The West Hawaii housing market is showing ups and downs in sales prices, but with an overall drop of sales year over year in both the single family and condo market.

LUVA Real Estate agents are generally happy to see that there is more inventory on the market, so buyers have more to choose from than in the recent past. For North Kona, the median sales price is $669,500 a 14.17 price decrease from the median price last year at this time of $780,000 according to statistics from the Hawaii Information Service. Past West Hawaii Association of Realtors President, Lance Owens, stated that the $780k amount could have been posted as a result of a few multi-million dollar sales, as the median price was not that high at this time last year across the board for single family homes.

For condos, the median price rose 2.18% from March 2018 to March 2019 to $375,000 from $367,000. We are still not at the peak prices we saw during the 2008 housing market. Year to date, which tracks all homes sold from January 1, 2019 until March 30th, the North Kona market saw an increase of 2.45% for single family home prices to $642,853 this year vs $627,500 last year, showing that there is still a consistent desire for homes in the Kona region. Number of sales for North Kona, however have dropped from last March by 18% with 250 homes sold in 2018 vs 205 homes sold this past March.

Year to date numbers also show home sales have dropped by 13% from 585 homes sold to date last year vs 507 thus far this year in 2019. The same holds true for the number of condos sold with 85 sold in March 2018 and 71 sold this past month, but not strikingly so with 200 condos sold to date in 2018 vs 194 this year. In general, there are less homes being sold as the overall sales volume for single family homes in North Kona dipped 28.48% year over year and dropped 14.63% year to date and for condos, sales volume dropped 12% year over year and actually increased 8.5% year to date. South Kohala also experienced a bit of softening with a 4% drop in single family home year over year, but increased 2.45% year to date. (Meaning the prices are higher now in March than they were in January.)

Condos in South Kohala dropped 11.11% year over year and 5% year to date. If you are considering selling your home, pricing strategy is key right now and if you are buyer, mortgage interest rates are holding lower than they were predicted, so taking advantage of a slightly softening market due to more inventory on the market may be a good move.

If you would like more specific information in the neighborhood you live or may be looking to live or would like to get on a listing alert to receive listings as they come on the market, please contact LUVA Real Estate today!