Prefer to listen? The report is also an episode of the Maui Real Estate Advisor podcast. 

You may have seen the headline that Maui condo sales jumped more than 50% in September compared with a year ago. It's ture, and it's also the kind of number that can fool you, because September 2025 was one of the weakest condo months in two years. So this month we are doing something different. We pulled three full years of data, October 2023 through September 2026, and lined up each year against the one before it. The longer view tells a clearer story than any single month can. The typical Maui condo sale is down about 30% from two years ago, and for roughly the past year prices appear to be leveling off. Sales are up about 20% year over year. And mortgage rates have now climbed seven weeks in a row to 7.40%. For condo buyers, that combination may make this one of the better windows in several years. For condo owners who keep telling us they'd like to sell but don't need to, it carries a very different message. Here is what the data shows, what it means, and where we hedge.

October 2026 Key Takeaways

The three-year view: Condo closings bottomed out and we are climbing again: 879 in the twelve months ending September 2024, 667 the next year, and 798 this past year, up about 20%. Pending sales averaged 102 a month, up 23%.

Condo prices: The median condo sale is down about 29% from two years ago. But the year-over-year decline has narrowed sharply, from about 29% in the third quarter of 2025 to about 3% this past quarter. That looks more like a market finding its floor than one still sliding.

September itself: 72 condo closings, a $660,000 median, and inventory down to 812, a third straight monthly decline.

Supply: At the recent sales pace, about 11 months of condo supply, down from about 16 a year ago. Still a buyer's market, but a less lopsided one.

Mortgage rates: The 30-year fixed hit 7.40% on October 8, up seven straight weeks and more than a full point above a year ago. On a typical financed condo, that costs about as much as a 10% price increase.

For condo sellers: Counting expired and withdrawn listings, about 12 condo listings failed to sell for every 10 that closed this past year, up from about 6 three years ago. Active listings now average 183 days on market. Unless you actually want or need to sell, testing the market is likely to waste your time.

Homes: 52 closings and a $1,150,000 median. Unlike condos, home prices are still softening year over year. 

_________________________

A quick word on how we're reading the numbers this month. A single month on Maui is a small sample; a few big closing or a cluster of entry-level  sales can swing the median by six figures, as August's $564, 950 reminded us. So this month the foundation is the trailing twelve months and the quarter-by-quarter trend, with September as context rather than the headline. We think that's the better way to read this market, and you'll see more of it from us going forward. Condos first, as always.

Condos

Start with September. 72 condos closed, up from August's 68. The median selling price back to $660,000 from August's $564,950, which settles last month's point that August's dip was about which condos sold, not a price crash. Active inventory fell to 812, down from 830 in August and 913 in June, a third straight monthly decline and 119 fewer listings than April's peak of 931. The softer note: pending sales fell to 91 from 114, so October closings could cool.

That's the month. Now let's look at what three years of data say.

The Bigger Picture

Start with the widest lens: three back-to-back twelve-month periods, each ending in September.

Prices came down hard. Two years ago, over the twelve months ending September 2024, the median condo sale averaged about $915,000. This past year, about $649,000, a drop of roughly 29%. The average sale fell even further, from about $1.50 million to about $972,000, about 35%, partly because fewer luxury condos are trading. Condo dollar volume fell from $1.32 billion to about $775 million. That's the correction, and it was a real one.

Sales hit bottom and turned. Closings fell from 879 to 667, then climbed back to 798, up about 20% this past year. Pending sales followed the same path: 124 a month, then 83, now 102. Note the last two years: total dollar volume was essentially identical, about $775 millin each, but buyers bought about 20% more condos with it.

Now zoom in to the quarter-by-quarter view, which shows when things turned.

Buyers turned first. Average pending sales bottomed at 72 a month in the fourth quarter of 2024 and have climbed to about 104. Closings followed: the low came in the third quarter of 2025 at 155, and the last two quarters, 209 and 221, are the strongest in this table. The third quarter ran about 43% ahead of the same quarter last year.

Prices turned last, and they're turning now. Look at the "vs Year Ago" rows. The median's year-over-year decline deepened through 2025, from 3% to 14% to 22% to a low point of about 29% in the third quarter of 2025. Since then: 26%, 12%, 14%, and this past quarter, about 3%. The average shows the same arc, bottoming at about 38% down and now about 4%. Meanwhile, three of the last four quarterly median landed between about $616,000 and $637,000, with only the first quarter's spike breaking the pattern.

Buyers first, closings next, prices last. That's the order you would expect when a market is turning the corner, and it's the order this data shows. 

For Condo Buyers: Why This May Be the Window

Back in June we wrote that we don't call bottoms, and that anyone who does is selling something. I stand by that, so read this carefully. I am not telling you the bottom is in. Nobody can know that until well after the fact. What I am telling you in that two years of data now look a lot more like a market finding its floor than one still falling, and that the cost of waiting just went up. Here's the case.

Most of the price decline is behind us. The median condo sale is down about 29% from two years ago, and the year-over-year decline has shrunk from about 29% to low single digits. If you've been waiting for Maui condo prices to come down, they did.

Demand is building. Pendings have been rising since last 2024, sales are up about 205 over the year, and the last two quarters of closings are the strongest in our quarterly table. Buyers aren't waiting anymore. They're writing offers. 

Supply is tightening, from a high level. At the recent three-month sales pace, today's 812 listings work out to about 11 months of supply. A year ago, the same math said about 16 months of supply. To keep it in perspective, inventory is still far about where it was before the correction: 701 condos for sale in September 2024, and just 215 in September 2023. So buyers still have real choice and real leverage. But the leverage is narrowing.

Sellers have already done a lot of the cutting. The median asking price on active listings fell to $747,000, down from $849,000 in January and from $849,000 a year ago, about 12%. Buyers are the ones collecting on that.

And then there are rates. Freddie Mac's weekly survey put the average 30-year fixed mortgage at 7.40% on October 8, the seventh straight weekly increase, and more than a full point about the 6.30% of a year ago. Take a condo at September's median of $660,000 with 20% down. At 6.30%, principal and interest come to about $3,270 a month. At 7.40%, about $3,660. That is roughly $390 more every month, close to $4,700 a year. To get the same payment at today's rate, that condo would need to cost about $590,000. In other words, the rate move over the past year has already cost a financed buyer about a much as a 10% price cut would save them. And if you're financing a condotel, expect to pay more than that. Most condotels are non-warrantable, which typically means a higher rate and a larger down payment. If your plan has been to wait for another 10% off, rates have already taken it. This is a live demonstration of the 1% equals 10% rule: for every 1 point increase in interest rates, buyers lose about 10% in purchasing power. I can't promise you where rates go next; nobody reliably can. But waiting for both lower prices and lower rates at the same time is a bet on two things going your way at once. A note for our cash buyers, and many of our mainland second-home buyers are exactly that. The rate math doesn't hit your monthly payment, but it still works in your favor. Every tick up in rates thins out the financial buyers competing with you for the same condo, and that's leverage you can use at the negotiationg table, today, while it lasts. 

One important caution: there may be two condo markets here, not one. Everythign about is islandwide. But an apartment-zoned condo facing the end of short-term rentals under Bill 9 and a hotel-zoned condo that isn't affected are very different purchases, and they may not be finding their floors at the same time or at the same price. If rental income is part of your plan, the zoning of the specific building matter more than any islandwide average, and that's conversation to have with us before you write an offer, not after. We're working on pulling these two segments apart in the data for a future report. And given how the rezoning process is going so far, don't assume Bill 88 will rescue an apartment-zoned building.

And the hedge, because you know it's coming. Pending sales dipped to 91 in September, so the next month or two of closings could cool. Condos that sold in September took an average of 210 days to get there, the longest in our data, and active listings keep aging. This is not a market where you have to rush. It is a market where the best units at the right prices are getting picked off by patient, prepared buyers, and the window to be one of them may not stay this wide. 

For Condo Sellers: "We Don't Need to Sell"

Almost every week, someone tells us, "We'd like to sell, but we don't need to sell." Or, "We just want to test the market and see what happens." I understand the instinct completely. But I owe you a clear-eyed answer, and two years of data give it.

First, the market has moved a long way since you last checked. If your reference point for your condo's value is a sale, an appraisal or a neighbor's price from 2023 or 2024, the typical condo sale has come down about 29% since then by the median, and more by the average. Now, an important distinction: that's the market as a whole, not necessarily your unit. Medians and averages shift with the mix of what sells, and the only reliable way to know what your condo is worth today is to compare it with recent sales of similar units, ideally in your own complex. But most owners anchor to the best number they ever heard, and in this market taht anchor can since a listing.

Second, buyers are making offers well below asking. In the deals we're working right now, offers 20% below the asking price are not uncommon. The broader numbers point the same way: the median asking price on active listings is $747,000, while the median condo that actually sold in September went for $660,000. Those are different groups of condos, so it's not a precise discount, but that gap where today's negotiations live. Buyers know they have choices, and they're writing offers accordingly.

Third, "testing the market" mostly tests your patience. A listing that expires or gets withdrawn is a listing that didn't sell. Three years ago, in the twelve months ending September 2024, 98 condo listings expired and 429 were withdrawn, 527 in all, against 879 sales: about 6 listings failed to sell for every 10 that closed. This past year, 323 expired and 633 were withdrawn, 956 in all, against 798 sales: about 12 for every 10. More condo listings now end without a sale than with one. September alone: 79 listings came off the market unsold, against 72 sales. Active listings now average 183 days on market, up from 154 a year ago and 126 two years ago, and even the condos that sold in September had been on the market for an average of 210 days. A listing that sits builds a history every buyer's agent can see, and stale listings attract exactly the lowball offers a "just testing" seller won't accept.

So here's my advice. If you actually want or need to sell, price to where buyers are today, not to 2024, and you'll find there are buyers for the right condo at the right price. Sales are up 20% this year for a reason. If you don't want or need to sell, the best move may be not ot list at all. Keep enjoying your place, and if you want to know what it's worth, call us for a private valuation based on recnet sales in your own complex. It costs you nothing, it leaves no trail on the MLS, and it gives you a real number for when the time is right.

On the zoning question: Bill 88 is law, and the county's rezoning process is working its way through the council and the planning commissions. For hopeful condo owners, I'd say it is not going well. The vast majority of condos that have been passed from the county council to the planning commission have been rejected by the planning commission. Owners of apartment-zoned complexes that have been turned down by the planning commission can hope the council will save them with a supermajority vote, but that seems very unlikely, and I expect lawsuits may follow. And it's important to understand that even the complexes that haven't gotten a thumbs-down also have not been rezoned yet, and no owner's rental clock has changed. We'll have a full update in a separate post later this month, so stay tuned.

Bottom line on condos: over three years, condo prices came down about 30% and sales hit bottom and turned. Over the last year, the price decline has nearly flattened while closings and pendings climbed and supply tightened. Add rising mortgage rates, and for buyers that's a window worth taking seriously. For sellers who don't need to sell, it's a reason to stay put rather than test. 

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. September figures were collected October 1, 2026. Multi-year comparisons cover October 2023 through September 2026.

* Mortgage rates per Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, October 8, 2026. Payment examples show principal and interest only on a 30-year fixed loan with 20% down.

Key Takeaways: Condos

798 condo closings over the past twelve months, up about 20% from 667 the year before, after falling from 879 the year before that. Pending turned first, in late 2024.

The median condo sale is down about 29% from two years ago; the average, about 35%. The last two years had the same dollar volume, about $775 million with buyers getting 20% more condos for it.

The year-over-year median decline peaked at about 29% in the third quarter of 2025 and has narrowed to about 3%. Three of the last four quarterly medians sat between about $616,000 and $637,000.

About 11 months of supply at the recent pace, down from about 16 a year ago, though inventory remains far above 2023 and 2024 levels.

30-year mortgage rates hit 7.40%, up seven straight weeks. On a $660,000 condo with 20% down, that's about $390 a month more than a year ago, roughly equal to 10% price increase.

Apartment-zoned condos affected by Bill 9 and hotel-zoned condos may be different markets. Check the zoning before you rely on islandwide numbers.

For sellers: about 12 listings no expire or are withdrawn for every 10 that sell, up from about 6 three years ago. Active listings average 183 days, and offers 20% below asking are not uncommon.

_________________________

Single-Family Homes

Last month we flagged that home pendings had fallen to 94 and warned that September closings could cool. They did. 52 homes closed in September, down from August's 64 and below the trailing twelve-month average of about 59. The median eased to $1,150,000, matching last November for the lowest reading in this table, while the average jumped to $1,861,394 on a handful of luxury closings. In this market, even a handful of luxury closings is noteworthy, so we'll detail that in our monthly luxury market report.

The longer view is where homes and condos part ways. Two years ago, while conod prices were already falling year over year, home prices were holding steady. Now it has flipped. Home closings over the past twelve months totaled 707, about 3% more than the year before and roughly level with the 718 of two years ago. But prices are giving ground. The sales-weighted average home price fell about 12% year over year, and the third-quarter median, about $1.17 million, was roughly 10% below the same quarter last year, the widest year-over-year gap of the past two years. Condos look like they're finding their floor. Homes are still looking for theirs.

Supply backs that up. Active home listings eased to 453 from August's high of 470, but that's still up from 438 a year ago, 335 two years ago and 212 three years ago. At the recent sales pace that's about 8 months of supply, up from about 7.5 a year ago. Active listings now average 172 days on market, a new high, and 16 listings expired in September, the most in this table. Pending sales recovered to 102 from 94, which suggests October won't fall off a cliff, but they've averaged about 6% fewer than the year before. And the rate story applies here as much as anywhere: on a financed purchase at these price points, a full point of rate is real money every month.

Bottom line on homes: a cooler September, as the pending count warned, on top of a longer-term picture of flat sales, rising supply and softening prices. A thin market leaning a little more toward buyers each quarter.

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. September figures were collected October 1, 2026.

* December '25 median asking price unavailable.

Key Takeaways: Homes

52 homes closing in September, down from 64, at last month's low pending count warned.

Median sold prices eased to $1,150,000 matching the table low, while the average jumped to about $1.86M on luxury closings.

Over twelve months, home sales were essentially flat (up about 3%), while the average price fell about 12%. The third-quarter median was about 10% below a year ago.

Inventory at 453, up from 438 a year ago and 212 three years ago. About 8 months of supply.

Active listings average 172 days on market, a new high; 16 expirations, the most on the table. 

_________________________

A Quick Word on Land

Eight vacant-land parcels closed in September against 232 active listings, the most on the market all year and up from 218 in August. The median sale price came in at $579,500. With eight sales, the median goes wherever those eight parcels happen to sit, so please don't draw a trend line through it. The trend that is real; land inventory has climbed four months running, and at 232 it's well above the 179 of a year ago. Land is a thin, patient market you measure in seasons, not months, and right now the season favors the buyer with vision and a long fuse.

Our Take

This month the most important numbers in the report aren't from September. They're from the three years behind it.

