Oahu home prices rose slightly in November

Oahu home prices continued their mostly slow and steady rise this year, notching 3 percent gains in November.

The meager increase last month was close to par for the year to date, and it looks certain that the price appreciation for all of 2017 will lag behind last year’s gains.

Still, prices in Hawaii’s primary housing market will set a sixth consecutive annual record since wavering for a few years after the Great Recession in 2008.

The most recent market data were released Wednesday by the Honolulu Board of Realtors, and cover prices and transaction volumes for previously owned homes sold in November.

Single-family homes sold last month for a median $773,500. That was up 3.1 percent from $750,000 in the same month last year.

Condominiums sold for a median $405,000 last month, up 2.5 percent from $395,000 a year earlier.

For the first 11 months of this year, the single-family home median sale price is $758,000. That’s 3.1 percent above the comparable figure last year, $735,000. The gain last year over the prior year was 8.3 percent.

In the condo market, the median sale price through November is the same as the median for the month alone, $405,000. That’s 4.1 percent higher than $389,000 for the first 11 months of last year. The gain for 2016 over 2015 was 5 percent.

The median price is a point at which half the sales were at a higher price and half at a lower price.

The small increase in the median price last month occurred despite considerably stronger demand.

Sale volume rose 12.9 percent for single-family homes, to 332 last month from 294 a year earlier. Condo sale volume jumped 19 percent to 501 from 421 in the same period.

Scott Higashi, president and CEO of local residential real estate brokerage firm Locations, said the volume gains showed market strength.

“November was another strong month for home sales, with double-digit increases for both single-family homes and condos,” he said in a report earlier this week that also proclaimed there are no signs of demand slowing.

Earlier this year, there were several other months with double-digit sale volume increases. For the year through November, the number of sales is up 5.8 percent for single-family homes and up 7.6 percent for condos.

Sales counted in the latest report are ones that closed in November, and largely reflect purchase contracts signed one to three months prior.

Local economists have said that buyer demand is relatively strong because of a growing economy, record tourism, low unemployment and low mortgage interest rates. Also, some of the upward pressure on prices is due to not enough new homes being built in recent years to keep up with population growth. As prices rise, though, it makes many homes unaffordable to more people, and that can have a brake effect on price appreciation.

The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization in September forecast that Oahu’s single-family home median sale price should tick up about 5 percent next year to $791,000 while the median condo price will increase about 7 percent to $433,000.