sales activity tends to fluctuate on Maui, and increases in market activity aren’t always linear. We shall see what happens in the coming weeks.

Digging into This Week’s Pending Sales

• The 32 pending sales consist of 17 homes and 15 condos. No lots went under contract.
• This marks eight of nine weeks that pending home sales outpaced condo sales.
• Of the fifteen pending condo sales, eight units were in complexes that cater towards vacation rentals. Other than last week, the trend has been toward more buyer activity in the second home market during the pandemic.
• After last week’s pandemic high of four pending land sales in one week, this week saw no activity. Again, I don’t think this marks any market shift as much as random fluctuations in demand.

This Week’s Real Estate Sales Activity

This was the slowest week for sales since the Covid-19 pandemic and probably the slowest week in recent memory. It is important to remember that sales are a lagging indicator of buyer demand. This is a week where the limited buyer demand during the first couple weeks of the stay at home order is really starting to show in the sales numbers. Sales are down 37% from last week. The sales numbers are 69% below the same seven day period for the year prior. I would expect that we may have one or two more slow weeks before the sales numbers start a slow recovery.

Looking at Inventory

One of our blog’s readers asked about the impact of Covid-19 on new listings. He raised a good point. Most of these posts look at buyer demand. They don’t speak to supply. The three charts below show the difference in the number of new listings in March, April and the month to date for May compared to the same time frames in 2019.

The charts above show a clear decrease in the amount of new inventory during the Covid-19 pandemic when compared to the same period of 2019. When I first looked into the numbers for this post, I intended to just track listings in general during this time frame. I am glad I decided to break it down by property type. While homes, condos and land are all down in new inventory, the drop in new listings is not uniform across the board.

New Home Listings

The number of new home listings dropped precipitously in March with 40% fewer than the year prior. New home listings decreased 41% in April compared to April of 2019. The decrease for the first 21 days of May compared to the first 21 days of May 2019 isn’t quite as drastic. The new inventory is only 12% lower.

For a little context, there was a downward trend in new home inventory prior to Covid-19. New home inventory decreased 9% during the first two months of 2020 compared to the first two months of 2019. We went into the pandemic with a low inventory of homes. While demand is down, so to are new home listings. We seem to be seeing a slight upward trend in new home listings this month just as we also see more buyer demand.

New Condo Listings

In what could be considered something of a surprise, new condo listings increased 11% in March compared to March of 2019. In April, new condo listings fell 24% compared to April of 2019. Through the twenty-first of May, new condo listings are down 9% compared to the first three weeks of May 2019.

Again for context, new condo listings decreased 9% in the first two months of 2020 compared to the first two months of 2019. The overall new condo inventory numbers during the pandemic are down 7% overall. It will be interesting to see what happens with condo inventory moving forward. Of the three property types, this part of the market appears to be experiencing the least significant decrease in new inventory.

It is worth also worth noting that large swaths of the condo market were particularly strong before Covid-19. Demand was outpacing supply resulting in strong upward price pressure.

New Land Listings

New land listings experienced the biggest drop during Covid-19 compared to the year prior. In March, they dropped 43% compared to March of 2019. For April, they came in 42% below the number of new land listings in April of 2019. Thus far for May, new land listings are down 48% compared to the same period last year.

As with homes and condos, there was less new inventory of land for sale on island prior to the pandemic. We saw 14% fewer new land listings in January and February compared to the same months in 2019.

What The Inventory Numbers Mean

Before delving into the big picture, I wanted to look at the one outlier from the new listings numbers above. March new condo listings stick out with the eleven percent increase over 2019. While many homeowners were reticent to let buyers into their homes to look at property in late March, most vacation rental condos suddenly sat vacant. I surmise that some second owners felt perfectly comfortable putting their places on the market. The numbers seem to support this assertion as the new vacation rental condo listings soared by 31% over last March. Conversely, new listings of condos that prohibit vacation rentals decreased 12%.

Now on to the big picture. The Maui market is not alone when it comes to the decrease in inventory. We appear to be mirroring national trends. The national decrease in inventory combined with surprisingly resilient demand is leading to price increases in quite a few markets throughout the nation. While I can’t see clear evidence of price increases on Maui, our buyer demand hasn’t recovered to the same extent as many mainland markets. That said, the balance of decreased supply and decreased demand seems to be keeping prices stable at this time.

Looking to the future, we will continue to keep an eye on changes in inventory. I don’t have any prognostications, just questions at this point. Will sellers who deferred putting their home on the market feel more comfortable listing in the coming months with the virus numbers limited on island? Will more vacation rental condos come on the market due to the lack of visitors on island? Rest assured, we will do our best to keep a track of these numbers so buyers and sellers can make informed decisions.

Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you are interested in buying or selling a property on Maui during these extraordinary times. We bring decades of experience to the table and a commitment to strong service and providing the best resources for informed decision making.

Sales Down, but Pending Sales Trending Up

It’s that time of the week when I check in on the Maui Real Estate market during the age of Covid-19. We continue to see some promising signs as pending sales activity increases. On the other end of the spectrum, this week’s closed sales numbers are the lowest yet since the pandemic began. Low pending sales in late March in early April left their mark are impacting current closings.

Maui Realtors reported 39 new pending sales over a seven day period between March 6th and 12th. That is an 8% increase over the previous week and the fourth straight weekly increase in pending sales. It is only 5% below the same week of 2019. While that number looks pretty remarkable all things considered, context is key. The 41 sales from the same week last year appear to be a comparatively slow week for activity in the spring of 2019. The weeks before and after included 62 pending sales and 60 pending sales respectively. While we are seeing positive signs with the increase of activity, buyer activity has yet to rebound like some mainland markets.