Condo buyers have spent two years being told to wait, and the waiting paid off. The median condo sale came down about 29%. The question now is whether waiting still pays, and the evidence says we've probably reached the point of diminishing returns. The year-over-year price decline has shrunk from about 29% to about 3%. Sales are up about 20%. Supply has dropped from about 16 months to about 11. And the 30-year mortgage rate has climbed seven straight weeks to 7.40%, quietly erasing the equivalent of a 10% price cut for anyone who finances. We're not calling a bottom. We're telling you that lower prices, real negotiating leverage and rising rates rarely line up this neatly, and the buyers who move while they do tend to look smart later. Just know which kind of condo you're buying, because apartment-zoned and hotel-zoned may be two different stories. 

Condo sellers, the same facts point the other way. The market has moved a long way since 2023 and 2024, buyers know it, and they're writing offers accordingly, sometimes 20% below asking. And sometimes that works for them. Count expired and withdrawn listings together and about 12 condo listings now fail to sell for every 10 that do, double the rate of three years ago. If you want or need to sell, price to the market that exists today and you'll find a buyer. If you don't, testing the market is mostly a way to spend six months collecting offers you won't accept and getting frustrated with your broker. Call us for a private valuation instead.

Which brings me to the thing I say every month, because it refuses to stop being true. There is no single “Maui real estate market.” You can stand in the Kihei sun and watch rain fall Upcountry at the same time; same island, two completely different afternoons. Condos look like they're finding their floor while homes are still softening. Apartment-zoned and hotel-zoned condos may be on different clocks. And the well-priced listing and the one still asking for 2024 are living in different markets entirely. Our job is to help you read the slice that actually touches you.

The same thing we say every month still holds: the most expensive thing you can do in a market like this is wait without information.

Let's Talk Story

If you have questions about your property's value, what those numbers mean for your situation, or whether this market is your moment to make a move, reach out anytime. We're here as a resource for the Maui community, whether you're ready to act or just trying to make sense of the headlines. No pressure, no agenda, just a conversation. 

And if you or someone you know is thinking about buying, selling, or simply keeping track of Maui's real estate market, we've got a fabulous team of seasoned, well-trained advisors standing by to help.

You can search every property listed for sale at www.AlohaGroupMaui.com, or email me directly at lee@alohapotts.com. I answer every one.

From the greatest island on Earth, I'm Lahaina Lee, saying ALOHA.

Aloha Group Maui | Luxury Single-Family Market Analysis | Data through August 31, 2026

Lately I keep hearing the same question from clients, other agents, reporters, and the usual market pundits: is luxury real estate on Maui crashing?

I heard it again recently from a group of Realtors touring a high-end home. We were talking about tourism, the economy, and what we're seeing in the luxury market.

It's a fair question.

But then there are moments that make me wonder exactly what is going on.

Not long ago, Barb and I went to Merriman's in Kapalua. The valet parking was six cars deep. There was a crowd waiting out front, and the restaurant was packed.

Whatever else is happening in the economy, the upward angle of the K-shaped economy appears to be alive and well on Maui.

Which raises an interesting question: Where are all those luxury home buyers?

The question makes sense if your reference point is 2021. But 2021 was an extraordinary outlier. Sales volume exploded, days on market collapsed, discounting nearly disappeared, and buyers moved quickly.

Measured against that one year, everything since can look like a crash.

But when I updated the numbers through the end of August, I came away with a somewhat different answer than I did earlier this year.

The Maui luxury market isn't crashing. But I don't think we can call what's happening simply "normalization" anymore either.

Sales have fallen below the long-term norm. Inventory is aging. Negotiation has widened. And at the upper end of the market, there are a lot more homes looking for buyers than there are buyers willing to make a decision. 

Prices however, have held up remarkably well. 

So what we're seeing looks less like a price crash and more like a liquidity problem.

And if you like data, this one is for you.

The Big Picture: An 11-Year View

A longer lens matters here, and so does the yardstick.

A $4 million home in 2016 isn't economically the same thing as a $4 million home today. So rather than letting inflation quietly move our definition of "luxury," we adjusted the $4 million threshold backward using the Consumer Price Index.

In 2016, the equivalent threshold is about $2.88 million. By 2026, it's the full $4 million. That gives us a much better apples-to-apples picture.

Real Floor is each year's inflation-adjusted $4M threshold. Sold/Orig is the meidan sale price as a share of the original asking price. 2026 is partial, through August 31.

Read the numbers that way and the story reorganizes itself.

From 2016 to 2020, Maui averaged roughly 43 inflation-adjusted luxury home sales per year.

Then came 2021. Sales jumped to 133. It wasn't a normal market. It was a convergence of stimulus, rapidly appreciating financial assets, extraordinarily low interest rates, remote work, and a sudden rethinking of where people wanted to live. 

Then came the step-down: 75 sales in 2022, 60 in 2023, 48 in 2024, 47 in 2025. 

That wasn't a crash. That was normalization.

But 2026 is different.

Through August 31, only 18 luxury homes have closed, the lowest January-through-August total in our 11-year inflation-adjusted comparison.

For the first time since the pandemic boom, we've moved below, rather than simply back toward, the historical norm. That's worth paying attention to. 

Maui Doesn't Have One Luxury Market

We've traditionally talked about Maui luxury in fairly broad price bands. But looking at this year's numbers, I think that hides some of what's actually happening. Here's a better way to look at today's market:

The $4 million to $7.5 million segment is still the engine of Maui luxury. Thirteen of this year's 18 sales are there, and seven of the nine homes currently under contract are there. It's slow, but it's functioning. 

Once we get above $7.5 million, things change pretty quickly.

There are currently 52 homes for sale above $7.5 million. Only two are under contract. 

Go above $10 million and there are 36 homes for sale, with just one pending.

And above $15 million? Twenty-one homes for sale. One pending. Not one closing so far this year. 

That's a very thin market. The top isn't correcting on price. It's frozen.

At the Top, Buyers Are Looking for "The Home"

There is something about those numbers that the MLS can't tell you. I know, because we represented the seller on one of the two homes that sold this year between $10 million and $15 million.

On paper, it looks like that home sold relatively quickly. But the buyer didn't suddenly wake up a few weeks earlier and decide to spend eight figures on a Maui home.

He had been circling Maui for probably two years, looking for The. Home.

Then ours came on the market. It was in the right place. It had the right amenities. It checked the boxes he had been waiting to check. And he was ready to make an offer.'

I think that's an important distinction. At these price points, buyers don't necessarily need to buy. They can wait. And many aren't looking for just a nice Maui home. They're waiting for the particular home that makes them want to act. 

So the problem isn't necessarily that there are no luxury buyers.

There are simply far more properties for sale than there are buyers who believe they've found "the one.

And maybe that helps answer my question about that packed restaurant in Kapalua. The people with money haven't disappeared. 

The urgency to buy Maui real estate may have. 

The Logjam

The trailing 12-month numbers make that even clearer. 

The core market has 45 homes for sale against 20 sales over the past 12 months.

Above $7.5 million, however, 52 homes are currently competing in a market that produced only eight sales over the last 12 months.

Above $10 million, it's 36 homes for sale against four trailing-year sales.

We can turn those numbers into "month of supply," and they become pretty dramatic. But at these prices points, where one or two transactions can change the calculation substantially, that suggests more precision than really exists. The simpler point is probably the better one: That's a lot of sellers waiting for not very many buyers.

Days on Market Tells Another Part of the Story

Here's where this gets especially interesting for owners.

The 18 luxury homes that actually sold this year took a median 140 days to find a buyer. That's not particularly fast.

But the homes still for sale have already been sitting on the market for a median 202 days. And at $15 million and above, the median is 254 days.

More than half of today's luxury inventory has already been exposed to the market for over six months. One listing has been out there for more than 900 days. So simply waiting longer isn't necessarily bringing buyers and sellers together. 

There is an important caveat, though, and it goes back to the sale I mentioned earlier.

Days on market measures how long the property has been looking for a buyer. It doesn't measure how long the buyer has been looking for a property.

At the upper end of Maui's market, that distinction matters. A home can technically sell in 30 or 40 days to a buyer who has spent two years waiting for exactly that property to come along. That's one reason I don't think DOM by itself tells the whole story in luxury real estate. 

But when the active listings have reached a median 202 days while the homes that actually sold did so at 140, the message for sellers is still pretty clear: Time alone isn't a strategy.

Price is Adjusting, Just Not the Way a Crash Looks

Negotiation has returned too. This year's luxury sales have closed at roughly 85% of their original asking price, the widest gap in our 11-year comparision. 

Yet the median sale price remains about $5.55 million, compared with $6 million last year. And 89% of this year's transactions have been cash. 

That's an unusual combination if you're looking for evidence of a conventional real estate crash. Transaction volume has fallen dramatically. Negotiation has widened. Homes are taking longer. But prices haven't fallen anything like transaction volume has, and cash remains dominant.

That's why I keep coming back to liquidity. Buyers and sellers haven't agreed on where this market should clear. 

What This Means for Sellers

If you're selling a luxury home on Maui, I don't think you're in a collapsing market. But you are in a very selective one. 

So, if waiting isn't working, what is? The answer isn't a better way to wait. It's to stop waiting for a buyer and start being the home that ends a buyer's search.

Remember the buyer I mentioned who circled Maui for two years. He wasn't waiting for a good home. He was waiting for the home. Every seller's job in this market is to be that home for someone. And that's an active job, not a passive one.

There are buyers. Our own sale above $10 million demonstrates that. And the broader evidence around Maui suggests there is still plenty of wealth here. What seems to be missing is the willingness to turn that wealth into another piece of real estate unless the property or the opportunity is compelling enough.

Buyers have choices, and particularly at the upper end, they have the luxury of waiting. That makes pricing, preparation, and positioning more important, not less.

Price to the market that's actually trending, not to a 2021 comp. Present the home like it's already the one, turnkey and professionally shown, with no deferred maintenance quietly telling a buyer to keep looking. And answer, "Why yours?" before a buyer asks it, by leading with the one thing the other twenty listings don't have and getting it in front of the small pool actually shopping at that price. At this level, that often means the agent network and quiet off-market conversations, not just a portal.

Pricing well doesn't guarantee a quick sale in this market. Pricing poorly almost guarantees a long one. 

And if you're not willing to do those things, the answer still isn't to keep sitting on teh MLS while your days on market climb toward that 900-day listing. It's to pull the home and wait on purpose, on your terms, until you're read ot sell it right. The 900-day listing isn't a seller who's waiting. It's a seller who's been waiting by accident.

If your'e on of the 15 homes competing between $10 million and $15 million, the question isn't simply whether your home is beautiful. At this level, they're almost all beautiful. The question is: Why yours?

Because waiting isn't a strategy. It's what happens when you haven't picked one. 

What This Means for Buyers

For buyers, this market is almost the opposite of 2021. Selection is deep. Pressure is low. Negotiation is back. That doesn't mean sellers are desperate, and it certainly doesn't mean every asking price is about to fall. But buyers can be deliberate. 

And this may be the biggest difference between today's luxury buyer and the 2021 buyer.

They can afford to buy. They just don't feel compelled to buy. 

Someone can fly first class, stay at Montage, eat at Merriman's, own financial assets that have done very well, and still decide there's no reason to write a $10 million check for a Maui house today. They can wait.

And unlike 2021, there's very little fear that if they don't buy this home today, there won't be another one tomorrow. For the buyer who knows what they want, that patience is powerful.

Our Take

Earlier this year I said Maui's luxury market wasn't crashing. It was normalizing after one of the most unusual real estate markets any of us have ever seen. I still don't think it's crashing. 

But I do think something has changed.

For the first time, sales have fallen below the long-term norm. We have 97 luxury homes for sale, only nine under contract, longer days on market, and a pretty serious logjam once you get above $7.5 million. At the same time, prices remain relatively firm, cash buyers haven't disappeared, and from what I can see around Maui, wealthy consumers haven't disappeared either.

So maybe the questions isn't, "Where did all the luxury buyers go?" Maybe they're still here. They're just not in a hurry.

And that brings us back to what maybe the defining question for this market: how long are sellers willing to wait for their buyer, and how long are buyers willing to wait for "the home"? Right now, both sides seem pretty willing to wait. And sooner or later, something has to break that logjam.

In my experience, these recalibration stretches, not the frenzies, are where the smartest long-term deciions tend to get made.

If you're thinking about buying, selling, or just want to undersand where you fit into all of this, we're always happy to talk story and walk through the numbers with you!

Three Years Later: How Much of Lahaina Has Actually Been Rebuilt?

Nearly 600 rebuilt homes. Zero rebuilt commercial buildings on Front Street. A recovery worth being honest about.

By Lahaina Lee  ·  Aloha Group Maui  ·  September 2026

Aloha, this is Lahaina Lee with the September edition of the Maui Real Estate Advisor.

Three years after the fire, we are hearing some big numbers about Lahaina's recovery. The County's own three-year update puts it at nearly 600 homes rebuilt and occupied, with about 400 more under construction. That is progress. Real progress, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

But I have been spending a lot of time inside those numbers lately, and I keep coming back to a simpler question.

How much of Lahaina has actually been rebuilt?

Not how many permits have been applied for. Not how many have been issued. Not how many units appear on a dashboard. What is physically there today, finished and occupied and open? That is the number that matters, and it is the one this edition is about.

Recovery by the Numbers

Sources: County of Maui three-year recovery update (Aug. 7, 2026) and Rebuild Dashboard; Hawaiʻi DBEDT July visitor statistics; FEMA Direct Housing fact sheet. Figures are snapshots and move week to week.

601 Homes. But What Does That Number Count?

Let me start with the good news, because it is real. Drive through Lahaina and you can see houses going up. Families are coming home. There is no question that residential rebuilding has gained momentum, and the completion count has climbed hard over the past year.

The dashboard now shows roughly 601 completed homes, and the County's three-year update frames it as nearly 600 rebuilt and occupied. Good. But be careful with “homes,” because these are not 600 single-family houses. It is a mixture of single-family homes and multifamily, or apartment, units. The dashboard's own footnote says so: the residential count includes single-family and multifamily units, and a single permit may cover more than one dwelling unit. That is not wrong. We need both kinds of housing. It just means we have to understand what we are counting before we let one big number stand in for a whole town, because a 60-unit condo building and 60 families rebuilding on their own lots are very different pictures of recovery.

Here is where the number gets interesting, because we now know what is inside it. The County's own dashboard splits the completed homes into single-family and multifamily. In its early-August three-year breakdown, of 577 completed homes, 313 were multifamily units, and the total has kept climbing toward 600 since. And those 313 multifamily units are largely two big complexes.

One is Kaiāulu o Kupuohi, an 89-unit workforce community that opened in late 2022, burned to the ground in the fire, and has since been rebuilt and reopened, fully occupied, about half returning residents and half fire survivors. That one genuinely counts. It was lost on August 8, and it came back.

The other is Kaiāulu O Kūkuʻia, and this is the one to watch. Its 200 units are an affordable project that broke ground in July 2022, more than a year before the fire, on a site that had already been cleared. It took wind damage, not fire. The County itself classifies it as a new build, not a rebuild of homes destroyed on August 8.

Those 200 apartments are real housing, and God knows Maui needs them. I am glad they are there. But they are not 200 Lahaina homes that burned down and were rebuilt.

Take those 200 units out, and the roughly 600 completed homes become closer to 400.

Again, this is not a gotcha. It is a definition. If we are going to measure the recovery, let's make sure we are measuring the recovery.

