The strong appetite of real estate investors buying Hawaii hotels has driven the volume of commercial real estate sales statewide to a midyear record, according to a new report.

Sales of commercial property including hotels, retail centers, office buildings and vacant land surged to $2.2 billion this year through June, according to the report from commercial real estate brokerage firm Colliers International.

The sales figure slightly eclipsed the $2.18 billion midyear record from 2005. The recent total also is more than double the $942 million tally from the first half of last year, and about equal to the $2.21 billion total for all of last year.

"Investors continue to remain bullish in the Hawaii commercial real estate market," Colliers said in its report.

However, Colliers predicts that the full-year record of $4.3 billion in 2005 will not be broken this year. The report estimates commercial property sales by the end of the year will reach about $3.2 billion.

Some potentially big transactions are being explored, such as Kaneohe Ranch’s portfolio of land being marketed for sale, that would produce a spike in this year’s sales volume if deals are reached and completed before next year, Colliers noted.

During the first half of the year, sales volume was driven mostly by hotel sales. Colliers said there were eight hotel sales for a combined $1.7 billion, representing 78 percent of all commercial property sales by dollar volume.

"Hotels have regained their luster and institutional investors have jumped back into the hotel investment pool," the report said.

Such demand is being fueled by record tourism arrivals and rising room rates. Colliers predicts that several other hotel sales will occur this year and that healthy demand for hotel and resort property will remain through 2017.

Hotels that sold this year included the Grand Wailea on Maui for $774 million, which was the single biggest transaction, the Hyatt Regency Waikiki for $450 million and the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua for $100 million.

Colliers also said there was a surge in land sales during the first half of the year: 22 transactions for $124 million that represented about twice as much volume compared with the same time last year.

The land sales included a $30 million deal for land leased to a Sears outlet store and distribution center in Pearl City and a Hawaiian Telcom site in Mapunapuna that sold for $14 million.

Retail property sales totaled $116 million, or a little more than $112 million in office property sales. There were also $66 million in apartment building sales, $62 million in industrial property sales and one church sale for $4.5 million.