Hawaii Kai condo - in escrow

I currently have this nice Hawaii Kai townhouse in escrow at Nanea Kai. I've posted about this complex before, a great complex built in 2003 with 3 story units as large as about 1600ft.



The one I have in escrow is 1582sqft with 3bedroom 2.5 Baths and a nice Lanai of 80sqft. It also has some nice views of mountains and you can see a tiny sliver of ocean.

As you can see they have nice kitchens, and when upgraded well, these townhouses can feel very luxurious. This one has wood floors, stainless appliances, and wood blinds. The new owners may install shutters.

Nanea Kai is right in the center of Hawaii Kai, so you can easily get to town within 20 minutes, and Costco is just a short walk down the street.

Since the complex was built in 2003, it has all the modern amenities, except for a pool, which keeps the monthly association fee down to about $300. Fortunately, the Oahu club is just a quarter mile down the road, where you can get their swim and tennis membership for about $100/month.

I like Nanea Kai because for the same price you can't get much of a house in Hawaii Kai, and these townhouses were well built by Schuller and Dr Horton. They have great floor plans and most have a 2 car garage. They kept everything outside sort of minimal to keep the fees down. No gym, no pool, no park, no tennis, no frills, but great townhouses.

What you get for $650k in Oahu Real Estate

The median price of Oahu real estate is currently $658k, but what can you get for that price?depending on which are you want to live in, it's very different.

In the best areas of Oahu, you can get a nice condo or town house, or even a small older house near the beach for about that price, and farther out West in the suburbs, you can get a nice brand new, larger house ith all the modern amenities. If you want to buy a house for $700k, it will cost about $4500/month including taxes in Hawaii, assuming you have 5% down and your credit is good.

Kapolei - for about $670k you can get a house like this one with 4bedroom 2100sqft, built in 1993. There are newer homes too, which might be a little smaller for the price. Kapolei is a great new master planned community with nice new schools, roads, and everything else. It's called the second city on Oahu, because all the new growth is happening there. The new courthouse, new roads, new shopping (Target), and a lot more planned growth is happening in Kapolei.

Royal Kunia - Just North of Ewa Beach is a great little neigborhood called Royal Kunia. 3bedroom 3bath home of about 2200 sqft, built in 2003. The areas has some nice new parks and schools, although not a new high school. There is plenty of shopping nearby, but a good beach will be about a 20 minute drive to Kapolei, at Ko Olina.

Homes in Royal Kunia have been well cared for and are mostly built after about 1995. There are some nearly new ones, and plans for more new homes are in the works for a few years from now.

Mililani Mauka - 3bedroom 2 bath 1650sqft built in 1991. Mililani is one of the nicer areas to live in, considering the nice cool weather year round, lush trees and mountains that get plenty of rain, mostly at night. Also Mililani has some of the best schools on Oahu, with consistently high ranking test scores and teacher reviews.

If you live in Mililani you can easily get to the North Shore beaches in about 20 minutes, and it takes about 30 minutes to get to downtown Honolulu. Homes in Mililani tend to be newer on the Mauka side, where development began only about 15years ago. You get a little less house for the money here because it's more desirable than west Oahu, but it's certainly worth it to live in the beautiful mountains.

Diamond Head - Arguably the best place to live in Oahu, Diamond Head has a lot of little areas that can range from multi million dollar mini mansions to older, smaller, cheaper areas like Palolo and Kaimuki. For $675k I found this nice little house in the St. Louis heights. It's only 1000sqft, with 3bed 2bath built in 1953. As you can see, money doesn't go as far in the Diamond Head area, but you get to live right near the beach, Honolulu town, and everything that you need. It's probably the most desirable area on Oahu, so you can expect to get anything close to the kind of houses you get on the West side or in Mililani, or anywhere else in Hawaii for that matter. But look at this little house and it's cool yellow kitchen! You learn that it's worth it to have less if you get to live in the best areas.

Ewa Beach - 1846sqft built in 2006 with 4bedrooms, 3baths, and 2 car garage. Money goes a really long way in Ewa Beach, and here is a house in Ocean Pointe that is as good as most houses on the mainland. This development is still under construction, and it's just down the street from the beach. Of course, the beaches are not as nice in Ewa as they are on the East or North shores, but hey it's still Hawaii. Ewa has several new developments going in, with a new golf course under construction. I think there are now 5 courses in Ewa.

Since Ewa is just a couple miles from Kapolei, you can enjoy all the amenities there, like the big new movie theater and the new Target coming soon. Also Ocean Pointe has a great new school that everyone wants to get into.

Hawaii Kai - It's my favorite place in Oahu, and for $675k plus a monthly fee of about $450, you can get a very nice newer townhouse in the Peninsula, Moana Kai, or Nanea Kai. These developments just popped up in the last 5 years, with great modern feel that also fits right in with the rest of the island. You could also get a small older house in Koko Head that needs a lot of work, but for this price you would be better off with a townhouse. A nice single family home in Hawaii Kai will cost you about $800k.