This is the same habit I wrote about in July's special report: we have gotten comfortable calling things done that are not quite done.

Front Street Is Open. Commercial Reconstruction Is Zero.

Front Street reopened to vehicular traffic on Aug. 1, from Pāpalaua to Shaw, with no regularly restricted hours. That is a milestone, and it felt like one. The road is open. The seawall and sidewalk work is done. The railings are up. The trees are planted.

But three years after the fire, how many of the commercial buildings destroyed on Front Street have been rebuilt?

Zero. Not very few. None.

That does not mean nothing is happening. Owners are grinding through plans, historic review, shoreline rules and permits. But there is an enormous difference between working toward rebuilding and having a building. The County itself has called permitting in the Lahaina historic districts among the most heavily regulated processes in the state. That is a description of the problem, and it is exactly why I am skeptical of using permits as the measure of recovery.

I have taken pushback on this. Readers and listeners tell me, Front Street is open, the harbor is open, why are you whining about Front Street when homes have to come first. I agree that homes come first. But hold this next part in your head at the same time: many of the people who want to come home to Lahaina worked at those Front Street and Lahaina businesses. They cannot fully come back until the places they worked can build back too. A town is not only where people sleep. It is where they earn a living.

A Permit Is Progress. It Is Not Always a Building.

The dashboard has categories for commercial permits being processed, issued and completed. We have been digging into the underlying MAPPS permitting system, and a commercial permit does not necessarily mean a destroyed commercial building has been reconstructed. The system can sweep in repairs, alterations and other commercial work that has nothing to do with a burned building coming back.

So here is my rule for this edition, and it is the whole edition in one line:

A permit is progress. It does not necessarily mean a building.

Maybe what we really need is a simpler recovery scorecard, three numbers anyone can understand:

• How many homes are finished and occupied?
• How many destroyed commercial buildings have actually been rebuilt and reopened?
• How many projects have construction physically underway today?

Those are numbers I can explain to a client without a footnote. Everything else is bookkeeping.

Tourism Is Up. So Why Does Maui Feel Slow?

We are seeing the same gap between the headline and the feel in the tourism numbers. July looks good at first glance. Maui had more visitors than a year ago, and visitor spending was up too. But look one line down.

Maui Tourism: July, Three-Year View

Sources: Hawaiʻi DBEDT preliminary visitor statistics (July 2019, 2025, 2026). Inflation adjustment uses BLS CPI-U, about +31% from July 2019 to 2026. To equal 2019 spending in real terms, July 2026 spending would need to be roughly $663M.

The average number of visitors actually on Maui on any given day was down more than 10% from a year ago, and about a third below 2019. Visitors are coming. They are just not staying as long. And that matches what I am seeing on the ground.

Four friends recently flew in for a condo board meeting, on four different flights, and every one of them told me their plane was half full or less. Now, four flights are not a tourism study, and I would never publish them as one. But empty seats are not imaginary either. Then we drive to Merriman's in Kapalua and the cars are stacked six deep for the valet, the place is packed, and Wailea and Whalers Village look busy too.

How can both be true? This is Maui's K-shaped economy in front of us, the same split I flagged in June. The upper arm, the high-end resorts and restaurants, is alive and well. The lower arm, the businesses that depend on volume and on the Lahaina visitor economy, is starving, and low rates are not filling the gap. Both things are true at once.

And from my real estate chair, that leaves one more question. If the high-end visitor is clearly here, where are the luxury home buyers? I am still looking for them.

Bill 88: Who Gets Through the Door?

Then there is Bill 88, now Ordinance 6008. We have covered the history enough that I will not walk you through it again. If you want the full seven-step version, read On a List Is Not Rezoned from August. The short version: Bill 88 built the containers, the new H-3 and H-4 hotel districts. It did not put the individual properties in them.

The first group of apartment-zoned condos, Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111, cleared the Council in July and went on to the Planning Commission. What I am watching now is the next wave: Resolutions 26-129 and 26-130. And this month it moved.

On Aug. 27, after closing two and a half days of testimony, the Housing and Land Use Committee voted 5-4 to adopt sea-level-rise exposure as the test for which properties in this wave can be recommended for hotel zoning, tying eligibility to how deeply a property sits inside the county's Sea Level Rise Exposure Area. If that sounds familiar, it should. In July's special report I wrote that the criteria for the next wave were already being signaled as affordability and sea-level-rise exposure. Now sea-level-rise exposure is the criterion, adopted by a single vote. Taken together, the four measures would move somewhere around 2,500 units, more than a third of the roughly 7,000 units affected by Bill 9, onto a path toward hotel zoning.

Here is why I keep hammering the language. If you own one of these condos, you may be hearing that your building is on the list. Maybe. But be precise:

• Being proposed is not being approved.
• Being approved for referral is not being rezoned.
• Being referred to the Planning Commission does not make your property H-3 or H-4 today.

Bill 88 opened a door. Now we are finding out who gets through it, and on what terms. If your building sits on the shoreline, read that 5-4 vote twice, because the test that lets some buildings in is the same test that could keep yours out. That is what I will be tracking through the next Council and Planning Commission meetings. Status is changing week to week, so verify your building against the current resolution, not a neighbor's Facebook post.

Are We Rebuilding Lahaina, or Just Rebuilding Houses?

This is the question underneath all of it. For three years we have measured recovery mostly through construction: permits issued, homes started, homes completed. That is understandable. We lost most of a town and you have to start somewhere. But a town is not just houses. It is where people work, eat, shop, send their kids to school, and pick up their mail.

And that last one is not a figure of speech. Families who have finally rebuilt are finding that the Postal Service now treats their rebuilt neighborhoods as new developments, which means centralized cluster mailboxes instead of the home delivery they had before the fire. On Sept. 2, Mayor Bissen wrote to the Postmaster General asking USPS to restore direct home delivery, arguing that returning families should not lose an essential service simply because they were forced to rebuild. Council Member Tamara Paltin says residents have already had mortgage documents and other mail sent back because carriers will not deliver to the house, and that the loss falls hardest on kūpuna and anyone who gets medication by mail. The County adds the practical trap: these rebuilt neighborhoods were never designed for cluster boxes, with no easements or common areas to site them, so people are told to use centralized boxes that may not even be permitted to exist. On top of that, USPS has proposed permanently closing the fire-damaged Lahaina Downtown Post Office on Papalaua Street, a move the Mayor, Rep. Jill Tokuda and Paltin all oppose.

This is the whole point in miniature. You can pass final inspection and still not be able to get your mortgage statement delivered to the door. A house you cannot receive mail at is a completed permit. It is not yet a working town.

Other families are still in temporary housing while the assistance winds down. About 1,137 households remain in interim housing across a half-dozen programs, and beginning Sept. 1, FEMA raised the minimum rent for households in Direct Housing from 25% to 50% of Maui's Fair Market Rent, part of the wind-down toward the program's February 2027 end. The clock is not just running on Bill 9. It is running on people.

And housing recovery is a bigger, messier category than any single completion number lets on. Take Kīlohana, the 167-unit modular project FEMA built in Lahaina for survivors. In late August, FEMA cleared the way to donate those units to Maui County at no cost, through the state, with the stated intent of turning them into permanent housing. That is genuinely good news. But the County's own recovery administrator was candid that the final location and configuration are not set, and that for now the plan is to use them in the interim while the larger multifamily projects get built. Real units, real people housed, and still a plan with a question mark where the word permanent is supposed to be. That is the whole theme of this edition in a single project: counted as housing, not yet settled as a home.

Meanwhile the commercial heart of Lahaina is nowhere near back. Rebuilding homes, however you count them, without rebuilding the places where people work does not rebuild a town. Before the fire, Lahaina was an ecosystem: people lived there, worked there, and visitors came, and businesses supported other businesses. You knew the guy at the hardware store and the woman behind the counter at the coffee shop. That is a town.

So three years on, maybe the question is not how many permits have been issued. Maybe it is this.

How much of Lahaina have we actually rebuilt?

The answer is not zero. There is real progress. Hundreds of families are rebuilding. Infrastructure is coming back. Front Street is open, and there are projects underway that give me reason to be optimistic. But we have reached the point where we have to distinguish between rebuilding buildings and rebuilding Lahaina. They are not the same thing.

A rebuilt town occupied by different people is not a recovery. It is a replacement. The only test that finally counts is whether the people who made Lahaina Lahaina are able to come home. Everything else is just construction.

From the greatest island on earth, this is Lahaina Lee saying aloha.

Have questions about how Bill 9 or Bill 88 affects a specific property? Reach out directly. I answer every message.

Lee Potts  ·  Aloha Group Maui  ·  Lee@AlohaPotts.com  ·  AlohaGroupMaui.com

___________________________________________________

Frequently Asked Questions

How many homes have actually been rebuilt in Lahaina?

As of the County's three-year update on Aug. 7, 2026, roughly 600 homes have been rebuilt and occupied, with about 400 more under construction. Read that carefully: it is a mixture of single-family homes and multifamily, or apartment, units, not 600 families back in rebuilt houses. Per the County's own dashboard breakdown in early August, of 577 completed homes, 313 were multifamily. Some of those are genuine fire rebuilds, like the 89-unit Kaiāulu o Kupuohi, which burned and was rebuilt. But 200 are a single pre-fire development, Kaiāulu O Kūkuʻia, which was never burned by the fire and is classified as a new build rather than a rebuild of homes lost on August 8. Strip those 200 out and the completed count is nearer 400 than 600. The plainer figures to watch are how many homes are finished and occupied, how many destroyed commercial buildings have reopened, and how many projects are physically under construction today.

Front Street reopened. Does that mean businesses are back?

Not yet. Front Street reopened to vehicular traffic on Aug. 1, 2026, from Pāpalaua to Shaw, and that is a genuine milestone. But zero of the commercial buildings destroyed on Front Street have been rebuilt. A reopened road, new railings and the interim ʻUlu o Lele marketplace are preconditions for commercial recovery, not commercial recovery itself.

What is happening with Bill 88 rezoning right now?

Bill 88 (Ordinance 6008) created the H-3 and H-4 hotel districts but rezoned no property. The first wave, Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111, advanced to the Planning Commission in July. The second wave, Resolutions 26-129 and 26-130, is in committee, and on Aug. 27 the committee voted 5-4 to base eligibility on sea-level-rise exposure. Being named in a resolution is not the same as being rezoned. Verify your building against the current version of the resolution.

My building is on a list. Is it rezoned?

No. Being proposed is not being approved, being approved for referral is not being rezoned, and being referred to the Planning Commission does not change your zoning today. Your existing apartment-district zoning, and Bill 9's phase-out clock, stay in effect until a separate rezoning ordinance actually takes effect. For the full step-by-step, see On a List Is Not Rezoned.

How is Maui tourism doing in 2026?

Split. In July, visitor arrivals and spending were both up year over year, but the average number of visitors on-island each day was down more than 10% from a year ago and about a third below 2019. Higher spenders on shorter stays lift revenue at premium properties without lifting the whole market. It is a K-shaped economy, and which side of the K a property sits on matters more than any headline number.

What is changing with FEMA housing assistance?

FEMA temporary housing assistance runs through Feb. 28, 2027. As of Sept. 1, 2026, the minimum rent for households still in Direct Housing rose from 25% to 50% of the HUD Fair Market Rent for Maui County. Families who cannot or do not wish to pay the new amount can appeal or must move out, which adds pressure at the same moment the rebuild is still incomplete.

Why are some rebuilt Lahaina homes not getting mail delivered?

Because the Postal Service is treating rebuilt neighborhoods as new developments, which under USPS policy get centralized cluster mailboxes rather than door delivery. On Sept. 2, 2026, Mayor Bissen wrote to the Postmaster General asking USPS to restore direct home delivery for returning families, and Council Member Tamara Paltin has said residents have had mortgage documents and other mail returned. The County notes these neighborhoods were not designed to site cluster boxes. Separately, USPS has proposed permanently closing the fire-damaged Lahaina Downtown Post Office, which local and federal officials oppose. A decision on the downtown station is expected within about 210 days.

A note on sources

Recovery and tourism figures are drawn from the County of Maui three-year recovery update (Aug. 7, 2026) and Rebuild Dashboard, the dashboard's single-family and multifamily completion breakdown (577 complete, 313 multifamily, as of Aug. 5, 2026, via Aloha State Daily and AsAmNews reporting), Maui County statements to AsAmNews confirming that 200 of the completed multifamily units are the pre-fire Kaiāulu O Kūkuʻia development, Maui News, Maui Now and Business Wire reporting on the destruction and June 2026 rebuild and reopening of the 89-unit Kaiāulu o Kupuohi, Hawaiʻi DBEDT July visitor statistics, County of Maui and Maui Now reporting on the Front Street reopening and the Aug. 27 Housing and Land Use Committee vote on Resolutions 26-129 and 26-130, Maui Now reporting on the FEMA donation of the Kīlohana modular units and islandwide interim-housing counts (Aug. 22, 2026), the Mayor's Sept. 2, 2026 letter to the U.S. Postmaster General on home mail delivery (Office of the Mayor; Maui Now; Hawaiʻi Public Radio, Sept. 2026), and FEMA fact sheets on Direct Housing rent. Figures are snapshots and move week to week; verify current numbers before relying on them. Corrections are welcome and will be published.

By Lahaina Lee, Aloha Group Maui | August 2026 market data

Prefer to listen? This report is also an episode of the Maui Real Estate Advisor podcast.

Last month we told you to stop watching condo prices and start watching inventory. If listings kept falling while sales held anywhere near their pace, we said, a two-month bounce would start to look like the early makings of a trend. Well. Condo inventory fell again, to 830, the leanest count in more than a year, and sales held above their normal pace at 68. On the two numbers we told you to watch, the trend held. And yet the median condo price fell off the table, to $564,950, the lowest reading I've seen in more than five years. Both of those are true at the same time, and untangling how is most of this month's story. On the home side, the 112 pending sales we were waiting on converted into a modest rebound: 64 closings, a touch above the usual pace. Here is what the data shows, what it means, and where we hedge.

Two months ago the condo market handed us its best closing month in over two years. Then it stepped down to 81. Now 68. That looks like a slowdown, and in one narrow sense it is. But 68 sales is still above the trailing twelve-month average of about 64; condo inventory just fell to its lowest count in more than a year, and pending sales ticked back up to 114. So before we write the obituary, let's do the numbers. Condos first, as always.

Condos

Start with the number everyone will react to first, because it is the scary one. The median condo selling price fell to $564,950. That is down from $685,000 in July, a drop of about $120,000, roughly 18% in a single month, and it is the lowest median condo price we have recorded since February 2021, more than five years back, under even May's $597,000 and last November's $595,000. So Maui condos lost a fifth of their value in thirty days, right?

No. And this is the single most important paragraph I will write all month, so stay with me.

The median is just the price of the one condo standing in the exact middle of the line. It tells you what the middle sale was, not what any particular condo is worth. Picture the Saturday swap meet in Kahului. Last month plenty of shoppers were working the pricier tables. This month a crowd showed up for the cheap sunglasses, and suddenly the item sitting in the middle of everyone's basket is a lot cheaper, even though not one vendor lowered a price. That is what happened to the condo median in August. The mix of what sold shifted toward the affordable end.

