Bill Cresenzo Reporter – Pacific Business News
It has four bedrooms. It’s in Waipio Point. It costs $685,000, and it’s currently the only home listed by the Honolulu Board of Realtors I could find that matches the median price of a single-family home on Oahu.
The last time the island saw prices this high was June 2007.
The Waipio Point house, at 94-1156 Awaiki St., comes in at 2,105 square feet, including a 169-square-foot lanai. With a 20 percent down payment, a typical mortgage will cost around $3,647 per month. What else do we know? The home was built in 2006 by Castle & Cooke Homes.
The newest median price figure is $85,000, or about 14 percent, higher than the median price of a single-family home just a year ago. On the flip side, the median price for condos is down. The median price for a condo on Oahu in December was $330,000, off 1.5 percent from 2012, when a condo sold for $335,000. There were 390 condos sold in December, which is also down slightly from the 401 units sold in December 2012.
Julie Meier, president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors, said she doesn’t like making predictions about how the real estate market will fare on Oahu in 2014.
Interest rates are now ranging from around 2.25 percent to 4.5 percent, which is a good thing.
But inventory on Oahu remains too low. Right now, there is less than three months’ worth of inventory of single-family homes and condos, Meier said, adding: “It’s a good time to bring your house on the market.”
The board plans to release full-year numbers for Honolulu later this month.
According to the board of Realtors, that’s typical. There were 283 single-family homes sold during the month of December, compared to 291 in 2012, a 2.7 percent decrease.
Meier said homes in the $1.1 million to $1.9 million range are moving the fastest into escrow, and the lack of inventory is felt most in the $475,000 and lower range.
“What we are really hoping for is new construction,” she said. “We are really watching for that.”