Kailua -It's every tourists favorite place I think, with the best beaches and a great little town you can walk around. For $680k you can get this little 1959 home with 3bed 2 bath and 1200sqft. It's a simple home with simple single wall construction, and it probably needs work to make it nice. It takes about $850k to get a nice home in Kailua, so you might want to opt for a Kailua condo within walking distance to everything, which will cost you about $500k.

Town - Honolulu is called "town" here, and it's mostly highrises but there are single family homes here and there. Also there are entire neighborhoods of homes that you probably don't notice. For $650k you can buy this 1560sqft home just built in 06, with 3bed 2.5bath in an area full of highrises. You can walk to Ala Moana mall, and of course it's a few minutes drive to everything. However you live right in town, which many people don't like. You might be surprised that it's not more money, but it really depends on the area. There are some really nice areas in "town" that will cost you a lot more.

Now I didn't even mention some areas, like Manoa, Kahala, etc. That's because you can't get anything for that price there. There are a lot of other areas where you can get a small home for about $700k like the North Shore, Aiea, Pearl City, Wahiawa, Kaneohe, and Waipahu.

Oahu real estate March Sales Statistics (again)

There are so many numbers on the monthly statistical report that it's hard to know exactly which ones are the most important. Is it the median price of all single family homes on the entire island of Oahu? That number is very broad, and perhaps an indicator, but not very helpful for understanding if a particular area is doing well or not.

It's also not helpful for understanding whether prices are rising in Honolulu real estate, because it could just be that cheaper homes sold while more expensive homes sat, even if their prices rose.

Then there's the amount of inventory, the number of sales, the number of months of available housing, the number of new listings in each neighborhood, the days on market of homes and condos in Oahu, and of course, the average price, which is different than the median price.

The most helpful numbers seem to be always very specific. If you have a house in Kailua and you want to know its value, it's more helpful to know how many homes sold and the actual prices of the properties than anything else. The median price can be way off if just a few large properties sold on Kailua Beach, or if several small properties sold all at once.

In fact some of the numbers on the Honolulu Home Sales Statistical report can be completely opposite of each other, depending on how you view them. For instance, in Aina Haina this March, the median price was $1million even, with 7 sales, which is up from last March's $990k. However, year to date the median price is $895k, which is down 22% year to date compared to 07 year to date.

So is the market in Aina Haina up or down? These summarized numbers are not helpful at all in knowing the answer. The answer can only be known by looking at the individual sales, the size of the homes, the quality of the properties, etc. Suppose that the median price went down, but all the sales were tiny little tear down shacks. In that case, a nicely remodeled larger house with an ocean view might sell for $100k more than it would have last year, even though the median sales prices in the area are down.

Another factor is that some months you might have very few sales, which can dramatically effect the median and average prices. For instance, in Honolulu, 57.1% more homes sold in March of this year than last year. But that's because only 14 homes sold last March compared to 22 this March. Is that really a huge rise? Not as huge as 57.1% makes it sound. Year to date, the number of sales is actually down 10%, so the monthly numbers are pretty deceiving.

I could walk around and tell people that Honolulu home sales are up 57% since last year, which is true, but not the whole story. Prices are up 4% year to date, which is probably the most helpful number in this case.

So when you hear people throw around statistics, you have to know what they mean, how to interpret them, and their context. Knowing the entire market is the only way to really understand how things are going.

And that's why it's a full time job selling houses...

Hawaii real estate values jump up in March

The Honolulu board of Realtors released the March statistics for Oahu home sales and the numbers this month were quite surprising to everyone. Many of us expected the numbers to be lower than they were, as nationwide housing seemed to be in a slump.

However, the median price of Oahu homes sold in March was $628k, which was a jump of $29k in one month. The Condo median price was $329,300.

In February only 163 homes sold on Oahu, but in March 282 homes closed, which is a massive increase, and may be a sign that the slow down is at an end. With nearly 400 condos sold, we are looking great for 2008. While the number of homes sold is definitely lower, with 23% less sales island wide, prices are not only strong but going up in many areas.

Homes are taking 47 days to sell in Oahu, while condos take only 39 days. That means there is not a very quick market here compared to other areas.

17 homes sold in Kapahulu and Diamond Head, with a median price of $677,500, which is down significantly from last year in price and number of sales. However, in popular Hawaii Kai, the median price was $840k, which is up from last year's $817,500.

In Hawaii Kai, the number of homes actually went up to 25, from 20 last year at the same time. However, the numbers look the opposite in Kailua, where home sales were down by 6 sales, and prices were down about 5.3%.

The worst area of the island for prices was Kapahulu, and hte best area was the North Shore, which is only because some really big properties sold recently.

What was more encouraging was that the number of single family homes for sale on Oahu declined to 1919, while condo inventory was just a little higher, at 2581 in March, compared to 2476 in February.