How do I know it is the mix and not the market? Two tells. First, the average sold price fell only to $893,000 from July's $1.01M, about 12%, meaningfully less than the median's 18%. When the median falls harder than the average, that is the fingerprint of the mix sliding down the price ladder, more entry-level units trading hands, not every unit repricing. Second, and this is the one that matters most: a market actually losing value looks like swelling inventory and shrinking sales. August was the opposite. Inventory fell. Sales stayed above normal. Pendings rose. That is not a market in retreat. That is a market where the affordable end did the buying.

Now the sales themselves. 68 closed condo sales in August, down from July's 81 and June's 88. So yes, closings have stepped down two months running from that June peak. But 68 is still about 6% above the trailing twelve-month average of roughly 64, which means the buyers did not vanish when the calendar flipped. They just came back a little less hungry than in June. Two big months were always going to be followed by something more ordinary, and ordinary here still beats the year's average.

The pipeline agrees. Pending sales climbed back to 114, up from 107 in July and comfortably above the twelve-month average of about 101. That is not the pending count of a market rolling over. It is the third-highest reading of the past year. September closings have plenty to draw on.

And then there is the number I told you last month to watch: inventory. It fell again, to 830 active condo listings, down from 870 in July and 913 in June, and it is now the leanest count anywhere in this table, a hair under last October's 833. Two months ago we had more than 900 condos for sale and a median under $600,000. Today we have 830 and, yes, a median under $600,000 again, but for a very different reason. The count of condos for sale is the cleanest signal on this page, and it keeps pointing the same direction: down.

Let's take a closer look at months of supply, because it is noisier than it looks. At the August sales pace, 830 listings pencils out to about 12 months. But August was a cooler sales month, so dividing by that slower pace pushes the number higher than the market really feels. Use the last three months and it is closer to 10.5. Use the trailing year and it is near 13. Pick your poison; the answer is the same. This is still a buyer's market, with plenty of choice and buyers who still hold the cards. It is just a buyer's market with less on the shelf than it has had all year.

A word for sellers hiding in that data. The median asking price on active listings slipped again, to $750,000, another step down off the $799,000 shelf sellers camped on for most of the year. Sellers are still cutting. Meanwhile the condos that actually sold in August averaged 170 days on market, while the ones still sitting there averaged a new-high 181 days. That's a long time, folks. The message has not changed since last month: there is no shortage of buyers for the right condo at the right price. There is a shortage of buyers for the wrong price, and price is the one lever you actually control.

On the zoning question still humming under all of this: Bill 88 is law, and the county's rezoning process continued grinding through committee over the summer. Nothing is finally rezoned, and no owner's rental clock has changed. We already walked through what a list does and does not mean for condo owners in a recent blog and companion podcast, so we will not re-litigate it here.

Bottom line on condos: closings cooled for a second month but stayed above average, pendings refilled to 114, and inventory fell to its lowest count in more than a year. The median dropped to a multi-year low of $564,950, its weakest since February 2021, but that is the mix moving toward the affordable end, not condos shedding value. Last month I said to watch inventory. It fell again while sales held. The two-month bounce is starting to look like something sturdier, even as the price line takes a breather.

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. August figures were collected September 1, 2026.

* Asking price data unavailable prior to August 2025.

Single-Family Homes

If condos are a story about the affordable end doing the buying, homes are a story about the top end sitting on its hands and about a forecast that mostly landed.

Last month we said the whole home question rode on 112 pending sales, and that we were waiting to see what they did. Here is the answer: they converted into 64 closed home sales in August, up from July's 54 and a touch above the trailing twelve-month average of about 59. Not a barn-burner, not a bust. A pause that turned back into a normal month, which is roughly what we hoped 112 pendings would deliver.

The price lines split in a most interesting way. The median home price firmed to $1,200,000, up modestly from July's $1,165,000. But the average fell again, to $1,467,570 from $1.60M, and it has now eased three months running off June's $1.85M peak. Median up, average down. That is the mirror image of the condo mix: fewer of the big luxury closings that inflate an average, so the average drifts lower while the middle of the market holds steady. The top end is still moving, just at its own unbothered pace, the way the luxury tier does everything except hurry.

Supply needs the same careful read it needed last month. At 470 active listings, home inventory nudged to a fresh twelve-month high, and at August's pace that is about 7.3 months of supply. Before anyone reads a flood into that: inventory went from 465 to 470. Five houses. Normalize the sales pace and the picture barely moves, roughly 7.2 months on a three-month basis and 7.9 on the year. Those describe the real market better than any single month's snapshot. This is a market drifting gently softer on supply, not lurching.

Now the hedge, because you know it is coming. Pending home sales fell to 94, down from 112 in July and the lowest reading in this entire table, under even December's and June's 96. Pendings are the preview of coming attractions, and this preview suggests September closings could cool back toward, or a little below, the normal pace. So I am not going to take August's rebound and promise you a strong September. One firm month sitting on top of a soft pending count is exactly the kind of setup this thin market loves to use to make a liar out of me.

The rest of the page fills in the mood. Days on market for active home listings crept to 165, a new high for the year, and days for sold homes ticked up to 173. On the asking side, the median held near $1.80M and the average eased to $3.59M. The luxury end keeps doing its slow, unhurried dance. None of it changes the shape of the market. It just says August was a normal month with a thinning pipeline behind it.

Bottom line on homes: the 112 pendings converted into 64 closings, a touch above average, and the median firmed even as the average eased with the luxury mix. Supply drifted to a new high, but by five houses, not a flood. The one number that gives me pause is 94 pending sales, a fresh low that says September could quiet down. This still reads as a thin market taking normal breaths, not one changing direction.

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. August figures were collected September 1, 2026.

* Asking price data unavailable prior to August 2025; December '25 median asking price unavailable.

A Quick Word on Land

Seven vacant-land parcels closed in August against 218 active listings, the most on the market all year. The median sale price leapt to $720,000, up from July's $628,300 and a world away from June's $309,000. Did Maui land more than double since the spring? Of course not. Seven sales happened, and with seven sales the median goes wherever those seven parcels happen to sit. Land is what it always is: a thin, patient market you measure in seasons, not months. Buyers with vision and a long fuse will still find sellers out there ready to talk story. Just do not try to draw a trend line through seven dots.

Our Take

August was the month the word “median” tried to fool everybody.

Look only at the condo median, down to a five-year low of $564,950, and you would think the bottom fell out. Look at condo inventory, down to its leanest in more than a year, with sales still above average and pendings climbing, and you would think the market is quietly tightening. Both pictures come from the same set of sales. The tiebreaker is composition: the median fell because the affordable end did the buying in August, not because condos lost a fifth of their value. If you take one idea from this report, take that one.

Homes ran the same trick in reverse. The median firmed while the average slipped, because the luxury closings that pumped up June's numbers stepped back. Same market, different slice, different story.

Which brings me to the thing I say every month, because it refuses to stop being true. There is no single “Maui real estate market.” You can stand in the Kihei sun and watch rain fall Upcountry at the same time; same island, two completely different afternoons. Condos and homes are having different afternoons right now. So is the affordable condo versus the luxury one, West Maui versus South, the well-priced listing versus the one still asking for last year's market. Our job is not to tell you whether “the Maui market” went up or down in August. It is to help you read the one small slice of it that actually touches you.

So: condo buyers, you still have choice and real leverage, but inventory has now fallen for two straight months while sales held, and that is worth respecting before you assume the discount window stays open forever. Condo sellers, the market is still paying for realism, and August's price mix does not change that; price to where buyers actually are. Home buyers and sellers, do not let one month's median, up or down, set your expectations in a market this thin, and keep an eye on that pending count.

For condos, it is still a buyer's market, but two months of falling inventory and steady sales are not nothing, and the median's dip is a mix story, not a markdown. For homes, August was a normal month sitting on a thin pipeline, so we watch those 94 pendings and stay clear-eyed about what one month can and cannot tell us. Either way, the same thing we say every month still holds: the most expensive thing you can do in a market like this is wait without information.

Let's Talk Story

If you have questions about your property's value, what these numbers mean for your situation, or whether this market is your moment to make a move, reach out anytime. We're here as a resource for the Maui community, whether you're ready to act or just trying to make sense of the headlines. No pressure, no agenda, just a conversation.

And if you or someone you know is thinking about buying, selling, or simply keeping track of Maui's real estate market, we've got a fabulous team of seasoned, well-trained agents standing by to help.

You can search every property listed for sale at www.AlohaGroupMaui.com, or email me directly at lee@alohapotts.com. I answer every one.

From the greatest island on Earth, I'm Lahaina Lee, saying ALOHA.

By Lahaina Lee, Aloha Group Maui | July 2026 market data

Last month we made two calls. First: the condo buyers who had been circling all spring finally landed, and June's 88 closings, the most in over two years, were the proof. Second: with home pendings sitting at a twelve-month low, July home closings would cool back toward the low sixties. Well. Condos did not cool. They booked 81 more closings and nudged the median up a second straight month, to $685,000. And homes? They settled at 54, just about exactly where we predicted. Here is what the data shows, what it means, and where we hedge all over again.

Last month we told you the pending condo sales were the real tell, that buyers were writing offers even while the closing column looked sleepy, and that the pipeline would keep feeding closings. June proved it with 88. July backed it up with 81. Two months, 169 closed condo sales. In this market, that is a parade.

Let's do the numbers. Condos first, as always.

Condos

The pipeline still has water in it. Pending sales came in at 107, down from June's 114 and May's 121, but comfortably above the twelve-month average of about 98. Not another 88 sales in the tank, probably, but nothing that looks like a market rolling over either.

The number that caught my eye, though, was not sales. It was price. The median condo selling price climbed to $685,000, up from June's $625,000 and May's $597,000. Now, before anybody plants a flag: prices actually fell from April to May before they turned, so this is two months of gains off the May low, not some unbroken march higher. And I am not going to stand here and call $597,000 the bottom. We have been doing this too long to pretend anyone spots a bottom in real time. But something has shifted. Two months ago we had heavy inventory, soft closings, and a median under $600,000. Today we have back-to-back strong sales months, a median $88,000 above that low and the highest since February, and 43 fewer condos on the market than a month ago. That is not proof of a new bull market.

It is evidence that buyers have found prices they are willing to act on.

The average agrees. It jumped to $1,014,496, the first reading over a million since March, after three months parked in the $850,000 to $970,000 range. When the median and the average move up together, that is usually demand broadening across the price ladder, not one lucky penthouse dragging the math around.

Here is the part I find most interesting. As the median sold price rose, the median asking price went the other way, slipping to $783,500, another step down off the $799,000 shelf sellers camped on all year. So the gap between what sellers ask and what buyers pay narrowed to about $98,500, down from roughly $165,000 last month. For most of the past year, buyers and sellers stood on opposite sides of the room, each waiting for the other one to move. Sellers moved. Buyers appear to have answered. That is what price discovery actually looks like: not a bell ringing at the bottom, but enough sellers deciding what they will really take, and enough buyers deciding that number is worth it.

Inventory finally moved the right way, too. Active condo listings fell to 870, down from 913, a nearly 5% drop and the leanest count since last October. At July's sales pace that pencils out to about 10.7 months of supply, but let me be honest about that number, because 81 was a hot month. Use a three-month pace and it is closer to 12 months. Use the trailing year and it is about 14. So let's not kid ourselves: this is still a buyer's market, with plenty of condos for sale and buyers who still hold the choices. But two months ago that same figure was up near 18 months, and now inventory is falling while sales stay elevated. The buyer's market is not over. The capital B just got a little smaller again.

One more wrinkle. The condos that sold in July averaged 154 days on market, down from 171 in June, while the condos still sitting on the market averaged 179 days, a new high for the table. I would not read that as buyers sprinting after every fresh listing. But it does say something useful: the properties that are finding buyers are moving faster than the inventory left behind. For sellers, that is close to the whole ballgame. There is no shortage of buyers for the right condo. There may be a shortage of buyers for the wrong price, and price is the one thing a seller can actually fix.

As for the zoning question humming under all of this: Bill 88 is now law, and in early July the county's first rezoning resolutions for a batch of Kihei and West Maui properties started moving through committee. Nothing is finally rezoned, and no owner's rental clock has changed yet. We already walked through what that does and does not mean for condo owners; the a list doesn't mean rezoned distinction was covered in a recent blog and podcast, so we will not re-litigate it here.

Bottom line on condos: two strong months of closings, inventory at its leanest since October, a median up two months running, and the ask/sold gap cut nearly in half. Still a buyer's market, no question. But the number I will be watching next month is not price. It is inventory. If listings keep falling while sales hold anywhere near here, we stop talking about a two-month bounce and start talking about the early makings of a trend.

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. July figures were collected August 1, 2026.

* Asking price data unavailable prior to August 2025.

Single-Family Homes

Now homes -  where almost everything I just said about condos needs flipping over. Last month we hedged, the way we always do, and said that with home pendings at a twelve-month low of 96, July closings would cool back toward the historical norm around 60. We do not get to say this often, so indulge us: we nailed it. July delivered 54 closed home sales, down from June's 78 and right in the neighborhood we called. The best sales month of the year, followed by one of the quieter ones. That is Maui's thin market doing what it does, lurching rather than gliding.

The price line whipsawed right along with it. June's median jumped to $1,356,975 on a wave of luxury closings. July's fell to $1,165,000, the lowest since November. That is a drop of almost $192,000 in a single month, roughly 14%. So did Maui homes shed 14% of their value in thirty days? Of course not, and this is exactly why I keep begging people not to price their house off one month's median. Maui is a small market. Change the mix of what sells, especially at the top, and the median lurches with it. June probably made homes look stronger than they were. July probably makes them look weaker. The truth sits somewhere in the middle. The average told the same story, easing to $1,600,625 from June's $1.85 million.

The supply number needs that same context. At 465 active listings, home inventory ticked to a fresh twelve-month high, and at July's slower pace that works out to about 8.6 months of supply, up from June's tidy 5.9. Before anyone panics, look underneath it. Inventory went from 464 to 465. One house. The supply number jumped because closings fell, not because listings flooded in. Normalize the pace and it reads a lot calmer: about 7.3 months on a three-month basis, 7.9 on the year. Those probably describe the real market better than either June's 5.9 or July's 8.6 taken alone.

And then there are the pendings, which is where it gets interesting. They had slipped to 96 in June, which is why we expected July to cool. It did. But in July they bounced right back to 112, a hair above the twelve-month average of about 110. If July had handed us 54 closings and another drop in pendings, I would be a good deal more worried. Instead this reads like a thin market being a thin market: one strong month, one soft one, with the property mix doing the rest. I am not going to promise you August roars back, because pendings are a preview, not a receipt. But 112 is not the shape of a market rolling over.

Days on market for active home listings crept to 160, a new high, and days for solds ticked to 155. On the asking side, the median eased to $1.80 million and the average firmed to $3.63 million, the luxury end still doing its slow, unhurried dance, the way luxury does everything except drop its price. None of it changes the shape of the market. It just confirms July took a breather.

Bottom line on homes: June overstated the strength, July probably understates it, and the honest read sits between the two. Closings cooled exactly as we warned, the median gave back June's luxury bump, and supply looks softer mostly because sales fell. But with pendings back to 112, this looks more like a pause than a pivot. Let's see what those 112 do.

