Time for my weekly look at the week’s real estate activity on Maui. These are unprecedented times. Our goal is to provide buyers and sellers with the latest data to give them a sense of how Covid-19 is impacting our real estate market.

Maui Realtors reported a total of 33 new pending sales for the seven day period between April 22nd and April 28th. That number includes 21 new contracts on homes and 12 new contracts for condos. No land listings went under contract. The 33 pending is a 22% increase over last week. That said, it is 51% lower than the same seven day span last year.

Notes on This Week’s Pending Sales

• After sinking to truly anemic levels of activity earlier in the month, pending sales increased by a healthy amount over the last two weeks.
• Pending home sales continues to be stronger than pending condo sales. New pending home sales outpaced condo sales for four out of the five weeks since Maui went under stay at home orders.
• The composition of this week’s condo sales is different than last week. The week prior, 75% of the condos that went under contract were vacation rentals. This week it was 50% vacation rentals.
• The lower priced non-vacation condo market showed almost no activity this month prior to this week. This week, four condos fitting that description went under contract. I will be keeping an eye on that market segment going forward. These condos typically have a lot of buyers, sellers and renters who work in Maui’s tourism and service industries. These industries continue to be hard hit economically due to Covid-19.
• I am not reading too much into the goose egg for pending land sales this week. Land activity is typically slower on Maui and it tends to fluctuate more irregularly.

This Week’s Sales

Realtors reported 42 sales last week. The sales included 15 homes, 23 condos and 4 parcels of land. That is up 20% from last week, but down 22% from the same seven day span last year. It is worth noting that only two of the 42 sales are from contracts written after Maui’s stay at home order went into effect. The 42 sales also include six sales in Luana Gardens at Honua Kai. All of those contracts were written in 2018.

Based on the above, I would suspect we might see a further dip in weekly sales activity in the coming weeks. The sales numbers are down from what we were seeing the year prior. Pendings started to dip in that first and second week of March and that is reflected in the sales. That said, I suspect we will really see a couple of slow sales weeks when we are 45-60 days out from late March and early April when new pending sales were at their lowest.

Looking Ahead

Last week, the governor extended stay at home orders through the end of May. That said, restrictions are easing a little with some golf courses opening, selected parks opening and a few more businesses such as Car Dealerships opening. The time frame to reopen for tourism remains something of an unknown. It will be interesting to watch if the slight easing of restrictions does anything to bolster the real estate market. We will continue to provide weekly data on Maui Real Estate activity.

While clearly slower, people are still buying and selling real estate. Contact the Maui Real Estate Team if you are in the market for property on Maui. We welcome the chance to discuss your needs and market conditions in this unparalleled time.

Its time for my weekly update on the Maui Real Estate market. Last week, market activity was pretty anemic. This week, market activity picked up with our strongest pending sales since before the island’s stay at home order went into effect. Here are this week’s pending sales and sales numbers.

New Pending Sales

Pending sales activity increased substantially from the week of April 8th-14th. Realtors reported 13 pending home sales, 12 pending condo sales and two pending land sales. That is 337.5% increase over last week’s paltry 8 sales. While I will say this is good news, it will be interesting to see if the market sustains this level of activity in the coming weeks, it it continues to pick up at all or if this week is an anomaly. Having watched Maui statistics over the last 15 years, I know that fluctuations in activity can occur without any clear drivers. It is also worth noting that last week’s pendings are still less than 50% of the total pending sales for the last week of February. It is also down 48% from the same week in April last year.

Notes on Pending Sales

Here are a few numbers, notes and thoughts about the pending sales numbers in the last week.

• Home sales outpaced pending condo sales by a small margin. New pending home sales have outpaced pending condo sales four out of the last five weeks. This is a reversal from earlier this winter when condo sales outpaced home sales.
• Of the 12 condos that went under contract, 9 were in condo developments that allow vacation rentals. That is 75% of the pending condo sales.
• Some context is required for the numbers immediately above. In February, 62 of 130 condos that went under contract were vacation rentals. That calculates to roughly 48%.

