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Oahu home sales continued their steady growth in May, despite a severe shortage of inventory, according to the Honolulu Board of Realtors.
Single-family home sales increased 3.2 percent to 319 from 309 in May 2015, while condominium sales rose 6 percent to 477 from 450, a report from the organization released today shows.
“One of the major concerns facing this market is the lack of inventory, especially single-family homes,” board president Kalama Kim told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “Over the past few years, low mortgage interest rates have driven buyer demand to high levels, driving inventory down. While the listing of existing properties on the market helps the situation, the ideal is to have new construction. Hawaii needs housing for our growing population.”
The median price of a single-family home climbed 3 percent to $719,000 from $698,000, while condo prices slipped 0.5 percent to $373,000 from $375,000. The median price is a point at which half the sales were at a higher price and half at a lower price. All the sales counted by the board are resales and exclude new homes sold by developers.
Kim said Honolulu’s real estate market is in slow and steady growth, unlike the mid-2000s, when prices and unit sales jumped by nearly 20 percent year over year.
Last month it took only 17 days on average for buyers to scoop up single-family dwellings and 15 days for condominiums to sell.
“Buyers are excited and still rushing to market to find a property to purchase because mortgage interest rates continue to remain at very low levels,” Kim said. “It is critical that more homes become available for sale to meet the ongoing buyer demand as we continue to see the inventory of homes for sale dwindle. Even adding homes or condos at the high end of the market helps. The buyers of those units will move out of the homes they are living in, making them available for other residents, causing a trickle-down effect.”
Local economists have said that low interest rates, job growth and population growth are driving home-buying demand that is outstripping production.
The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism issued a report last year projecting that about 65,000 new homes statewide would be needed to keep pace with population growth over 10 years, or 6,500 annually. Yet closer to 3,000 homes a year have been built in recent years. Most of the new housing — more than 25,000 homes — would be needed on Oahu.
The result of the supply-demand imbalance is rising prices that are expected to continue.
The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization projected in a February report that median Oahu home prices will set records this year just shy of $400,000 for condos and close to $750,000 for single-family homes.
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