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. July figures were collected August 1, 2026.

* Asking price data unavailable prior to August 2025; December '25 median asking price unavailable.

A Quick Word on Land

Seven vacant-land parcels closed in July against 209 active listings, which ties April for the most all year. The median sale price leapt from June's $309,000 all the way to $628,300. Did Maui land double in value in thirty days? No. Seven sales happened. That is land, where the median goes wherever the handful of closings happen to send it. It stays what it always is: a thin, patient market you measure in seasons, not months. Buyers with vision and a long fuse will still find sellers out there ready to talk story, but do not try to draw a trend line through numbers this small.

Our Take

July was the month the condo and home markets swapped roles.

For most of the past year, homes were the steady part of this market and condos carried the uncertainty. This month the direction of travel flipped. Condos gave us two unusually strong sales months, falling inventory, a median up for a second month, and, maybe most telling, asking prices still drifting down while selling prices climbed. That is buyers and sellers inching toward agreement on what these things are worth. Homes handed us the opposite lesson. June's monster month and $1.36 million median looked powerful; July's 54 sales and $1.165 million median looked weak. Neither month tells the whole story, and that is exactly the point.

Which brings me to the thing I say every month, because it never stops being true. There is no single "Maui real estate market." Homes and condos are moving in different directions right now. West Maui is not South Maui. A vacation-rental condo is not a long-term residential one. And inside the very same building, the well-priced unit and the one still priced for a market that left town are having completely different summers. Our job is not to tell you whether "the Maui market" is up or down. It is to help you read the small slice of it that actually touches you.

So: condo buyers still have choices and real leverage, but two months of firming prices are a fair reminder that a good opportunity does not necessarily get better forever. Condo sellers, the market is rewarding realism, so bring some. Home buyers and sellers, do not let June or July's headline number fool you in either direction. This is a thin market where the mix can make one month look nothing like the next.

For condos, it is still a buyer's market, but the numbers leaned the same way two months running; prices do not rise while inventory falls purely by luck at the same time the ask/sold gap closes. For homes, we are between innings, waiting on 112 pendings to tell us which way August breaks. Either way, the same thing we said last month still holds: the most expensive thing you can do in a market like this is wait without information.

Let's Talk Story

If you have questions about your property's value, what these numbers mean for your situation, or whether this market is your moment to make a move, reach out anytime. We're here as a resource for the Lahaina and Maui community, whether you're ready to act or just trying to make sense of the headlines. No pressure, no agenda, just a conversation.

And if you or someone you know is thinking about buying, selling, or simply keeping track of Maui's real estate market, we've got a fabulous team of seasoned, well-trained agents standing by to help.

You can search every property listed for sale at www.AlohaGroupMaui.com, or email me directly at lee@alohapotts.com. I answer every one.

From the greatest island on Earth, I'm Lahaina Lee, saying ALOHA.

MAUI REAL ESTATE ADVISOR

A companion explainer to The Town That Waits  ·  July 2026

On A List Is Not Rezoned

Your building was named in Resolution 26-110 or 26-111. Here is exactly what that does, what it does not do, and the seven steps still ahead.

By Lahaina Lee   ·   Aloha Group Maui

On July 24, 2026, the Maui County Council voted 7 to 1, twice, to advance two resolutions that could move roughly 2,056 apartment-district vacation rental units into the county’s new hotel zoning. If you own in one of the named buildings, your phone probably started ringing that afternoon, and the message was some version of the same thing: your building is getting rezoned.

It is not. Not yet. You still have a way to go.

I want to walk through what actually happened, because the gap between what people think happened and what really happened is wide, and decisions worth hundreds of thousands of dollars are being made inside that gap. I am a real estate broker, not an attorney, and nothing here is legal advice. What follows is the process, drawn from the County Charter, the Maui County Code, and the resolutions themselves, with the primary documents linked so you can read them yourself.

First, what these two resolutions actually are

The two resolutions divide the first wave of properties into two groups, based on the way the County thinks they qualify for hotel zoning.

Resolution 26-110 covers apartment-district properties with timeshare, leasehold, single-ownership, or variance status. It is the broader, more mixed category.

Resolution 26-111 covers properties the County says already function like hotels: 24-hour front desks, property-wide housekeeping, multiple and often unionized staff. This is the narrower, and legally simpler, category, because the argument is essentially “rezone it to match what it already is.”

You can and should read them. These are the amended CD1 versions the Council advanced in late July:

•  Resolution 26-110 CD1 (timeshare, leasehold, single-ownership, variance)

•  Resolution 26-111 CD1 (properties that operate like hotels)

Both links go to the County’s own Legistar system. If your building is named, it is named there. If a neighbor or a Facebook post says your building is on the list, verify it against these documents, because the lists have already been amended more than once.

The road from resolution to rezoning

Here is the full path a Council-initiated rezoning has to travel. As of late July 2026, this process is at the start of Step 3.

STEP 1   Bill 88 created the H-3 and H-4 districts.  DONE.

Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026, created two hotel zoning classifications that did not exist before: H-3 and H-4. This step built the containers. It rezoned nothing. That distinction is the whole reason the rest of this process exists.

STEP 2   The Council selected the first properties and referred them.  DONE.

Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111 identify the first group of properties and formally refer them to the Maui Planning Commission as proposed change-in-zoning ordinances. Referral is required because the Charter does not let the Council adopt a Council-initiated land use change without Planning Commission review first. That vote completed this step.

STEP 3   Maui Planning Commission review.  THIS IS WHERE WE ARE NOW.

The Commission now holds public hearings, takes testimony, reviews the proposed zoning changes, evaluates consistency with the General Plan and the relevant community plans, makes findings, and sends recommendations back to the Council. As of late July, no firm Commission hearing date had been published. This is the step to watch.

STEP 4   The Commission makes recommendations.  NOT YET.

The Commission does not enact zoning. It recommends. Its recommendation can be approval, approval with modifications, denial, removal of individual properties, or additional conditions and findings. On Council-initiated land use ordinances, the Commission is advisory. Which means a building named today can still be recommended out.

STEP 5   The Council considers the recommendations.  NOT YET.

The matter returns to the full Council, which decides whether to adopt, amend, reject, or defer the community plan amendments and the change-in-zoning ordinances. The Council is the body that actually passes zoning ordinances. The Commission only advises.

STEP 6   The Mayor.  NOT YET.

Once the Council adopts the ordinances, they follow the normal path: to the Mayor for signature or veto, or to become law by the lapse of the period for mayoral action under the Charter.

STEP 7   Effective date.  NOT YET.

Only when those ordinances take effect does a property’s zoning actually change to H-3 or H-4. Until that day, the existing apartment-district zoning remains in force, and so does everything that comes with it, including Bill 9’s phase-out clock.

How long could this take, and one thing owners keep getting wrong

Two questions come up more than any others: how long is this going to take, and is it all or nothing. Here is what the record actually says about each.

1. The timeline, as the Commission itself described it.

When the Planning Commission discussed the H-3 and H-4 framework in early 2026, commissioners indicated the zoning process could be completed in roughly four to six months once initiated, and characterized it as relatively straightforward. Treat that as an expectation, not a promise. It assumes the applications are complete, the hearings stay on schedule, and nothing sends a property back for more work. But it is the closest thing to an official timeline estimate on the record, and it points to months, not years. As of late July 2026, no firm Commission hearing date had yet been published, so the clock on that four-to-six-month window had not visibly started.

2. It is not all or nothing. The Commission reviews properties individually.

There is a persistent worry among owners that this is an all-or-nothing vote: that if the Planning Commission has doubts about any one property in a resolution, it has to reject the entire resolution, taking every building down with it. At the July 24 Council session, a testifier made exactly that argument, that it was all or nothing. Council members corrected him directly. That is not how it works, several of them said. The Commission is not forced to swallow or reject a resolution whole.

Why this matters to you: the Commission can recommend approval for one building and removal or modification for another, on the specific facts of each. One vulnerable property in a resolution does not doom the strong ones alongside it, and one strong property is not automatically carried across the finish line by the resolution it happens to share. Each building rises or falls substantially on its own merits. So the practical question for any single owner is not “will the whole resolution pass,” but “how does my specific building look on its own,” which is exactly the question to take to your AOAO board and a land use attorney.

What this means for you, with my broker hat on

None of this is legal advice, and your specific building needs your AOAO board and a land use attorney, not a blog post. With that said, here is how I read it.

Being named is not a verdict. It is an invitation to a process that has five more steps still ahead of it. If your building is in Resolution 26-111, the one for properties that already operate like hotels, you are standing on firmer ground than a building in 26-110, because the argument is simpler and harder to contest. If you are in neither resolution, you have not necessarily been forgotten; you may be in a later wave, and the criteria being signaled for those waves are affordability and sea-level-rise exposure.

And through all of it, the Bill 9 clock keeps running. West Maui phases out on January 1, 2029. The rest of the county, January 1, 2031. The rezoning is the exception some owners are trying to qualify for before that deadline arrives. The process I just described is how you find out whether you make it.

The bottom line

On a list is not rezoned. It is the first two steps of a seven-step process, with real hearings, real testimony, and real chances for the outcome to change still ahead. That is not a reason to relax, and it is not a reason to panic. It is a reason to read the primary documents, ask your board the right questions, and watch the Planning Commission calendar.

I will keep tracking this wave by wave, and I will keep pointing you back to the record instead of asking you to take my word for it. If I have any of this wrong, tell me, and I will publish the correction.

From the greatest island on earth, this is Lahaina Lee, saying aloha.

Questions about how Bill 9 or Bill 88 affects a specific property? Reach out directly. I answer every message.

Lahaina Lee  ·  Aloha Group Maui  ·  AlohaGroupMaui.com

Sources

This explainer relies on primary County documents and on reporting of the late July 2026 Council session. Readers should verify current status directly, since the process and the property lists are both still moving.

1. Late July 2026 Council action. At its late July 2026 session (July 24), the Maui County Council voted 7-1 twice to advance Resolutions 26-110 CD1 and 26-111 CD1 to the Maui Planning Commission, affecting roughly 2,056 units; Council Member Rawlins-Fernandez and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs opposed. An amendment to strip Luana Kai and Mahina Surf from 26-111 failed 2-6. Reported by Maui Now, July 28, 2026. (The meeting date and the reporting date differ; verify the meeting date against the County agenda.)

2. The two resolutions. Resolution 26-110 CD1 and Resolution 26-111 CD1, Maui County Legistar (linked in the body of this post). The recital text of each confirms that Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026, established the H-3 and H-4 Hotel Districts, and that each resolution refers a community plan amendment and a change-in-zoning bill to the Maui Planning Commission.

3. The referral and review process. County Charter and Maui County Code Chapter 19.510, which govern Council-initiated changes in zoning, including the requirement of Planning Commission review and recommendation before Council adoption.

4. On the all-or-nothing question. At the July 24, 2026 Council session, a member of the public testified that the rezoning was effectively all or nothing, arguing that if the Planning Commission were unsure about a single property it would have to reject the entire resolution. Council members responded on the record that this is not the case. The author is describing this exchange as heard from the meeting; readers wishing to quote it precisely should confirm the wording against the County’s official meeting video before relying on it.

5. Commission timeline estimate. In its February 24, 2026 discussion of the proposed H-3/H-4 framework, and in related 2025 sessions, Maui Planning Commission members indicated the hotel-zoning process could be completed in roughly four to six months once initiated and described it as relatively straightforward. Reported in contemporaneous coverage of the Commission proceedings. Presented here as an on-the-record expectation, not a guarantee.

6. Bill 9 phase-out dates and verification. Ordinance 5909 (Bill 9): West Maui phase-out January 1, 2029; remainder of the county January 1, 2031. Bill 88 requires Planning Department confirmation of transient vacation rental use prior to September 24, 2020.

7. A note on method. I am a licensed real estate broker, not an attorney. This post explains a public process and does not constitute legal advice. For any decision about a specific property, consult your AOAO board and a qualified land use attorney. Corrections are welcome and will be published.

THE TOWN THAT WAITS

Three years after the fire, Lahaina has 232 finished buildings, five commercial permits as of July 2, and a beautiful new sidewalk. A special report on what the numbers actually say, and the questions government still has not answered.

BY LAHAINA LEE   ·   ALOHA GROUP MAUI

All permitting and debris figures are from the County of Maui Rebuild Dashboard, updated July 6, 2026. Sources are listed in the endnotes.

I  A Blessing for a Sidewalk

On the afternoon of July 1, about 150 people gathered on the 700 block of Front Street to bless a sidewalk.

That is not sarcasm. It was a real ceremony for real work: roughly 1,450 feet of repaired sidewalk, some 700 feet of new stainless-steel railing capped with ipe wood, twelve light poles, fifteen benches, five bike racks, eight planters, thirteen milo trees. The County’s Department of ʻŌiwi Resources led the blessing. The Mayor spoke. People applauded. Shuttle buses ran up from the Lahaina Aquatic Center, because that block of Front Street is still closed to through traffic.

That last detail is the whole story.

I have walked that block more times than I can count. I have shown property on it. I have had coffee on it. But I was not there on July 1. I was off island, staying with friends who also lost property in Lahaina, and we watched the blessing the way most of Lahaina watched it: in pieces, on Facebook, from somewhere else. I want to be honest about what that room felt like. Not cynical. Not ungrateful. Frustrated. Because what was being presented to us as progress was a sidewalk, and every person in that room had lost a house.

Stand at the new railing and look out, and Lahaina is as beautiful as it has ever been. Turn around, and you are looking at block after block of cleared, empty, silent lots where a town used to be. The sidewalk is finished. The town is not.

I want to be careful here, because it would be easy to read this report as an attack on the people doing the work. It is not. The debris is gone: all 1,390 residential lots, all 148 commercial and public lots. The sewer system is back to one hundred percent. Two hundred thirty-two buildings in Lahaina have passed final inspection, and behind every one of those numbers is a family that stopped waiting. That is not nothing. That is people’s lives.

But there is a difference between making progress and making enough progress. And three years on, with the numbers finally clear enough to be honest about, somebody has to say the second part out loud.

So let me say the thing this whole report is really about, and then spend the rest of it proving the point.

We have gotten comfortable calling things open that are not open, and paid that are not paid.

The harbor is “open.” It is not. A handful of operators are back under restricted hours and controlled access, with large sections still fenced. Front Street is “open.” It is not. They ran shuttles to the July 1 blessing because the block is closed to traffic. The settlement money is “flowing.” It is not. A first batch of offers went out and nobody has been paid. Bill 88 is “awaiting the Mayor’s signature.” It is not. It has been law since June 22, and almost nobody on this island knows it.

Every one of those sentences is defensible, sourced, and in this report. Together they describe a habit. And that habit is how three years pass.

The sidewalk is finished. The town is not.

Lahaina lost approximately 2,200 structures on August 8, 2023. One hundred two people died. More than 12,000 residents were displaced, the overwhelming majority of them renters.

As of the County’s own dashboard on July 6, 2026, thirty-five months later, Lahaina has completed 232 buildings.

And as the County itself reported on July 2, 2026: five commercial permits have been issued for Lahaina town. One is under construction.

One.