I think there are a couple of factors at play that caused a shift in the composition of condos going under contract. The first is that a significant portion of the non-vacation rental condo market is geared towards working class residents of Maui. With the local economy reeling from the decline of tourism, demand from local buyers slowed to a trickle.

You would think the vacation rental condo market would be equally slow with a very small number of off island buyers still on island. That said, today’s real estate doesn’t require buyers to be on island to buy property. Many agents relied on video and 3D tours for vacation rentals even prior to Covid-19 as those listings could be hard to show due to bookings. With video and 3D tours, buyers are still able to evaluate properties. Almost all of the vacation rentals are currently vacant so it is easy for agents to access these units for additional video. If the video or 3-D tours look good, and the buyer knows the development, the buyer may be more likely to pull the trigger with a site unseen offer.

This Week’s Sales

Realtors reported 17 homes sold, 17 condos sold and one lot sold. Overall sales for the week were down a fraction from last week with a decrease of two transactions. The overall volume is down 31% from the same week of April last year. This week’s sales included five condo sales at Luana Garden Villas at Honua Kai. The contract for these were penned back in 2018. While it is notable that the buyers went through with their purchase despite uncertainty, they don’t represent buyers looking in the last couple of months.

Based on the volume of pending sales over the last month, I would anticipate sales volume will continue to dip over the coming weeks.

More Market Thoughts

At this point, I remain wary of prognostication on the outlook for the Maui real estate market. I think there are too many unknowns about the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on lifestyle and the economy. That said, I am seeing more economist predictions on the outlook for the national real estate market. A couple of days ago, I read an article that was originally published on Realtor.com discussing different perspectives on the market outlook. One takeaway from the article is that market fundamentals are much stronger at this point than they were in 2008. Supply is way down and there are fewer junk mortgages on the market. The lack of housing supply and stronger borrowers is what have some housing experts optimistic.

That said, that optimism hinges on the economy returning to some measure of normalcy sooner rather than later. One economist in the article stated their concern that extended stay at home orders could lead to a much bigger impact on the market. My reticence about prognostication stems from these unknowns about the economy. While some states are already taking steps to ease stay at home rules, many health experts are arguing this is premature. It is also uncertain how many members of the public are ready to return to normal. The public will need to feel safe to get back to some semblance of normalcy.

While things may be slower, the numbers show that there is still activity in the market. Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you are considering buying or selling property on Maui . Now more than ever, you need quality representation as you navigate the market.

Time for my weekly overview on activity in the Maui Real Estate market. This week’s post provides a glance at both pending sales activity and closed transactions.

Last Week’s Pending Sales

Needless to say, market activity on Maui continues to slow. After a busy January and February, the Covid-19 Pandemic first impacted the market in early March. Each successive week brings a further decrease in activity. The dip became more pronounced after the stay at home advisory went into effect on March 25th.

Between Wednesday February 26th and March 3rd, 63 properties went under contract. More accurately, 63 properties went under contract and either remain under contract or have since closed. The breakdown of sales for that week included 28 homes, 30 condos and five lots.

Between March 25th and March 31st, the first week of official stay at home, new pending sales decreased to 21. The breakdown includes 10 homes, 9 condos and 2 lots.

As of this week, Realtors reported 8 new pending sales to date. That total includes 4 homes and 4 condos. That number could jump a little over the next day or two as more updates are made to our MLS.

The number of properties going under contract is clearly slowing significantly from the level of activity earlier this winter. Limited showings and overall and personal financial uncertainty all play a part in the decrease. From my discussion with lenders, financing is starting to tighten as well. Self employed buyers are having a tough time qualifying due to uncertainty over income. Investors are finding fewer loan options.

