April Oahu Housing Market has Mixed Signals

From an optimist’s p0int of view, April’s Oahu real estate stats were encouraging in that home prices are only off $15,000 from March & condo prices up $5,000.  Home prices are up 8.4% and condos up 1.6% since the beginning of the year. Overall inventory actually decreased again with 79 less homes and 68 less condo listings than March.  In addition, inventory was down year over year with 133 less homes on market and 115 less condos than March of 2008! Another encouraging sign was months of remaining inventory dropped from 14.7 to 9.7 for homes and went from 16.1 to 10.1 for condos!

Now, from a pessimist’s point of view: Oahu Home prices in April are down 8.4%  and condos down 5.1% from April of 2008.  In addition, days on market increased from 48 to 51 for homes and 47 to 66 days on market for condos.  When you compare the median sales price to existing active listings, the active listings are $140,000 more for homes than what is selling & $19,000 more than sales prices for condos.

For some sellers, reality still hasn’t sunk in…. For realistic sellers, now is a good time to sell Oahu property since inventory is the lowest it’s been since August of 2007 for single family homes!