More people bought homes at Hawaii resorts in the first half of this year and extended a rebound in the market that began last year, according to a new report.

The report by local housing market researcher Ricky Cassiday said sales of residential property at resorts statewide rose 16 percent in the period to 908 from 782 in the first half of last year.

The January-June tally follows a 16 percent gain for resort home sales last year over the prior year, suggesting that the market may have found some positive momentum after a number of choppy years that followed a tanking in 2008.

Cassiday’s report said sale volumes for all of last year and the first six months of this year were the highest full-year and half-year totals since 2007. The market’s peak was 2005 when there were about 2,300 sales.

The average price for sales this year through June was flat at $1.3 million and in line with the prior three years.

Sales in the first half of the year included 654 condominiums, 173 single-family homes and 81 lots at master-planned vacation resorts such as Princeville on Kauai and Wailea on Maui.

The gain in sale volume was driven by both new homes and resales of existing inventory even though developers aren’t building much new product. But Cassiday said he expects developers should finally increase production significantly with new projects this year and next year.

“There have been fewer and fewer new projects coming into the market,” Cassiday said in the report. “This is a drying up of the supply pipeline (that) has been a result of the Great Recession of 2008, which stopped ongoing new development. However, this will be changing over this and next year, as new projects get announced and begin construction.”

One new project that contributed to the increase so far this year was Luana Garden Villas, a complex of 72 roughly $2 million condos at Honua Kai Resort &Spa in Kaanapali, Maui. A representative of the project recently reported that about 60 percent of the condos have been sold since sales began in April.

Overall, developers sold 137 properties in the first half of the year, up 51 percent from 91 sales in the same period last year, according to Cassiday’s report, which noted that some of this increase was from developers “clearing out” older inventory at projects begun after 2007.

The average price for new resort properties was $1.9 million, and the highest price was $27.5 million for a 7,343-square-foot single-­family home on a nearly 1-acre lot at Kukio on Hawaii island.

Sales of previously owned vacation property at resorts rose 12 percent to 771 in the first half of this year from 691 in the same period last year. The average resale price was 1.15 million, and the highest price was $14.75 million for a 5,092-square-foot home on a nearly 2-acre lot at Kukio.

By island, sales of both previously owned and new vacation properties in the first half of the year were up on Maui, Hawaii island and Kauai but were flat on Oahu.

There were 311 sales on Maui, up 39 percent from a year earlier. Sales on Hawaii island rose 11 percent to 257 despite Kilauea’s eruption in May and June on the eastern end of the island far from most resorts on the western end. Kauai sales edged up 6 percent to 265. Oahu sales were flat at 75.