As with industries across the globe, the real estate market is experiencing a great deal of uncertainty and change. While experts agree that it is still too early to see the overall impacts that the pandemic will have on the housing market, on a local level we are beginning to see some signs of changes that are already taking place. Our Broker-in-Charge Sara Layne Pedro commented that “it’s a split between those wanting to push forward quickly and those wanting to push pause to see what happens.” LUVA Real Estate Agents are busy working from their homes to help clients who are ready to push forward and with 43 new listings in West Hawaii in the last 7 days and 16 properties going into escrow, the housing market is moving forward!
March started out strong in West Hawaii and it was during the second half of the month that all eyes turned to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last month, North Kona saw 47 residential sales at a median sales price of $764,000. While the number of sales was down year over year by 17%, the median sales price is up from $660,000 in March 2019. However, the opposite hold true for South Kohala where prices decreased, and number of sales increased when compared with March 2019. Last month in South Kohala there were 30 homes sold with a median sales price of $541,875. South Kona saw 10 residential homes sales with a median sales price of $451,000, which is a slight decrease of 5% when compared year over year.
Turning to the West Hawaii condo market, North Kona saw 32 condos sold last month, a decrease of 17% year over year. Last month, the median sales price decreased slightly when compared with March 2019 by about 14% to $323,000. In South Kohala, the number of condo sales stood still at 27 which is the same number of sales in March 2019. Prices increased drastically year over year from $440,000 to $727,500 which is most likely attributed to a few outlier sales.
In optimistic news, most experts predict that once the pandemic passes, the housing market will bounce back quickly, because there will be a lot of pent-up demand and people will be waiting until the economy picks back up to buy or sell real estate. In a recent interview with real estate coach Brian Buffini, Vince Malta, the president of the National Association of Realtors, stated that in times of national crisis “people have really looked at home as their safe haven, so they invested a lot more in their home, or invested in a home”. Most experts agree that this pandemic will bring about the same results, and we will emerge from this pandemic into a bustling real estate market. However, the question on everybody’s mind is when that will happen. Our agents are here to answer more in depth real estate questions, please reach out to us if you have any questions!