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Luxury home sales increased by 7 percent during 2015, according to a recent market report

April 4, 2016 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

The East Oahu continues to be the most popular for luxury home sales

The East Oahu continues to be the most popular for luxury home sales

The East Oahu continues to be the most popular region for luxury home sales, with more than half of all transactions in 2015 occurring in Diamond Head, Kahala, Hawaii Loa Ridge, and Waialae Iki.

The four neighborhoods accounted for nearly half of all luxury home transactions in East Oahu, mostly in the $2-million-and-under range last year.

Why $2 million?

“$1 million can be very valid in most U.S. cities, but here on Oahu in some neighborhoods it could be considered [not luxury],” Locations Executive Vice President Scott Higashi told PBN, on why Locations chose $2 million as the benchmark defining a luxury home. The firm’s research also took a neighborhood-driven approach to identify the luxury market, examining neighborhoods that were developed as luxury housing from the outset, as opposed to more modest neighborhoods which have seen home prices pass the $1-million mark due to Hawaii’s housing shortage.

Median sale prices rose 9 percent in Diamond Head, 6 percent in Waialae Iki, and 4 percent in Kahala, compared to 2014 sale prices.

Active listings are also up in East Oahu, up 14 percent from 2014, with an average list price of $4,217,500.

Local residents made up 66 percent of luxury home sales in East Oahu last year. The remaining group of buyers hail from the U.S. Mainland and Asia. The majority of buyers are from Japan, representing 54 percent of transactions. China’s buyer market has grown consistently and now accounts for 27 percent of transactions, not including 10 percent of transactions coming from Hong Kong buyers. Singapore, Korea, and Malaysia make up the remainder of luxury buyers in East Oahu.

“Asia accounts for 12 percent of our business,” Higashi said. “It’s not as big as people think. It is largely Japanese buyers still — there are Chinese buyers but not on the scale as everyone hoped. We were hoping for a lot of sales [in 2015].”

Approximately 14 percent of Locations’ sales are launched online, Higashi added.

Properties sold in the $3 million to $4.9 million range took the longest to sell, however, sales in the mega-luxury price range rose the fastest in 2015, based on days on the market.

Eighty-four of the luxury homes sold last year were below the $2 million range, compared to 48 properties between $2 million to $2.9 million range, and 31 homes sold between the $3 million to $4.9 million range. Only nine $5 million-and-above luxury homes were sold last year.

Lorin Eleni Gill
Reporter
Pacific Business News

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Luxury_Oahu_Estates_$6M -_$8M
Luxury_Oahu_Estates_$8M – 10M
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Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog, Luxury real estate, luxury real estate Oahu Tagged With: Celebrity home, Celebrity Homes, luxury, Luxury Estate, Luxury Experiences, Luxury Home, Luxury Homes, Luxury Living, Luxury Mansion, luxury real estate, Luxury Villa, LuxuryHomes, LuxuryHomes.com, Mansion, Million Dollar Estates, Million Dollar Home, Most expensive, Ocean View, Penthouse

PBN confirms amount billionaire Larry Ellison paid for Hawaiian Island of Lanai

March 3, 2016 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

Billionaire Larry Ellison paid $300M for the Hawaiian island of Lanai,

Billionaire Larry Ellison paid $300M for the Hawaiian island of Lanai,

One of the most widely-publicized real estate sales in recent memory in Hawaii, which involved Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison’s purchase of nearly the entire island of Lanai, hasn’t had a clear price attached to it — up until now.

It has been speculated by many that the price Ellison paid was somewhere in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars, even up to $500 million.

The third-richest person in the United States — Forbes puts his current net worth at $44.2 billion— has told Julian Guthrie, author of the 2013 book “The Billionaire and The Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed Up to Win Sailing’s Greatest Race, the America’s Cup,” that he paid $300 million for 98 percent of Lanai in 2012.

PBN has now confirmed, through public documents, that Ellison did indeed pay $300 million for the 141-square-mile Pineapple Island.

The sale included the two resort hotels — the Four Seasons Resorts Lanai at Manele Bay and the Four Seasons Resorts Lanai, Lodge at Koele — two championship golf courses and club houses, the Manele Golf Course and the Koele Golf Course, and more than 88,000 acres of land.

The seller, Los Angeles billionaire businessman David Murdock, took control of Lanai, the sixth-largest island in Hawaii by acreage, in 1985 as a result of his purchase of Castle & Cooke. The state and others own 2 percent of the island.

Meanwhile, Ellison is selling his controlling interest in his Hawaii interisland airline, Island Air, to a couple of Honolulu investment funds.

His Four Seasons Resort Lanai at Manele Bay, which closed this past summer for extensive renovations, is scheduled to reopen as the Four Seasons Resort Lanai and will begin taking reservations and opening on Feb 1. Koele, which has been closed to the public to house construction workers, will open in late 2016.

Duane Shimogawa
Reporter
Pacific Business News

 

Maui Luxury Properties $1.7M – $1.9M
Maui Luxury Properties $2M – $2.49M
Maui Luxury Properties $2.5M – $3M
Maui Luxury Properties $3M – $4M
Maui Luxury Properties $4M – $5M
Maui Luxury Properties $5M – $6M
Maui Luxury Properties $6M – $8M
Maui Luxury Properties $8M – $12M
Maui Luxury Properties $12,000,000 Plus

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog, General Real Estate Tagged With: Celebrity home, Celebrity Homes, Larry Ellison, luxury, Luxury Estate, Luxury Experiences, Luxury Home, Luxury Homes, Luxury Living, Luxury Mansion, luxury real estate, Luxury Villa, LuxuryHomes, LuxuryHomes.com, Mansion, Million Dollar Estates, Million Dollar Home, Most expensive, Ocean View, Oracle Corp, Penthouse

$29.5M Hawaiian Secret Beach Home, Formerly Will Smith’s Pad, Hits the Market

July 23, 2015 By Mark G. Howard Leave a Comment

While this 28-acre beauty on a bluff overlooking Kauai’s North Store has the attributes you’d expect out of any multi-million dollar tropical escape—pool house, swimming pool, screened-in veranda—it’s ownership history also gets pretty interesting, connecting this Hawaiian escape to some of the richest people in the world. Will Smith picked up the 28-acre property for $13.5 million in 2009, it’s original claim to fame, but then sold it for $20 million in an off-market deal to the heiress of Russian oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev, a billionaire fertilizer king who would later be hit with one of the world’s largest divorce settlements ($4 billion). For his daughter, Ekaterina, this property was just part of an eye-popping real estate trust set up in her name, which includes an $88 million Central Park West penthouse and a $95 million Palm Beach home purchased from Donald Trump. A few years ago, Rybolovlev’s estranged wife Elena sued, claiming the trust was a means of protecting these properties from the settlement, but now that the suit has been dismissed, the property is back on the market for $29.5 million.

 

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Luxury_Oahu_Estates_$8M – 10M
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Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog, Luxury real estate, luxury real estate Oahu Tagged With: Celebrity home, Celebrity Homes, Dmitry Rybolovlev, Donald Trump, Ekaterina Rybolovlev, Elena Rybolovlev, Kauai's North Shore, luxury, Luxury Estate, Luxury Experiences, Luxury Home, Luxury Homes, Luxury Living, Luxury Mansion, luxury real estate, Luxury Villa, LuxuryHomes, LuxuryHomes.com, Mansion, Million Dollar Estates, Million Dollar Home, Most expensive, Ocean View, Penthouse, Will Smith

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