Kalama Kim is one of Hawaii’s go-to guys for analysis about real estate sales in the state.

That’s because he is president of the 5,500-member Honolulu Board of Realtors and a director-at-large of the 8,000-member Hawaii Association of Realtors, as well as a principal broker, branch manager and senior vice president at Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties, one of the state’s largest real estate firms with about 450 sales agents.

Earlier this month Kim described the sales of single-family homes and condominiums in Hawaii as “strong,” given that the median single-family price in April was $720,000, up 6.7 percent compared with the same month last year, while the median price for condos sold in April actually set a record, reaching $389,500. The record for single-family homes was set earlier this year, in January, at $733,500.

January is also when Kim succeeded Jack Legal as president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors, which employs about 35 people at its headquarters in Kaimuki.

Kim, who spent 10 years in banking before going into real estate in 2004, said he was motivated to become HBR president because, “Everything that I’ve done in my career, it’s been about management and leadership, because I want to affect people’s lives in a positive way. … (And) being part of the board and president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors, and a director at the Hawaii Association of Realtors, allows me to do that, not in an individual way, but through the industry.”

Kim, 47, grew up in Kaneohe and is a graduate of Kamehameha Schools. He also has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of San Francisco.

He lives in Kapolei with his wife, Liane, with whom he has a 10-year-old son and two daughters, ages 12 and 15.

Question: You were quoted in a Star- Advertiser artocle recently as saying “The market remains strong.” What does that mean, to say that the real estate market is “strong”?

Answer: When I look at the strength of the market, I’m looking at demand and the number of home sales, not necessarily the price, because at some point, if the price goes up too high, then it’s going to affect the demand and home sales because of affordability.

So right now, we continue to see an increase in the number of home sales — and for sellers the number of days on the market before they accept an offer is very low; they told me last month it was only 15 days from the time they put it on the market and the time they accepted an offer. So given those numbers, it’s very strong.

Q: Factoring out demand and Hawaii’s obvious scarcity of housing, is this another inflationary industry bubble, spurred on by the Federal Reserve-induced low interest rates, or is it simply inflation-adjusted pricing, reflecting demand, as you say?

A: It’s definitely being moved forward by three factors.

One is low mortgage interest rates, even though the Fed said, back on Dec. 17, that it’s going to start letting interest rates rise.

The second part is, I think, because of the low energy prices. You’re seeing that people are confident in the market, they’re confident in the economy, and they’re willing to go and say, “Well, I want to purchase a home,” or purchase another home.

Then there’s the low amount of supply, because there really isn’t a whole lot to buy.

And when you have that dynamic, you see the prices going up, and you see these multiple offers for the homes that are for sale. Is it a bubble? I don’t know.

Q: You said that if prices were too high, it would affect sales, and, actually, in April the sales did flatten compared to a year earlier, according to that article. Could that have been because of the high prices?

A: When I look at the year-to-date numbers, the home unit sales were up 11.9 percent, so that’s still pretty healthy, and unit sales for condos year-to-date were up even more than that. So I don’t think we’ve seen affordability affect demand yet.

However, at the Board of Realtors, we’ve been telling everyone that we can that we need more housing.

Last year we talked about affordable housing, that we need affordable housing. … This year we’re saying we just need housing at all levels. We need housing at the affordable level, the middle level, the high level, because it’s a trickle down. What happens is, if you increase that supply, you stabilize that affordability and more people have the opportunity to purchase.

It was great news when the Ho’opili developers said they’re moving forward. That’s almost 12,000 homes and townhouses they’re going to do over the next 10 years. And then we heard about Kapolei West, the Chinese company that is trying to close that deal, and that will add more homes, if they can successfully complete that sale. Then there’s Koa Ridge (with 3,500 homes planned). So we’re seeing developments that are not like the Kakaako luxury condos, or even the Kakaako affordable condos. We’re seeing single-family homes and townhouses out in the west side of the island, and I think that will help stabilize the market, because we can’t continue to have prices increase and have affordability.

Q: You don’t think all the condos coming on line in Kakaako are going to help stabilize the market that much?

A: There’s a lot of unknown there. If everything goes as planned, it will. … The transit-oriented development in Kakaako is a big part of that, … along with the 15-plus buildings that are at some state of being completed.

Q: It seems to me that if they’re all going to be residences, then maybe that will help.

A: Yeah, the trickle-down effect should help, because from what we’re hearing from the developers in Kakaako is that a large percentage of the purchases are being made by local individuals. And if you have local individuals who are right-sizing — moving into these Kakaako condos that are convenient for them, with all the amenities — they will be selling or transferring their homes that they’re living in now to … it’s probably not going to be first-time homebuyers … but maybe a step-up buyer, a second-time homebuyer. And then that second- time homebuyer is vacating a property that could be for a first-time homebuyer. So we want to see that trickle-down effect.

Q: So instead of throwing up so-called cheap, affordable homes — which have to be poorly built to be cheap to start with, and won’t last that long — you could argue that it’s better to focus on the better-built, more expensive homes; because the wealthy buyers are going to vacate their older upscale homes, which suddenly will be more affordable to the middle market, and today’s middle market homes will be tomorrow’s lower-market homes, and that’s the trickle down, right?

