The falloff in home sales on Hawaii island and Kauai got bigger in May amid COVID-19 containment efforts after hefty declines in April, according to data released Friday.
Residential real estate sales volume on the two neighbor islands tanked between 44% and 65%, a report from Hawaii Information Service shows.
Median prices were mostly down, according to the report based on Kauai Board of Realtors and Hawaii Island Realtors data.
The biggest decline was for single-family home sales on Kauai, which sank 65% to 20 sales in May from 57 sales in the same month last year.
This segment of the two markets was the only one where the median sale price increased. The gain was 17% to $772,500 last month from $660,000 a year earlier.
The median price is a point at which half the sales were at a higher price and half at a lower price — a measure that can be swayed by the age, quality, size and location of homes sold.
In Kauai’s condominium market, the number of sales dropped 47% to 26 last month from 49 a year earlier. The median price fell 37% to $367,500 from $580,000.
On Hawaii island, the number of single-family home sales dropped 44% to 131 last month from 232 a year earlier. The median price slipped 10% to $370,000 from $413,000.
Condo sales on the Big Island plummeted 63% to 29 in May from 79 a year earlier, and the median price dropped 15% to $319,000 from $375,000.
In April, sales declines in the two markets ranged from 18% to 61%.
The downturn in home sales is being driven in part by job losses and wage cuts during the pandemic that have hurt the ability of residents to purchase homes.
Other factors include sellers withdrawing their homes from the market, constraints on brokers showing homes and prospective vacation-home buyers not traveling to the state because of a clampdown on tourism.
Typically, completed sales reported in a given month reflect signed purchase agreements made one to three months before.
Kauai, Big Isle home sales by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd