We are now five quarters into the tapering of sales volume that followed the pandemic real estate boom and the biggest takeaways from the past quarter of market data are the slowing activity and the steady property values. Island wide median residential sales price hit $1.3M in Q3, the highest ever on Kauai, surpassing Q4 of 2022 when quarterly median prices hit $1.25M. Similarly, on the North Shore, residential median home prices hit $3.025M, coming in close behind Q4 of 2022 when the North Shore median home price was $3.3M. Each of the five districts on Kauai also had a year on year rise in median values.
Broader market activity is much slower than one year ago with nearly every market segment (whether geographic or based on property type) showing declines in the number of sales compared to Q3 of 2022. Across the island, there were 51 residential sales during Q3 compared to 94 during the same period last year (a 46% decline) and to 88 sales during Q2 of this year. North Shore residential activity has been far more stable over the past five quarters with 17 residential sales during the most recent quarter as well as 17 during Q3 2022 and 19 during Q2 of 2023. Sales volume statistics are also down by similar rates.
With these changes to the market, we are (finally) seeing some, albeit moderate, growth in inventory. At the end of Q3, there were 130 active residential listings. This marks a 10% increase from last quarter’s 118 active listings and a 7.4% increase from Q3 2022 which saw 121 active listings. Historically, supply is still limited (10 years ago during Q3 of 2013 the number of active residential listings was 390). Coupled with the slowing pace of sales, the months of inventory (MOI) is up to 7.5 months which is almost double that from one year ago and up 88% from last quarter’s supply at 4 months of inventory.
The shift to a Buyer’s market is underway.
If you’d like to explore the numbers a bit deeper, check out the market snapshot below for Q3 2023, or via the following links for enlarged versions – Kauai Snapshot Q3 2023
Monthly Sales and Median Price Statistics
The below chart depicts monthly sales and median prices for both the entire island and the North Shore. Strong median sales prices with fewer sales is the current story (although one caveat is that the number of sales on Kauai’s North Shore remains steady while island wide sales decline).
Long-Term Quarterly Median Sales Price Trends
As we always like to point out, Kauai (and particularly the North Shore) descriptive statistics are derived from a small data set (given we are a small market). With this there is an inherent variability in the data. Nonetheless, while median sales prices jumped during the past quarter, both island wide and North Shore median prices have more or less fluctuated around a flat trend line since the beginning of 2022.
Long-Term Quarterly Number of Residential Sales
The scatterplot below depicts the long term trends in the number of residential sales for both the entire island and the North Shore. There is a lot of variability, as always for a small market, but the recent downward trend in activity highlights the transition from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market.
Kauai Residential Number of Sales, 5 Year Quarterly Plot
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