The Kaanapali real estate market, a part of Maui’s housing market, is facing a gloomy short-term outlook despite increased home sales. Short sales and foreclosures continue to have an adverse effect on the market, while the median sales price on the Valley Isle declined over the latest tracking period. According to the Realtors Association of Maui, the average sales price of a single-family home was $460,000 in 2010, compared to $498,106 in 2009.
This was a decline of approximately eight percent, and represented the third year-over-year decline since the market reached its peak in 2006 with a median price of $690,000. Over the same year-long period, the median sales price of a condominium fell a considerable sixteen percent from $450,000 to $377,500 – even further below the peak of the market, which had a median price of $550,000. There were a total of 814 home sales on Maui during 2010, an increase of approximately seventeen percent from 2009, which saw 693. Similarly, there were thirty-nine percent more condominiums sold on Maui in 2010, jumping from 826 to 1,147. It is unclear to what extent the federal housing tax credit may have artificially inflated sales numbers from 2009, but the program likely had some impact on the quantity of properties sold.
Interestingly, there is a distinct discrepancy between the average sales price and the median sales price for single-family homes on the island of Maui, including Kaanapali properties. According to the Realtors Association of Maui, the average sales price was $747,891 in 2010, while the median figure was $460,000. In the Western portion of Maui, there is a considerable shortage of housing, meaning that the price for most properties has been inflated along with rental fees. An article in the Maui News pointed out that most properties in West Maui sell for about two hundred thousand dollars more than comparable homes or condos elsewhere on the Valley Island. It also seems clear that the predominance of short sales and foreclosures in Maui’s housing market has worked to depress the median sales price as well as drive up the demand for cheaply-priced distressed properties.