Tracking Closed Transactions

If there is one bit of good news in the market, buyers and sellers are still getting deals across the finish line. The numbers are starting to dwindle, but that is a reflection of the shrinking number of pending sales. While there are some transactions that have cancelled, the vast majority are closing.

Property sales between February 26th and March 3rd were strong. Condos led the way with 47 units sold, followed by 32 homes sold and 3 lots closed.

On the first week of Maui’s stay at home order between March 25th and 31st, sales remained relatively strong with 47 condos sold, 22 homes sold and 2 lots closed.

It is just in the last two weeks that the slowdown in sales activity became a little more pronounced. Between the 8th and the 14th of April, closes dropped to 18 homes, 13 condos and 2 lots. The 33 total sales in the last week is just 40% of the sales between February 6th and March 3rd.

Another Shift We Are Seeing in the Market

Looking at both the pending and the sales charts above, there is one other change in the market that stands out. For most of the winter, condo sales led the way in the market. Buyer demand was particularly strong for vacation rental condos. It comes as no surprise that a tourism shut down would impact the demand for vacation rental condos. I hoped to delve into the vacation rental condo market in depth today. As tends to happen with these posts, they get a little long. I will have to save that for another post.

There is another important factor in the slow down in condo activity. Entry level condos on Maui are workforce housing. There are condos in places like Kihei, Kahului and Wailuku that offer the chance for home ownership for people who make their living in the tourist industry. The reality is that large numbers of Maui’s working class are now unemployed with tourism shut down. This is really slowing demand for these condos. It is notable that the only four condos that went pending between the 8th and 14th were vacation rentals.

I know there are a lot of homeowners and home buyers out there who have questions about the market. Don’t hesitate to contact The Maui Real Estate Team for assistance. This is a tough time to prognosticate with so much uncertainty. That said we will do our best to provide you with data and information. He hope everyone who reads this is staying safe.

This is my weekly post to check in on Maui Real Estate market activity. As one might expect, the market is slowing considerably. A global pandemic, no visitors, really limited showings and a number of buyers shifting to the sidelines means a lot less activity. I want to provide some data to quantify the slow down.

When I last posted pending sales on the 26th of March, the total pending sales for homes, condos and land totaled 497 properties. As of yesterday, the number is down to 405 pending sales. That is an 18.6% drop over the last eleven days.

To be clear, this isn’t all due to transactions cancelling. Deals are closing. Buyers are moving forward with transactions and title and escrow companies are using all tools in their quiver to make the signing of mortgages and closing documents a safe process. There are even transactions going under contract, they are just doing it at a much slower rate than transactions are closing. Here are the specific numbers.

• Since March 1, the Maui MLS reported 304 transactions closed. That is just for homes, condos and land. That isn’t too far below what sold over the same period in 2019 when 325 properties closed. That is only a 6.5% decrease.
• According to data on the Maui MLS, there are 155 properties that went under contract after March 1 that are either still under contract or closed already. I don’t have a great tool that shows me how many properties went under contract and fell out of escrow in that period.
• That number is down substantially from the same period last year. Between March 1 and April 6th, 2019 330 properties went under contract. That is a 53% decrease.
• The numbers are even more drastic when you compare the number of properties that went under contract after stay at home orders went into effect. Maui officially began staying at home on March 25th. In the period between March 25th and April 6th, 32 properties went under contract. Over the same period last year, 124 properties went under contract. That calculates to a 74% decrease when comparing this year to last year.
• The pool of properties available for sale is also shrinking. With fewer showing opportunities and a whole lot of uncertainty, a number of sellers opted to pull their home of the market. Since March 1st, 165 sellers cancelled their listings. Another five sellers have their properties listed as temporarily off market. That is a 57% increase in cancellations over the 105 sellers that cancelled listings over the same period last year.
• Sellers are still listing properties but in fewer numbers. Three hundred twenty-four properties came to market since March 1st. It is notable that fourteen of those properties were pulled from the market. While that number looks substantial, sellers listed 434 properties between March 1, 2019 and April 6, 2019. That is roughly a 25% drop.