A: Exactly. And that’s what we hope will happen, and we believe it will happen certainly to some degree.

Q: The Star-Advertiser recently published a commentary by housing economist Randal O’Toole that claimed Hawaii’s land-use laws that purposely keep land out of housing for agriculture — even if there is no current demand for agricultural use — are a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act, and could be actionable (“Land policy and housing: Hawaii’s land-use law and Fair Housing Act,” Star-Advertiser, April 10). Do you agree with that?

A: I read that article and I’d never heard that viewpoint before. … I’m not an attorney so I don’t know if it’s legal or it’s not.

I can tell you that there was a study by Wharton, the business school, and they indexed all the different cities on how easy or difficult it is to build new homes, and Hawaii was by far the most difficult, and I think that goes to what you’re talking about, its land use — getting a nonconforming-use permit, getting through the different departments. …

I mean, we do have to be careful, because we’re an island state that has a lot of historical significance. We need to be careful as we go through that.

At the same time, though, if we’re by far the most difficult, that is going to affect supply, and then eventually that’s why we see the prices that are going up.

The simplest way to think of it is: We need more houses to keep up with the population and the demand at all levels because of the affordable need and the trickle-down effect.

Q: Because Hawaii is such an attractive place, do you think that, no matter what happens, there will always be a scarcity of housing here and it will never be so-called affordable?

A: Sumner La Croix with the University of Hawaii, an economic researcher, presented to the Board of Realtors and his point was that there’s only 8 percent of the land on Oahu that can be developed into housing, so, like you’re saying, because of that scarcity, affordability will always be a challenge.

Q: Is that 8 percent because of the zoning? Because the point O’Toole was making is that more than 90 percent of the land is zoned for not-residential.

A: Well, it’s a combination. It’s a combination of zoning, it’s a combination of having that gigantic wetland mountain range going through the middle of Oahu you can’t build on.

But maybe there are some alternatives. Like what you see on TV, the “tiny house” movement, and then the “extreme houseboats.” So there are creative alternatives and examples throughout the U.S.; we just haven’t gotten them.

Q: What about things like trailer homes? The law doesn’t allow those right now, does it?

A: I don’t know if the law allows that. On Oahu I haven’t seen them.And the tiny homes, I don’t know if it’s more an economic issue, that developing tiny homes might not have the returns for the developers.

Q: From your observations, what kind of people are doing most of the buying these days?

A: Certainly it’s regional. So, like we mentioned in Kakaako, the developers have been seeing a lot of local buyers, (who are) right-sizing, who want the amenities of a condominium rather than a single-family home.

Then on the other side of the spectrum, on the west side of the island, on the Ewa Plain, and even farther, there in Maili, you’re seeing first-time homebuyers who are using VA loans or USDA loans to allow them to get into a home for the first time and start building equity and wealth.

Q: So the rich foreign buyer, is that kind of a bugaboo?

A: I’m sure that’s happening in the Kakaako area. The developers are saying that’s not the majority of it. Of course, we won’t really know until everything’s completed and people are living there.

Q: What do you find is the motivation, usually, when people in Hawaii decide to sell their homes? Are they moving away? What are they doing?

A: When people sell, there’s a lifestyle reason why they’re selling. I haven’t been seeing an exodus out of Hawaii, like decades ago. What we’re seeing is when you have to move out because of a job shift, or a military shift, those are the people who are selling.

People buy when they feel it’s the right time to purchase. With a low-interest environment, we’re seeing people say, “Well, I can step up.” It could be from a single-family home to a luxury condo; it could be up to a larger property; or it could be someone who says, “I’m tired of traveling an hour every day back and forth to work, and I’m going to move closer to town,” and that low-interest rate allows them to do that.

Q: How did real estate interests fare in the most recent state legislative session?

A: It was very light schedule for us this year. There wasn’t a whole lot happening where it didn’t either get shot down or that we didn’t support. There was an issue where we helped create a bill that defined what we had to disclose in our advertising, so consumers could look us up if they need to. So we worked on that.

At the City and County level there is an issue we’ve been working on; that’s the Residential A property tax, which passed last year to increase income for the City and County. It moved the non-owner-occupied, over-$1 million-tax-assessed properties from $3 per thousand to $6.50 per thousand. So right now we’re taking a look at that because there’s some people falling into that category when they really shouldn’t. We feel that those people are being unfairly taxed, and it takes a long time to correct, and that it might have an adverse effect on our economy. We don’t know that for sure, … so we’re gathering funds … to contract a company to do a study for us.

At the federal level we have four issues; two of them were bills (one pertaining to flood insurance and the other to FHA loans) and two of them were just for the future, just in case the government wants to take away mortgage deductions, but there’s no bill involved.

Q: The state Legislature this past session allocated $91 million for several affordable-housing programs. Do you think this is really going to do any good?

A: I don’t know, but here’s what I do know: I applaud them for trying. They need to do something, right? And in doing that, at least that $91 million will do something. Will it have the exact effect that they want? It never does, but it moves it in the right direction. And that’s what we need to do.