If you have been tracking the West Hawaii real estate market over the past few years, the one constant you may have seen is our continued lack of inventory and prices rising. As LUVA Real Estate reported in the March 2018 real estate update, single family homes are not leaving the market as quickly as they were a year ago.
So, to give you some good news if you are in the market to buy a home in West Hawaii now, we give you three reasons why it may be easier to buy a home right now.
1. Interest rates are at the lowest they have been since September 2018. As of March 14, 2019 the average interest rates for a 30 year fixed mortgage was at 4.31%, compared to January 2019 at 4.45% and 5% in September. So, even if West Hawaii home prices ARE inching up,
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The news must have gotten out that the Big Island is free of both active lava and VOG, as more homebuyers were purchasing property in the first part of this year than last year driving up prices in both the condo and single family market in North Kona and South Kohala.
When you first meet Lance Owens, the first thing you most likely will remember is his smile. His engaging affability is one reason why he is one of the top salespeople at LUVA Real Estate.
When we think of March in West Hawaii, we think of the humpback whales being here in full force, making looking out onto the ocean a casual sport as you can see the little rainbows from their spouts or the huge splashes created by their breaches. We also think of craft brew for the annual Kona Brewers Festival, which hosts almost 2000 guests each year and raises money for great causes in West Hawaii. We also see many people here escaping the snow and cold back on the mainland hanging on tightly to their warm sunny days in West Hawaii. As you get out and enjoy our beautiful spring weather, LUVA Real Estate shares some great events to help you enjoy your time here or for residents, great opportunities for you to volunteer
Wire fraud in real estate is one of the fastest growing cybercrimes in the country. The FBI reportedly received 301,580 complaints in 2017 and losses exceeded $1.4 billion, and in the real estate/rental sector alone, more than 9,600 victims lost over $56 million in the same year. LUVA Real Estate takes the security of our clients very seriously. We make it a point to provide fraud protection information throughout the transaction.
As you may have read, there is a softening trend in housing across the country as the white hot market that has been occurring for the past two years is slowing. As Steve Harney, CEO of Keeping Current Matters said recently, “In 2008, the plane crashed, but this time we are coming in for a very soft landing.” Despite slowing on the mainland, people are still finding that warm sandy beaches in Hawaii beat the brutal winter weather on the mainland!
Last year, land sales were starting to outpace home sales, as prices increased for existing homes and buyers turned to the possibility of building their own homes. LUVA Real Estate was responsible for many of these land deals and helped connect buyers to local construction companies. During this time, Kona was also experiencing construction on many new projects around town and at school campuses.
As LUVA Real Estate wrote in a prior post, a vexing issue faces Hawaii County: 88,000 homes are currently using cesspools, which at one point decades ago, was a useful way to handle sewage without having to build expensive wastewater treatment plants outside of the main cities on the island. However, now with the population growing and scientific findings that the raw sewage can have a negative impact on the environment, it is time to get cesspools converted into septic tanks.
It’s January and this is the time of year when pundits make predictions for the year ahead. Well, not being a pundit, but knowing a thing or two about the local housing market and keeping our fingers on the financial markets, LUVA Real Estate would like to share our crystal ball with you.