II  Recovery by the Numbers

Every figure below comes from the County of Maui’s official Rebuild Dashboard, updated July 6, 2026, with permitting data supplied by 4Leaf Inc. the County’s contracted permit administrator.

Permitting in Lahaina

Permitting in the countywide burn zones (Lahaina and Kula)

Debris removal: complete

The commercial core, as reported by the County on July 2, 2026

The five permitted properties, named by the County: 612, 632, 714, 724 and 744 Front Street, all on the mauka side. 612 is the former Six Fathoms building; 632 is the site longtime visitors knew as Paia Fish Market; 744 is Fleetwood’s, which the County has called the most complicated permit currently in its queue.

Two things about the permitting table deserve more attention than they usually get.

First, read the “non-residential” column carefully. There are 190 non-residential permits in process, a number the County can point to as evidence that a commercial wave is coming. But the dashboard’s own footnote defines “non-residential” to include properties with four or more dwelling units and all Puamana permits. In other words, a large share of that 190 is housing. It is not Front Street. Five was the Front Street number on July 2. Five.

Second, look at the direction of travel on completions. In January 2026 the County reported 112 completed permits. By early July it reported 236. Completions roughly doubled in six months, and they are still accelerating. That is genuinely good news and I will not pretend otherwise.

But hold both facts at once. At roughly 220 completed homes against approximately 2,200 structures lost, Lahaina is about ten percent of the way back, in three years.

Ten percent is an abstraction. Try it this way instead.

Nine out of every ten structures Lahaina lost are still waiting.

Walk down your own street and count the houses. Now imagine that one of them has come back, and the other nine are bare dirt or covered in crushed rock. That is Lahaina in July 2026.

Even at the improved rate of the last six months, simple arithmetic puts full residential recovery years away. And commercial recovery, measured by permits actually issued for Lahaina town, is not slow. It is virtually nonexistent.

A number that does not reconcile

At the July 2 press conference announcing ʻUlu o Lele, Mayor Bissen was asked how recovery timelines compare with expectations from three years ago. As reported by Maui Now, he said more than 500 homes have been built in Lahaina, with about 700 residential permits issued and another 700-plus pending approval.

The County’s own dashboard, four days later, reported 220 completed residential permits in Lahaina.

Those two statements can be reconciled, and I want to be fair about how. Add Lahaina’s 220 completed permits to the 315 homes the dashboard lists as under construction and you get 535, “more than 500.” That is almost certainly the arithmetic behind the Mayor’s number, and it is not dishonest arithmetic.

But a house under construction is not a house that has been built. A family cannot live in it. It has not passed final inspection. The County maintains a public dashboard whose entire purpose is to distinguish between issued, under construction and completed, and then its chief executive, standing in front of cameras, collapsed that distinction into a single word.

I would ask the County to reconcile the figures publicly. Not as a gotcha. Because the difference between 220 families home and 500 families home is 280 families, and they are the ones who would notice.

At roughly 220 completed homes against 2,200 structures lost, Lahaina is about ten percent of the way back, in three years.

III  Three Years: A Lahaina Timeline

Every entry below is sourced to a primary document, a County of Maui release or dashboard, a FEMA or Governor’s Office announcement, a court record, or wire-service reporting. Where the exact day could not be confirmed, the month is given instead.

Aug. 8, 2023 The Lahaina wildfire burns roughly 2,170 acres and destroys approximately 2,200 structures. One hundred two people are killed. The Associated Press reports more than 12,000 residents displaced, roughly 89 percent of them renters at the time of the fires.

Oct. 28, 2023 FEMA brings in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prepare a 34-acre state-owned site off Fleming Road for temporary group housing, the project that becomes Kilohana.

Jan. 2024 Residential debris removal begins.

Feb. 2024 Debris removal expands to commercial and public properties.

Apr. 29, 2024 The County opens the Recovery Permit Center in Kahului, launching expedited Disaster Recovery Building Permits, with 4LEAF Inc. contracted to administer them.

May 2024 Mayor Richard Bissen proposes phasing out transient vacation rentals in apartment-zoned districts, the proposal that becomes Bill 9. That same month, the Recovery Permit Center issues its first rebuilding permit, to a Lahaina couple on Komo Mai Street.

Aug. 2, 2024 Gov. Josh Green announces a $4.037 billion global settlement in principle with Hawaiian Electric, the State of Hawaiʻi, Maui County, Kamehameha Schools and other defendants. It remains contingent on resolving insurers’ claims.

Aug. 9, 2024 First residents move into Ka Laʻi Ola, the State’s interim housing village on 57 acres, planned for up to 450 units, ultimately built with 432.

Sept. 11, 2024 Residential debris removal complete, 1,390 of 1,390 properties.

Late Nov. 2024 The first rebuilt homes in the burn zones are completed.

Feb. 10, 2025 The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court rules unanimously that insurers cannot bring independent subrogation actions against the settling defendants, the decision that rescues the global settlement. The formal opinion follows on March 17.

Feb. 2025 FEMA completes Kilohana, a 167-unit temporary group housing site, in roughly 13 months. Commercial and public debris removal is also completed, 148 of 148 properties, bringing the total cleared to 1,538.

Apr. 16, 2025 The County announces Lahaina’s sewer system is 100 percent active. All 3,526 sewered lots in West Maui are back in service.

June 2, 2025 Notice to proceed on the Front Street Railing, Sidewalk and Seawall Repairs, County Project No. 19-28. Contractor: Goodfellow Bros. Contract value: $5,042,795.

Oct. 2025 The last wildfire debris moves from the temporary Olowalu storage site to permanent disposal at the Central Maui Landfill. Restoration of the Olowalu site continues.

Dec. 2, 2025 The County marks the 100th completed structure in the burn zones. 4Leaf has issued 629 building permits to date.

Dec. 15, 2025 Lahaina Small Boat Harbor partially reopens after 28 months, a first group of commercial operators returns under restricted hours and controlled access. The same day, the Council passes Bill 9 by 5–3 and Mayor Bissen signs it into law.

Jan. 2026 FEMA temporary housing assistance is extended through February 2027.

Feb. 2026 In a second ruling, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court holds that insurers may not intervene in the settlement, affirming Judge Peter Cahill’s June 2025 denial of their motion to join as independent parties.

Apr. 2026 The last insurer appeal is withdrawn, clearing the final appellate obstacle. Claims administration proceeds.

June 17, 2026 BrownGreer PLC, the court-appointed claims processor, issues the first award determination notices, an initial batch, not a mailing to all claimants. A notice is an offer to settle, not a payment.

June 19, 2026 The Maui County Council passes Bill 88 on second and final reading, 7–2.

June 22, 2026 Bill 88 takes effect as Ordinance 6008, creating the H-3 and H-4 hotel districts. It rezones no property.

July 1, 2026 A community blessing marks completion of the Front Street Railing and Walkway Project.

July 2, 2026 The County and Hawaiian Council announce ʻUlu o Lele, an interim marketplace at the former Outlets of Maui site. The County estimates construction and operations for the two-year initiative at approximately $8 million.

July 2026 The Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee takes up Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111, the first Council-initiated proposals to move specified properties into the new districts, and advances them. No property has been rezoned. Maui Planning Commission consideration is anticipated in September.

IV  The Ten-Year Sidewalk

Here is the part of the Front Street story that has not been widely reported, and it matters.

The County’s own account is that last year’s Front Street work, and the project blessed on July 1, grew out of a plan to improve Front Street that began in 2015, eight years before the fire, with public input and consultation. The County’s capital file for the railing, sidewalk and seawall repairs carries the designation Project No. 19-28. The contract went to Goodfellow Bros. at $5,042,795, with notice to proceed on June 2, 2025.

So let us be precise, because precision is what makes the criticism stick.

Nobody should claim the County rebuilt a pre-fire sidewalk and called it disaster recovery. The construction is post-fire, and the seawall and streetscape genuinely did need repair after August 2023. But the plan is a decade old. The concept, the community consultation, the design intent, all of it predates the fire by years. This was a Front Street beautification and seawall project that the fire caught up with.

That is worth saying plainly for one reason: on July 1, the completion of that decade-old plan was presented as a milestone in Lahaina’s commercial recovery. The Mayor said the project helps create the conditions for businesses to reopen, for local jobs to return and for private investment to move forward.

Does it? A sidewalk is a precondition. It is not a business. Nothing about 700 feet of new railing resolves the historic-district review, the shoreline and flood requirements, the infrastructure sequencing, or the permitting layers that are actually blocking commercial rebuilding. And we know they are blocking it, because the County says so itself: it acknowledges that permitting and approvals in the Lahaina historic districts are among the most heavily regulated processes in the state, involving national, state and local rules.

That is not a defense. That is a description of a problem the County has the standing to fix, or at least to fight, and has not.

One conversation keeps repeating itself in meetings. A business owner tells me what they used to have on Front Street, and then asks the same question, in a slightly different way each time: what do I actually have to do to come back, and how long will it take? And the honest answer is that nobody has published one. Not a hard answer, not a soft one. Three years on, the response to the most basic question a displaced merchant can ask does not exist in writing anywhere.

And the makai side is worse. At the July 2 press conference, Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade said ten commercial properties on the ocean side of Front Street face more complicated paths back. Some of them held over-water leases from the State that were discontinued after the fire, leaving the owner with only a small footprint of dry land to rebuild on. For those owners, Wade said, the County has set up a buyout program, after which the land would be dedicated to open space and public access. That may well be the right outcome for the shoreline. But it is a decision about the permanent shape of Front Street, and it is being made property by property, quietly, in the absence of a published plan.

Here is the tell. On July 2, 2026, thirty-five months after the fire, the County reported five commercial permits issued for Lahaina town, and one project under construction. If the regulatory environment were merely difficult, we would see a queue. Instead we see more than a dozen properties stuck in pre-application consultation, the stage before the stage before the permit. These are business owners who want to come home, who are trying to come home, and who cannot get out of the anteroom.

A sidewalk is a precondition. It is not a business.

V  ʻUlu o Lele: Bridge, or Substitute?

On July 2, the County and the nonprofit Hawaiian Council announced ʻUlu o Lele (“Growth of Lele,” after Lahaina’s traditional name), an interim marketplace on roughly three acres at the former Outlets of Maui site near Front and Papalaua streets.

The facts, as publicly stated: an approximately $8 million, two-year initiative led by Hawaiian Council, supported by its Kākoʻo Maui Fund and a $4 million grant from the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund. Hawaiian Council has secured a two-year lease. The plan is 17 retail units and eight food trucks, plus a stage for nightly entertainment, supporting an estimated 90 jobs. Rents are stated at $800 to $1,500 a month depending on unit size. It is designed as an 18-to-24-month recovery initiative and is expected to open in September 2026. Priority goes to Lahaina- and Maui-based businesses, particularly those displaced by the fire. A vendor RFP is expected, with selection incorporating community members, Hawaiian cultural practitioners, business leaders, retail advisors and Hawaiian Council staff.

I want to say clearly: I hope this works. A Lahaina business owner told reporters the project represents hope for people like her, and described it as a place families could gather again. Hawaiian Council’s chief executive called it a beginning effort to bring energy and hope back to town. Those are the right instincts, and $800-a-month commercial rent in West Maui is not a small gift to a displaced small business. This is the first project to bring storefronts back to Front Street since the fire, and the people behind it have earned the benefit of the doubt.

So let me be careful to criticize the right thing.

My concern is not Hawaiian Council. My concern is not the marketplace. My concern is what happens to the urgency of permanent commercial rebuilding once a temporary marketplace makes Front Street look alive again.

An interim solution that relieves political pressure without relieving the underlying constraint is not a bridge. It is a detour. Two years from now, when the lease expires, the question will not be whether ʻUlu o Lele was a nice place to get coffee. It will be whether Lahaina used those two years to fix the permitting system, or used them to avoid fixing it.

And to be fair to the project, several questions I have heard raised in the community are already answered on the public record: displaced Lahaina businesses do get priority; Hawaiian Council is leading it because it secured the lease and is funding it through its own Kākoʻo Maui Fund alongside HCF’s $4 million; a vendor selection process involving community input has been described.

The following have not been answered. They should be.

VI  Bill 88: The Easy Part Is Over

Bill 88 is law. It took effect on June 22, 2026 as Ordinance 6008.

If you are relying on a real estate update written before that date, including my own June edition, you are working from a stale map. Here is where things actually stand.

A law that arrived with almost no public notice

It is worth pausing on how Bill 88 became law, because almost nobody on this island noticed.

When Mayor Bissen signed Bill 9, he did it the same day the Council passed it, and he said so publicly, calling it a historic step toward restoring housing availability for residents. The signing was covered everywhere.

Bill 88, the measure that partially walks back Bill 9’s reach, appears to have taken effect with almost no public notice. It became Ordinance 6008 on June 22, 2026. I can find no County announcement of it, and no reporting of a signing, in Maui Now, The Maui News, Civil Beat or the Star-Advertiser. The clearest public confirmation that the ordinance exists at all appears in the Council’s own legislative text for the rezoning resolutions now before it, which recites, almost in passing, that the H-3 and H-4 districts were established by Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026.

Here is how I know the notice was inadequate. I follow this issue almost daily. I write about it every month. I talk with owners, AOAO boards and brokers across this island for a living. And I believed Bill 88 was still awaiting the Mayor’s action, I said so in print, in my own June edition, until I went into the legislative record and found it recited there as settled law.

If someone following this as closely as I do got it wrong, I have to assume a great many property owners have it wrong too. And they are not making idle decisions. They are deciding whether to authorize six-figure consultant contracts, on a timeline set by a law they do not know is already running.

As of this writing, real estate trackers across this island, mine among them, until today, still describe Bill 88 as awaiting the Mayor’s signature.

Now, I could tell you I do not know whether the Mayor signed Bill 88 or whether it lapsed into law without his signature, and that would be true. Under the County Charter, either route gets you to the same place: an ordinance in effect. I have not gone digging for the answer, and I want to explain why.

Because it does not matter. That is the whole point.

If he signed it, nobody was told. If it lapsed, nobody was told. The mechanism is a footnote. The failure is the same either way, and it is not a failure of paperwork, it is a failure to tell 7,167 units’ worth of owners that the clock they are living under has started running.

So I am not alleging that anyone did anything improper, and I am not going to guess at what happened inside the building. I will only describe what the public experienced. Bill 9 came with a signing and wall-to-wall coverage. Bill 88 arrived in silence. A government that holds a press conference for 700 feet of railing found nothing to say about the most consequential zoning ordinance in Maui County in a generation.

If I have any of that wrong, if there was an announcement and I missed it, the County can correct me, publicly, and I will print the correction. That is a low bar. It is, in fact, precisely the bar I am asking them to clear.

The Bill 88 legislative timeline

A government that held a press conference for 700 feet of railing found nothing to say about the most consequential zoning ordinance in a generation.

The Bill 88 legislative timeline, continued

Two structural facts about those votes are worth understanding.

The 7–2 margin was not just comfortable, it was necessary. Because all three county planning commissions recommended denial, Bill 88 required a supermajority of six votes. It cleared that bar with one to spare. Council Members Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and Gabe Johnson dissented.