What to Expect

I am reticent to make too many predictions as to what we can expect for the market moving forward. There is just so much uncertainty to when we will return to some semblance of normalcy with regards to the pandemic. The timing on that will dictate the state of the economy. I would surmise we would continue to see the number of pending properties drop. I don’t think I am making any great leap with that prognostication.

Rather than engaging in a whole lot of speculation, I would like to make these stats posts weekly. I will keep tab on pendings and sales. I also want to dig into a few different property types, communities and price points to see if any parts of the market are behaving differently than the market overall. Contact the Maui Real Estate Team and let me know if there are any parts of the market that you want me to cover. In the meantime, stay safe and stay home.

March 26, 2020

With Maui under a stay at home order, I thought this might be an opportunity to get back into the swing of things with the blog. It is only appropriate to start these efforts by looking at the current impact of Covid-19 on Maui and the Maui Real Estate market.

What is the Current Impact on Maui?

As mentioned above, the Mayor of Maui County issued a stay at home order. The order closed non-essential business. Schools are shuttered through April 30th. Tourism is for all intents and purposes shut down. Last week, the governor requested that vacationers postpone their visits to Hawaii. Hawaiian Airlines made plans to stop long haul service to the islands. As a result, there was a substantial drop off in passengers flying in to Hawaii. The governor now requires residents and visitors flying from outside of Hawaii to quarantine for fourteen days.

This week, a number of the island’s large resorts announced that they would be closing their doors through the end of April. The fields of unused rental cars outside the airport are a surreal byproduct of the drop in visitors. Needless to say, the closures also idled a substantial chunk of the local workforce. This will be a tough time financially for quite a few Maui residents.

Fortunately, Covid-19 is not widespread on the island at this time. Local authorities reported the first case on island on the 14th of March. On Monday, the district health office began drive through testing in Wailuku. As of today, Civilbeat is reporting 14 cases on island. At this time, none of the cases locally stem from community transmission. Hopefully, the stay at home measures keep those totals low going forward.

What is the Impact to Date on The Maui Real Estate Market?

Needless to say, the Maui Real Estate Market has not been immune to Covid-19. On February 26th, there were 630 properties under contract on island. That was the highest number yet for this market cycle. As of today, the number of pending sales stands at 497 properties. This drop can be attributed to a variety of reasons.

First and foremost, a number of the properties under contract in February have since closed. There are still properties going under contract, but those numbers have dwindled. New pending sales are happening at a much lower rate than closed transactions. Last but not least, we are seeing some deals cancel. I don’t have accurate numbers, but anecdotally I am seeing a couple of cancellations happen on a daily basis.

Are We Showing Property Right Now?

Real Estate agents are deemed non-essential workers under the current stay at home/ work at home decree. While our local Realtor association has not mandated that we stop showings, they did recommend that all open houses, in person showings and caravans cease.  Even prior to the stay at home order, some sellers were opting out of showings. The best bet for those who really want to see a property is to inquire as to whether the property has a good video or 3D tour. For examples, check out our 3D tour of the Cottage by The Sea in Wailuku or this video tour of the Haiku Sanctuary.

Are Buyers Still Submitting Offers?

As mentioned above, we are seeing properties go under contract. Our office put one of our listings under contract today. There are some buyers putting in sight unseen offers. Our office received a sight unseen offer on a listing a couple of days ago. It will be interesting to see how much the stay at home order impacts additional contracts going forward. I have seen quite a few sellers decide to pull their listing off the market. Some of that may be due to the lack of opportunity to show their property. Some may stem from general concerns about showing their property.

During this period of social distancing, contracts can be put together without a face to face meeting. Docusign was already a key part of our day to day business prior to the pandemic. Buyers and sellers should be aware that they may also need to sign a Coronavirus Addendum. There is no standardized Coronavirus addendum for purchase contracts as of yet. That said, individual brokerages are creating their own addenda. Most of these addenda are a variation of a force majeure clause that allows for extensions or cancellation due to circumstances out of a buyer or seller’s control.

What About Deals That are Under Contract?

As mentioned above, we are seeing both cancellations and sales. While there are additional challenges, it is still possible to close a transaction. The biggest hurdles involve any contingency or contract term that involves visits to a property. A transaction typically includes a visit from a home inspector, an appraiser, and a termite inspector. Home and land sales will typically include a surveyor.

An unoccupied property is going to have fewer issues than an occupied property for third party visits. I have seen one e-mail from a home inspector this week indicating they are still doing inspections. That said, the inspector outlined new protocols including one that prohibits the buyer from attending the inspection. Title companies are trying to do as much of the signing as possible via docusign. In person signings that require wet ink signatures include social distancing measures. One local title company is even offering a drive through signing process.

Future Impacts and Updates

At this point, I think it is far too early to begin prognosticating about the overall impact that Covid 19 will have on the Maui Real Estate market. A lot of really smart economists are scratching their heads as to what the future holds. For that matter, there are a lot of really smart medical professionals and researchers trying to wrap their arms around controlling this pandemic. There is just a whole lot of uncertainty in our world.

I will try to take advantage of my time at home to keep providing updates on events on the island, the local real estate market and the overall real estate market. Contact the Maui Real Estate Team if you have any questions on the Maui Real Estate market. We are here to help. Until the next update, I hope everyone stays safe and healthy. Stay home and flatten the curve!

Now that we are a little over a month into the New Year, I thought it would be a good time to check in on the Spreckelsville Real Estate market. This North Shore Neighborhood remains one of the most desirable locales on the island. It offers good beaches, world class ocean sports just offshore and a very convenient location. Two of the members of the Maui Real Estate Team Call it home. This post takes a quick look at how 2019 shaped up for the neighborhood and how things are looking for 2020.

The map above shows sales activity in Sprecks since January of 2019. Green pins represent active listings. Red pins show sales. Clicking on the individual pins provides details on the properties.

Spreckelsville Sales Overview

• There were three sales in 2019 in Spreckelsville. The sales included two homes and one lot. Thus far, one home sold in Spreckelsville during 2020.
• The highest sales price in 2019 went to 316 Pa’ani. This oceanfront sale included an acre of land, a main house and three cottages. It sold for $8,600,000.
• The one other home that sold was a beachfront property on Stable Road. What was most notable about this transaction was that it was a tenants in common purchase. The buyer was purchasing the rights and use of one home on a two home property. That makes the $4,025,000 purchase price somewhat eye opening.
• The solitary lot that sold closed for $1,600,000. The lot in the E Paepae Ka Puko’a aka the “Spencer” subdivision included just under an acre of land and deeded beach access.
• The one home sale for 2020 was in the Sprecks V subdivision that abuts against the Maui Country Club Golf Course. The sales price of $2,300,000 set a new record for the subdivision.
• The Maui Real Estate Team represented parties on two of the last three home sales in the neighborhood.

Spreckelsville 2020 Market Outlook

The 2019 Sprecks Real Estate Market saw relatively meager activity continuing recent trends. The lack of sales don’t reflect a lack of demand. Instead, it speaks to tight inventory. With just three properties on the market at this time, I would expect that the sales totals for 2020 won’t jump off the page. About four to five years ago, a good chunk of the Sprecks sales were unlisted properties. While that has not been the case the last two years, I would not be shocked to see some unlisted sales this year. I know there are some buyers beating the bushes. I also know that there are some unlisted properties that could be available for purchase.

Contact The Maui Real Estate Team if you are interested in buying or selling property in Spreckelsville in 2020. We know the market well and always have our ears to the ground for opportunities. Check out the MauiRealEstate.com for the current Spreckelsville Real Estate listings.