Inside This Week’s Pending Sales

• The 39 pending sales from the last week include 21 pending home sales, 14 pending condo sales and 4 new lot pendings.
• This marks seven of eight weeks that pending home sales outpaced pending condo sales.
• The composition of condo sales shifted this week. This is the first time that non-vacation rental condo pendings outpaced vacation rental pendings.
• The four land pending sales is the highest weekly total since early March.

This Week’s Closed Transactions

Maui Realtors reported 27 closed transactions over a seven day period between May 6th and 12th. That is down 25% from last week and 58% from the same seven day period of last year. Many pre-covid contracts closed already and the bulk of the sales stem from transactions during the pandemic. Closed sales are a lagging indicator of market demand.A lot of these transactions that are closing were from the weeks of really slow activity in late March and Early April.

The closed transactions include 12 home sales, 14 condo sales and 1 land sale. The one other thing that I thought was notable from the closings was the comparatively high number of luxury market sales. Fifteen percent of the transactions closed for more than $2,000,000.

A Quick look at The Big Picture

Maui and Hawaii in general effectively flattened the curve. We reported the last new case on island on Saturday. Only one patient remains hospitalized on Maui. These positive signs will allow the opening of additional business on the island. Hair and Nail salons are set to open May 22nd. Dine in restaurants open June 3rd. That said, social distancing will be in place for the foreseeable future. The governor is discouraging tourism through at least June. Determining a safe and effective plan for reopening the island’s for tourism remains a significant challenge.

It is likely that the lack of tourism will weigh on our real estate market, but the extent it will impact us remains a big unknown. At this time, inventory remains very low and prices appear to be stable.

Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you are considering buying or selling property on Maui. We would welcome the chance to talk, Zoom or Facetime to discuss your real estate needs.

We continue our series of weekly updates on the Maui Real Estate market during these difficult and dynamic times. After seeing a sharp drop in activity around and immediately after stay at home orders, recent weeks show a steady but slow increase in activity. We provide this week’s numbers as well as a look back at the overall April numbers in this week’s post.

Maui Realtors reported a slight increase in pending sales compared to the week prior. The 36 new pending sales reported are a 9% increase over last week’s 33 new contracts. The 36 pending sales is 43% lower than the number of properties that went under contract over the same seven day period last year. This weeks pending sales included 19 homes, 15 condos and 2 lots.

Notes on This Week’s Pending Sales

• This is now three straight weeks with pending sales increasing over the week prior. This is the slowest week to week growth though.
• Pending home sales outpaced condos for the fifth time in the last six weeks. Condo sales outpaced home sales 11 out of the last 12 months. The shift to more pending home sales appears to be a shift in the market.
• Of the 15 pending condo sales, 8 may be rented legally as vacation rentals. One of the other pending condos is located in a resort area. It appears as if the second home market is still seeing the lion share of the condo activity.

This Week’s Sales Activity

Maui Realtors reported 36 sales between April 29th and May 5th. That is 14% lower than the week prior and the second lowest weekly sales number since the beginning of the pandemic. The 36 closed transactions is 42% lower than the same seven day stretch of 2019. This last week’s closed transactions included 12 homes sold, 16 condos sold and 8 lots sold. Lot sales received a boost from four sales in a new subdivision. The lots went under contract last year.

Looking at the Overall April Numbers

I thought it would be worth looking at monthly numbers now that April is over. With weekly numbers, the trend is positive with more pending sales each week. That’s due in part to how little activity there was towards the beginning of the month. This is really apparent when you look at how low pending sales were for this April compared to last April. While last week’s numbers are down 43%, last month’s numbers are down 66%.

The 45 pending home sales last month were just 41% of the total from last April. Realtors reported only 38 new pending condo sales in April. That is just 28% of last April’s Condo pending sales. The 6 pending land sales reported are just 35% of last April’s land pending sales. While the monthly numbers are a stark sign of the initial impact of Covid-19 on market activity, the weekly numbers are a silver lining with activity slowly, but steadily increasing.

The sales numbers for April 2020 show more than anything else that sales are a lagging indicator when it comes to demand. The bulk of the closes are from contracts that were penned in February and March. Both home and land sales actually outpaced the numbers from March of 2019. This also suggests that not too many deals fell apart due to the impact of Covid-19. To be clear, some transactions cancelled, but many more continued to closing.

Looking Ahead

It appears as if the trajectory of the Maui Real Estate market is following some real estate economists’ predictions for a check mark shaped recovery. What is meant by a check mark is a steep drop in activity with a quick trip to the bottom with a slower pace of recovery. It will be interesting to follow things over the next couple of weeks to see if the rate of recovery continues, slows or stalls.

Earlier this week, the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization (UHERO) posted a few different scenarios for the rate and time frame of economic recovery. Even UHERO’s optimistic projections point to significant economic headwinds for the Hawaiian Islands with a substantive return of tourism still months away.

Lack of housing inventory remains a significant factor in our housing market. The pace and time frame of the overall economic recovery will be a big driver for the demand side of the equation. Limited supply provides upward pressure on values. Limited demand provides downward pressure on values.

There is still a market for real estate on Maui. Local residents need homes and potential second home owners from all over the world dream of owning a place on island. Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you are a buyer or seller venturing into the market. We bring experience, negotiating skill and a commitment to provide the latest market data so our buyers and sellers may make truly informed decisions. We look forward to being of service.