And the bill does far less than the celebrations suggested. Housing and Land Use Committee Chair Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins, who moved its passage, put it about as plainly as it can be put. As reported by Maui Now: “This bill only establishes the district and it does not rezone any properties.” Rezoning, she said, has to happen separately.

That is the entire story of Bill 88. It created two new zoning districts, H-3 and H-4, modeled on the existing A-1 and A-2 apartment standards, with one difference: they permit transient vacation rental use. It rezoned nothing.

What is actually happening now

The rezoning phase has already begun, and most owners do not know it.

On July 1, the Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee opened testimony on Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111, the first Council-initiated rezoning resolutions under the new framework. The committee advanced them this week. If the full Council adopts them, they go to the Maui Planning Commission, expected in September.

Resolution 26-111 covers seven properties the County says already function like hotels, including Wailea Ekahi I, II and III, Wailea Ekolu, the Palms at Wailea, Papakea and Maui Eldorado. Resolution 26-110 covers timeshare, leasehold and other characteristics, including Hono Kai and Milowai-Māʻalaea in Māʻalaea, Maui Sunset and Maui Hill in Kīhei, and Kahana Outrigger, Hale Mahina Beach Resort and Kāʻanapali Royal in West Maui.

If your building is on the Minatoya List but not named in those two resolutions, the Council has not initiated your transition. You are waiting for a later wave, and the criteria for the next wave are already being signaled: affordability, and sea-level-rise exposure.

That second criterion deserves attention. A Planning Department memorandum cited in testimony identified 43 Minatoya List properties, roughly 2,440 units, primarily in West Maui, sitting within a 3.2-foot sea-level-rise exposure zone. Council Member Tamara Paltin, who voted for Bill 88, has said she intends to revisit whether shoreline-adjacent properties should be eligible for the new districts at all.

Read that again if you own a West Maui oceanfront condo. Support for Bill 88 does not equal support for rezoning your building.

The number that could nullify all of it: $200,000 to $500,000

At the June 19 hearing, condominium owner TJ Victorine, whose 26-unit association unanimously supports Bill 88, told the Council that land-use planners had quoted him $200,000 to $500,000 per property to prepare the studies a rezoning application currently requires. He called that prohibitively expensive for most properties, including his own, and said it effectively nullifies the intent of the bill.

He is right, and this is the most important unresolved issue in Maui real estate.

Consider what it means for a 40-unit complex. A $400,000 rezoning bill is roughly a $10,000 special assessment per owner, and more or less depending on unit size, before legal fees, with no guarantee of approval, in a market where the same units have already lost value. Every AOAO on the Minatoya List now faces the same board meeting: spend six figures on consultants for a permission slip that may be denied, or do not spend it and accept the phase-out. There is no good answer, and the County has not offered one.

This is the gap between passing a bill and delivering a policy.

Bill 88 gave 104 properties a door. It did not tell them what the door costs, who is allowed through it, or when it opens.

VII  The Money: A Notice Is Not a Check

There is a development most Lahaina coverage is treating as a legal story. It is actually the most important real estate story of 2026, and it is being described far more optimistically than the facts support.

Start with what is true. The $4.03 billion global settlement is resolved. It took two Hawaiʻi Supreme Court rulings to get there, one in February 2025, holding that insurers could not bring independent subrogation actions against the settling defendants, and a second in February 2026, holding they could not intervene in the settlement either. The last insurer appeal was withdrawn in April 2026. More than $1.1 billion now sits in a trust account, the first of four annual distributions.

Now the part that keeps getting lost. On June 17, 2026, BrownGreer PLC, the court-appointed claims processor, issued the first award determination notices. First is the operative word. According to an April report from the special masters, BrownGreer anticipates roughly six months to render initial findings on all filed claims. Liaison counsel Cynthia Wong has said she expects initial awards to begin being paid in July or August, and to continue for six months after that.

And a notice is not a check. Jan Apo, a Lahaina-born attorney who lost two family homes in the fire, put it about as plainly as it can be put to Hawaii News Now: “The notice of determination is not an actual payment.” It is an offer to settle, which the claimant has 30 days to accept or contest.

So if you have not received a notice, you are not behind and you have not been skipped. Most claimants have not received one. The process has started; it has not arrived.

That distinction matters, because “the settlement money is flowing” has already entered the local vocabulary, and it is not yet true. Judge Peter Cahill, who has presided over the case, captured the delay bluntly at a March hearing: the settlement was done in record time, he noted, and yet, as Civil Beat reported, “no one’s seen a penny.” As of this writing, that is still essentially the case.

When the money does move, the scale will be real. UHERO projects roughly $550 million reaching Maui households in 2026, with payments continuing through 2029 for a cumulative $2.8 billion after approximately $1 billion in attorneys’ fees and about $200 million in insurance liens, an increase in county personal income of roughly 5.4 percent this year. That is a projection, not a receipt, and it assumes a determination-and-payment schedule that has already slipped more than once.

Here is why it matters to anyone who owns, buys or sells on this island.

Settlement money is rebuild capital, eventually. The largest brake on the Lahaina rebuild has never been willingness. It has been the gap between what insurance paid and what construction costs. Settlement funds close some of that gap. But the first distribution is one of four, spread through 2029, and determinations will run into 2027. Expect the permit-to-completion pipeline to accelerate, later and more gradually than the headlines imply.

But few victims will be made whole. Roughly 21,750 victims sharing $4.03 billion averages about $190,000 per person, spread across four annual installments through 2029. That is not a rebuild fund. For many families it is a partial down payment on a life.

And it lands in a soft market. Per the REALTORS® Association of Maui, the Q1 2026 year-to-date condo median was $699,000, down 12.1 percent year over year. Inventory and days on market are both up. One owner testified to the Council that she had cut her asking price from $875,000 to $650,000 over two years without a single offer from a local buyer.

Falling values, arriving settlement cash, a newly created hotel zoning district, and a rezoning process whose cost nobody can quote. That is the Maui market in July 2026. Anyone who tells you it is simple is selling something.

VIII  Questions Government Should Answer

These are not accusations. They are the questions I am asked every week by clients, neighbors and business owners, and to which I have no answers to give them. Each one is answerable. None has been answered.

On the eligibility list and rezoning process

1. Why was there no public announcement when Bill 88 became law? Bill 9’s signing was announced the same day it passed. Ordinance 6008 took effect on June 22 and the County said nothing, leaving owners across the island to believe, weeks later, that it was still awaiting a signature.
2. Where is the Planning Department’s published H-3/H-4 eligibility list, and when will it exist?
3. What, specifically, does a rezoning application require? Publish the checklist.
4. What is the County’s own estimate of the cost to prepare a compliant application, and if it is anywhere near the $200,000–$500,000 range testified to on the record, what is the County doing to reduce it?
5. Will the County keep initiating rezonings itself, wave by wave, or will owners eventually have to self-fund applications? Which properties fall into which category, and when will they know?
6. What is the criteria set for the next wave, and how will affordability and sea-level-rise exposure be weighted?

On commercial recovery

1. Why, thirty-five months after the fire, had only five commercial permits been issued for Lahaina town as of July 2, 2026?
2. Will the County reconcile the Mayor’s July 2 statement that more than 500 homes have been built in Lahaina with its own dashboard, which four days later reported 220 completed residential permits? Which figure describes families actually living in finished houses?
3. Where, precisely, are the twelve-plus pre-application properties stuck, which agency, which review, which requirement?
4. What is the County’s target timeline for a commercial permit in the historic district, and what happens if it is missed?
5. The Legislature has twice created statutory exemptions to accelerate Lahaina recovery. What has the County requested, specifically, for the commercial core?
6. What is the makai-side plan? A buyout program exists, converting properties to open space and public access. How many owners have taken it, on what terms, and what is the long-term vision for the ocean side of Front Street?

On money and accountability

1. What is the line-item budget for ʻUlu o Lele’s roughly $8 million, and who owns the improvements at lease end?
2. Where is the public financial dashboard? Recovery involves hundreds of millions of dollars from federal, state, county, philanthropic and private sources. Residents should be able to see, in one place: funds committed, funds received, funds spent, projects underway, projects completed, estimated completion dates.

That last one is not a criticism. It is a proposal, and it is free. The County already publishes a rebuild dashboard, and it is good. Publish a money dashboard next to it. Transparency is the cheapest trust-building instrument any government has.

IX  What Success Should Look Like

It is easy to criticize. It is harder to say what “done” looks like. So here is my attempt, a set of markers that would tell us, honestly, that Lahaina’s recovery is on track.

And then the real test, the one that has nothing to do with permits: the people who lived in Lahaina before August 8, 2023 are the people living in Lahaina again.

That is the only marker that actually matters. A rebuilt town occupied by different people is not a recovery. It is a replacement. Every policy choice in front of this County, the phase-out, the rezoning, the interim marketplace, the buyouts, the permitting queue, should be judged against one question: does it bring Lahaina’s people home?

A rebuilt town occupied by different people is not a recovery. It is a replacement.

X  A Closing Note

I have worked in this market through all of it, and I have written about it every month. I have watched clients lose homes. I have watched friends leave for the mainland, not because they wanted to go, but because they could not face the time, the uphill climb, or just the pain of going through the recovery. I have watched a real estate market absorb a policy shock while a town absorbed a catastrophe, and I have watched the language we use about the second one get steadily looser.

So I want to end where I started, on that new sidewalk.

It really is a good sidewalk. The railing is beautiful. The milo trees will grow. And in twenty years, when Lahaina is whole again, people will walk that block and it will be exactly right.

The question is how long the walk takes, and who is still here to take it.

Government has done real things: the debris is gone, the sewer works, permits are moving faster than they were. But notice how easily the language slips. The harbor is not “open.” A handful of operators are back, under restricted hours and controlled access, with large sections still fenced. Front Street is not “open” either, they ran shuttles to the blessing because the block is closed. And the settlement money is not “flowing.” A first batch of offers went out, and the claims processor expects to spend roughly six months working through the rest.

We have gotten comfortable calling things open that are not open, and paid that are not paid. That habit is how three years pass.

Government has also, for three years, failed to cut through a permitting thicket it has publicly acknowledged is among the most restrictive in the state, in the commercial heart of a town that burned down. Both things are true. Only one of them is being celebrated.

Bill 88 is not a victory. At its very best, it is a pathway to getting back some of the legal rights that were taken away in the first place. The eligibility list still does not exist. The application still has no published cost. And as of July 2, 2026: five commercial permits. One under construction.

Ask the questions. Keep asking them. And hold all of us, government, business, brokers, media, community, to the only standard that counts.

Because nearly three years ago, Lahaina lost far more than buildings.

It lost neighbors. Businesses. Traditions. Familiar faces. Our community. Our way of life.

The measure of recovery is not how many permits have been issued. It is not how many meetings have been held. It is not how many sidewalks have been poured, however beautiful the railing.

The measure of recovery is whether the people who made Lahaina Lahaina are able to come home.

Everything else is just construction.

From the greatest island on earth, this is Lahaina Lee saying aloha.

Corrections: if anything in this report is wrong, tell me and I will publish the correction. Questions about how Bill 9 or Bill 88 affects a specific property? Reach out directly, I answer every message.

Lahaina Lee  ·  Aloha Group Maui  ·  AlohaGroupMaui.com

_______________________________________________________________________

,  Endnotes & Sources

Figures cited in this report are drawn from the following public sources. Where a source reports a figure as of a particular date, that date is given. Readers are encouraged to verify current numbers before relying on them; the County dashboard updates frequently.

1. Permitting and debris figures, Lahaina and countywide. County of Maui, Rebuild Dashboard (mauirecovers.org/recoverydashboard), updated July 6, 2026. Permitting data provided by 4Leaf Inc. Lahaina: 348 in process, 562 issued, 232 completed. Countywide: 574 issued, 236 completed, 315 homes under construction. Debris: 1,390 of 1,390 residential lots complete (Sept. 11, 2024); 148 of 148 commercial/public lots complete (Feb. 26, 2025); 6 of 6 historic structures shored and braced.

2. Derived figures, how they were calculated. The following figures are the author’s own arithmetic from the sourced inputs above, not published statistics. They are set out here so readers can check them. (a) “Thirty-five months”: Aug. 8, 2023 to the July 6, 2026 dashboard. (b) “About ten percent of the way back”: 220 completed residential permits in Lahaina against approximately 2,200 structures destroyed. (c) “Completions roughly doubled in six months” and “roughly 20 buildings a month”: 112 completed permits reported by the County in January 2026, rising to 236 on the July 6, 2026 dashboard, 124 completions across roughly six months. (d) “Runs into the 2030s”: approximately 1,964 structures remaining (2,200 less 236 completed) at roughly 20 completions per month is about 98 months, or into the mid-2030s. (e) “About 1,140 permits in the system”: Lahaina’s 232 completed, 562 issued and 348 in process, per the July 6, 2026 dashboard. (f) “$10,000 per owner”: a $400,000 rezoning cost divided across a hypothetical 40-unit association.

3. Limitations of those figures, stated plainly. Building permits are not one-to-one with structures: the County notes that a single permit may cover more than one dwelling unit, so permit-based percentages likely understate the number of housing units actually delivered. “Structures” as counted in the loss figure includes commercial and multi-unit buildings, not only single-family homes. Not every destroyed structure will be rebuilt, some owners have sold, and the County has offered a buyout program for certain makai properties. And the January 2026 and July 2026 completion counts come from different County communications and may not use identical definitions. None of these caveats changes the direction of the finding, but each should be understood before the numbers are quoted elsewhere.

4. A caution about the “non-residential” permit column. The County’s Rebuild Dashboard footnote defines “non-residential” to include commercial properties, properties with four or more dwelling units, and all Puamana permits. The 190 non-residential permits in process therefore cannot be read as a commercial-rebuild pipeline; a substantial share is housing. The figure specific to Lahaina town’s commercial core, five permits issued, one under construction, comes from the County’s July 2, 2026 news release, not from that column.

5. Timeline sources. Aug. 8, 2023 casualty, structure and displacement figures: Associated Press. USACE site preparation beginning Oct. 28, 2023 on a 34-acre state-owned site off Fleming Road: FEMA press release, Feb. 4, 2025. Debris removal start dates, lot counts and completion dates: County of Maui Rebuild Dashboard; the County separately reported a combined total of 1,538 residential and commercial properties cleared. Recovery Permit Center opening Apr. 29, 2024 and first permit issued in May 2024: County of Maui news releases; Maui Now. Ka Laʻi Ola: Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 2026. Kilohana: FEMA, Feb. 2025. Sewer restoration: County of Maui Department of Environmental Management, April 2025. 100th completed structure, Dec. 2, 2025: County of Maui; The Maui News; Hawaii News Now. FEMA housing extension through February 2027: Office of the Governor and FEMA, January 2026.

6. Commercial permit count for Lahaina town, as of July 2, 2026. County of Maui news release, “Mayor Bissen and Hawaiian Council welcome major milestone in Lahaina’s economic recovery,” July 2, 2026: five commercial permits issued for Lahaina town (one under construction), two commercial properties in process, more than 12 in pre-application consultation. The same figures were reported independently by Maui Now, The Maui News and Hawaii News Now, July 2–3, 2026. Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade identified the five permitted properties as 612, 632, 714, 724 and 744 Front Street, all mauka side, and said each is being rebuilt identically or closely resembling its pre-fire appearance; she described 744 Front Street (Fleetwood’s) as the most complicated permit currently in the queue (The Maui News, July 2026). This figure is a snapshot and is dated throughout this report for that reason. Verify the current count before relying on it.

