Median price tops $900,000 for Oahu homes

Oahu’s real estate market continued its trend of strong sales through February as single-family homes continued to build on their record median sales price — topping the $900,000 mark in the latest report from the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

Last month, the board reported that the resale price for single-family homes hit an all-time high. But that record was broken just a month later.

In February the median sales price for homes on Oahu reached $917,500, up from last month’s previous record of $883,000. February’s median price is 20% greater than last year’s $765,000 sales price, and nearly 4% greater than January’s.

“While strong demand for limited inventory and increased purchasing power through low-interest rates continues to place sustained upward pressure on prices is good news for sellers, buyers face a challenging environment with steep competition,” the board of realtors said in Saturday’s report.

Twenty years ago in 2001, the median price for single­-family homes had dropped to as low as around $250,000, but it has since grown almost every year.

There were 260 total sales of single-family homes in February, a 5% year-over-year increase from 247 in 2020. Through the first two months of 2021, 551 single-­family homes had been sold, compared to 512 at that time last year.

Additionally, new single-­family home listings fell by 19%, and those listed spent just nine days on the market, the board reported. Competition between buyers led to about 49% of sellers receiving more than their asking price — up from about 20% during the same period last year.

The number of homes that sold at between $700,000 and $900,000 — representing about one-third of all the single-­family homes sold in February — stayed about the same. However, the board of realtors reported that the number of homes sold at $1 million and over doubled from 55 in February 2020 to 111 last month. There were also 24 single­family homes that sold for more than $2 million.

Oahu condominium sales were also strong in February.

The board reported an even greater year-over-year jump in condo sales than for single-family homes, at 41% better than last year.

Over the course of the month, 446 condo sales were closed — 130 more than last year. Since the beginning of 2021, a total of 838 condos on Oahu have been sold. Only 695 had been sold at this point last year.

Condo sellers received 29% more than their asking price last month, up from just under 9% in February 2020. Units in the $400,000 to $500,000 range, which made up more than 21% of condo sales, saw a 53% jump in sales volume during the month compared to last year.

Like single-family homes, condos spent fewer days on the market this February than last.

Last month condos were on the market a median of 18 days before being sold, nearly half of the 34 days recorded in 2020.

The median sales price for condos grew in February over last year, albeit modestly. The report found that price to be $457,500, representing a 6.4% increase compared to the $430,000 median price from last February.

Like single-family homes, the median price for condos has been following a sharp upward trend, slowly growing from about $300,000 around 2009.