7. Voices from the wait. These are real, published accounts, not composites. The Lahaina business owner is Courtney Lazo, owner of Henōhea Hawaiʻi, quoted by The Maui News, July 2026. The Ka Laʻi Ola resident is Michele Haia, interviewed by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 2026. The 75-year-old survivor is Sanford Hill, interviewed by Hawaii News Now, June 18, 2026. The Upcountry homeowner is Mark Ross, interviewed by Hawaii News Now, August 2025. No quotation in this report has been invented, paraphrased into a quotation, or attributed to an unnamed source.

8. Makai-side commercial properties. Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade, July 2, 2026, reported by Maui Now and Hawaii News Now: ten commercial properties on the makai side of Front Street face more complicated paths to reconstruction, in part because over-water leases from the State of Hawaiʻi were discontinued after the wildfires, leaving a reduced land footprint. The County has offered a buyout under which acquired properties would be dedicated to open space and public access.

9. The 500-homes statement. At the July 2, 2026 press conference, Mayor Bissen said more than 500 homes have been built in Lahaina, with about 700 residential permits issued and another 700-plus pending approval (Maui Now, July 2, 2026). The County of Maui Rebuild Dashboard, updated July 6, 2026, reports 220 completed residential permits in Lahaina and 315 homes under construction countywide. Completed plus under construction (220 + 315 = 535) is the most plausible reconciliation of “more than 500,” but the County’s own dashboard treats “under construction” and “completed” as distinct categories, and defines a completed permit as one that has passed final inspection and is ready for habitation. This report does not allege bad faith. It asks the County to reconcile the figures publicly.

10. Scale of the disaster. Approximately 2,200 structures destroyed across roughly 2,170 acres; 102 deaths; more than 12,000 residents displaced, roughly 89 percent of them renters at the time of the fires. Associated Press / NBC News, Jan. 14, 2026; Honolulu Civil Beat, Jan. 2026.

11. Front Street Railing and Walkway Project, scope and blessing. County of Maui news release and CivicAlerts item, June–July 2026; The Maui News, “Blessing of new Front Street infrastructure marks step in Lahaina recovery,” July 2026; Maui Now, July 2, 2026. Approximately 1,450 feet of sidewalk repaired, 700 feet of railing replaced, 12 light poles, 15 benches, 5 bike racks, 8 planters, 13 milo trees.

12. Front Street project origins and contract value. County of Maui, Front Street Railing, Sidewalk and Seawall Repairs, Project No. 19-28: contractor Goodfellow Bros. LLC; project cost $5,042,795; notice to proceed June 2, 2025. County statements note the Front Street improvement plan “began in 2015 with public input and consultation.”

13. County acknowledgment of historic-district permitting burden. County of Maui news release, July 2, 2026: permitting and approvals in the Lahaina Historic Districts are “among the most heavily regulated processes in the state,” involving national, state and local rules.

14. ʻUlu o Lele, scope, funding and timing. County of Maui news release, July 2, 2026; Maui Now, July 2, 2026; The Maui News, July 2026; Hawaiʻi Public Radio, July 6, 2026; Hawaii News Now, July 2, 2026. Approximately $8 million over two years; $4 million grant from the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund; roughly 3-acre site under a two-year lease; 17 retail units and 8 food trucks; an estimated 90 jobs; rents of $800–$1,500 per month; opening anticipated September 2026.

15. Makai-side buyout program. Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade, quoted by Hawaii News Now, July 2, 2026, describing a County buyout program under which acquired makai properties would be dedicated to open space and public access.

16. Bill 88, passage and effect. Maui Now, “New hotel zoning for vacation rentals passes Maui Council on final vote, 7-2,” June 22, 2026 (committee 6–1 on May 26; first reading 7–2 on June 5; final reading 7–2 on June 19; dissents by Council Members Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and Gabe Johnson). The ordinance number and effective date are established by the County’s own legislative record: the text of Resolution 26-111, on file with the Maui County Council, states that “By Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026, the Council established the H-3 and H-4 Hotel Districts.”

17. On the absence of a signing announcement. As of publication the author has located no County of Maui news release, and no reporting in Maui Now, The Maui News, Honolulu Civil Beat or the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, announcing that Bill 88 had been signed or had otherwise become law. Under the Maui County Charter a bill may become law by mayoral approval or by the lapse of the period for mayoral action. This report deliberately does not assert which occurred, because the distinction is immaterial to its argument: under either route the ordinance is in effect, and under either route no public announcement was made. What is documented is the Council’s own legislative text, which recites that the H-3 and H-4 Hotel Districts were established “by Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026.” By contrast, Bill 9 (Ordinance 5909) was signed on Dec. 15, 2025, the same day it passed final reading, and the signing was announced by the Mayor and widely reported. If the County did announce Bill 88’s enactment and this report has missed it, the author invites the correction and will publish it.

18. Uʻu-Hodgins on what Bill 88 does. Housing and Land Use Committee Chair Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins, quoted by Maui Now, June 22, 2026.

19. Supermajority requirement. All three county planning commissions, Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi, recommended denial, raising the Council threshold to six votes. Maui Now, May 27 and June 22, 2026.

20. Rezoning cost testimony. Property owner TJ Victorine, testimony on final reading, reported by Maui Now, June 22, 2026, and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, July 5, 2026: land-use planners quoted $200,000 to $500,000 per property for required studies.

21. Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111. Maui Now, “Maui Council committee advances bills rezoning dozens of Kīhei, West Maui apartment complexes as hotels,” July 9, 2026. Committee testimony opened July 1 and the resolutions were advanced; if adopted by the full Council they proceed to the Maui Planning Commission, expected in September 2026.

22. Sea-level-rise exposure. Planning Department memorandum cited in testimony by Kai Nishiki, former chair of the West Maui Community Plan Advisory Committee: 43 Minatoya List properties, approximately 2,440 units, primarily in West Maui, within a 3.2-foot sea-level-rise exposure zone. Maui Now, July 9, 2026.

23. Council Member Paltin on shoreline eligibility. Maui Now, June 22, 2026.

24. Minatoya List scope. Roughly 4,500 grandfathered vacation rentals across 104 properties; the bill’s Exhibit 1 lists 104 apartment-district properties totaling 7,167 units. Maui Now, May 27 and June 22, 2026.

25. Bill 9 deadlines and verification date. Bill 9 (Ordinance 5909), signed Dec. 15, 2025: phase-out effective Jan. 1, 2029 in West Maui and Jan. 1, 2031 for the rest of the county. Bill 88 requires Planning Department confirmation of transient vacation rental use prior to Sept. 24, 2020.

26. Global settlement, announcement and legal path. Gov. Josh Green announced a $4.037 billion global settlement in principle on Aug. 2, 2024 (Office of the Governor news release). Two Hawaiʻi Supreme Court decisions cleared the way: on Feb. 10, 2025, the Court unanimously held that property and casualty insurers could not bring independent subrogation actions against the settling defendants (Associated Press; Office of the Governor; formal opinion issued March 17, 2025); and in February 2026 the Court held that insurers could not intervene in the settlement, affirming Judge Peter Cahill’s June 2025 denial of their motion to join as independent parties (Maui Now, Feb. 13, 2026). The final insurer appeal was withdrawn in April 2026 (Hawaii News Now, Apr. 13, 2026). More than $1.1 billion is held in trust as the first of four annual distributions (Honolulu Star-Advertiser / Hawaii Tribune-Herald, June 8, 2026).

27. Award determination notices, status as of publication. BrownGreer PLC, the court-appointed claims processor, issued the first award determination notices on or about June 17, 2026. These were an initial batch, not a mailing to all claimants. Per an April 2026 report from the special masters, BrownGreer anticipates approximately six months to render initial findings on all filed claims; liaison counsel Cynthia Wong has said she expects initial awards to begin being paid in July or August 2026 and to continue for roughly six months thereafter. A determination notice is an offer to settle, not a payment; claimants have 30 days to accept or contest. Hawaii News Now, June 18, 2026; Honolulu Star-Advertiser / Hawaii Tribune-Herald, June 8, 2026. Readers who have not received a notice should not infer that they have been excluded.

28. Apo on determination notices. Attorney Jan Apo, quoted by Hawaii News Now, June 18, 2026.

29. Judge Cahill on the delay. Second Circuit Judge Peter Cahill, hearing of March 27, 2026, quoted by Honolulu Civil Beat, April 2026.

30. Settlement economics (projection, not actuals). University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization (UHERO), reported by Maui Now, May 15, 2026: approximately $550 million reaching Maui households in 2026; cumulative $2.8 billion through 2029 after roughly $1 billion in attorneys’ fees and approximately $200 million in insurance liens; county real personal income up roughly 5.4 percent in 2026. Per-victim averages from Honolulu Civil Beat, June 2026.

31. Market data. REALTORS® Association of Maui, as reported in Q1 2026 market summaries: Q1 2026 year-to-date condo median $699,000, down 12.1 percent year over year; March 2026 single-family median down 7.3 percent year over year. Days on market and inventory trends per RAM and Locations Hawaiʻi, April 2026.

32. Condo owner price-cut testimony. Condominium owner Julisa Adams, testimony to the Housing and Land Use Committee, reported by Maui Now, May 27, 2026: asking price reduced from $875,000 to $650,000 over two years without a local-buyer offer.

33. Infrastructure milestones. Sewer restoration: County of Maui Department of Environmental Management, April 2025, all 3,526 sewered lots in West Maui active as of April 16, 2025. Ka Laʻi Ola (432 units, 57 acres, approximately $194 million) and Kilohana (167 FEMA modular units): Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 2026; FEMA, February 2025. Lahaina Bypass Phase 1C environmental scoping meetings: FEMA Monthly Maui Wildfires Recovery Fact Sheet, July 2026.

34. Statutory exemptions. Hawaiʻi Legislature: prior-session law exempting most Lahaina residential and commercial reconstruction from Special Management Area permits; HB1823 (2026) extending a comparable exemption to federal, state and county infrastructure projects in Maui County. Reported by Maui Now, May 24, 2026.

35. Lahaina Small Boat Harbor status. The harbor partially reopened to commercial operations on Dec. 15, 2025, after 28 months, with an initial group of operators returning. Access has remained restricted, limited daily hours, controlled and escorted entry, reduced speed limits and substantial fenced-off areas. Hawaii News Now, Dec. 2, 2025; County and community briefings, January 2026.

36. Assistance programs. Hoʻokumu Hou Single-Family Homeowner Reconstruction Program (up to $1.2 million) and Single-Family Homeowner Reimbursement Program (up to $400,000); application deadlines extended through August 2026. FEMA Monthly Maui Wildfires Recovery Fact Sheet, July 2026. Hoʻokumu Hou encompasses County recovery programs funded by $1.6 billion in federal CDBG-DR appropriations.

A note on method: this report relies on primary County of Maui documents, dashboards and legislative records wherever possible, with news reporting used to source testimony and statements made at public hearings. Direct quotations are attributed to the speaker and to the outlet that reported them. Where the author has calculated a figure rather than cited one, the arithmetic is shown in the endnotes along with its limitations. Where a claim could not be verified against a primary or wire-service source, it has been omitted or explicitly qualified rather than asserted. Corrections are welcome and will be published.

,  Photo & Production Sheet

For the editor and designer. Not for publication.

HERO, opens Section I

The new Front Street railing photographed from the makai side, shot low and wide so the finished ipe-topped railing runs across the foreground and the empty lots read behind it. This single frame is the thesis of the piece.

Caption: The 700 block of Front Street, July 2026. The sidewalk is finished. The town is not.

SECOND, Section I

The July 1 blessing itself: crowd, mayor, ceremony. Available via County of Maui / Office of the Mayor and from Maui Now and The Maui News coverage of the event.

Caption: About 150 residents and officials gathered on July 1 to bless the completed railing and walkway project.

DATA SPREAD, Section II

Not a photograph. Design the four tables in Section II as a single full-page data spread, with “5 COMMERCIAL PERMITS · 1 UNDER CONSTRUCTION” set as the dominant display figure.

No caption.

TIMELINE, Section III

A horizontal timeline graphic running the width of the spread, Aug. 8, 2023 to July 2026. Consider marking the settlement track and the rebuild track as two parallel lines to show how long the money took.

No caption.

SECTION IV

Before / after pairing of the same Front Street vantage point: pre-fire streetscape and the same view today. Sourcing note: use only images you have rights to, County releases, your own photography, or licensed archive. Do not lift news-outlet photos.

Caption: The plan for this streetscape dates to 2015, eight years before the fire.

SECTION V

ʻUlu o Lele renderings and the site model, released by Hawaiian Council at the July 2 press conference and distributed with County materials. Request permission from Hawaiian Council directly.

Caption: ʻUlu o Lele, an $8 million interim marketplace, is expected to open in September 2026 at the former Outlets of Maui site.

SECTION VI

Council chamber during the June 19 final reading, or the July HLU committee hearing. County of Maui / YouTube stills are widely used by local outlets; confirm usage terms.

Caption: The Council passed Bill 88 by 7–2, one vote above the supermajority it needed.

SECTION VII

A rebuild in progress: framing and roofing in Wahikuli, where construction density is highest. Human, hopeful, and factually accurate to where the recovery is actually working.

Caption: Residential completions roughly doubled in the first half of 2026.

CLOSER, Section X

The banyan tree, or a single completed home with a family in front of it. End on people, not policy.

Caption: The question is how long the walk takes, and who is still here to take it.

Rights reminder: do not republish photographs from news outlets without a license. County of Maui and FEMA imagery is generally reusable with credit; Hawaiian Council renderings require permission. Your own photography of Front Street is the strongest and safest option for the hero image.

By Lahaina Lee, Aloha Group Maui  |  June 2026 market data

Last month, we told you the most important number in the report was 121 pending condo sales, and that buyers were circling. In June, they landed. Condo closings surged to 88, the highest total in over 2 years, while the median condo price bounced to $625,000. Homes joined the party: 78 closings, the most since August of 2022, and a median price of $1,356,975, the highest since January, pushing supply down to about 5.9 months. Here is what the data shows, what it means, and where we hedge.

Quick housekeeping for anyone just joining us: this report covers the real estate numbers, and next week we'll publish the companion piece on the Lahaina rebuild, Bill 88, and tourism. One story, two sittings. That's the cadence going forward.

Now. Last month, with condo closings at a limp 51, we pointed at the 121 pending sales and said buyers weren't gone, they were circling. We're right about twice a year, so please allow us this one: June delivered 88 closed condo sales, the best month since 2024. The buyers stopped circling and started signing.

Let's do the numbers. Condos first, as always.

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. June figures were collected July 1, 2026.

* Asking price data unavailable prior to August 2025.

88 closed condo sales in June. To put that in perspective, the previous best month was April of 2024, and last month we managed just 51. That's a 73% jump in a single month. When closings drop while pendings spike, we said, that's a market where buyers smelled a deal. June is what it looks like when they act on it.

And the pipeline isn't empty. Pending sales came in at 114, the third-highest of the past twelve months, behind only May's 121 and February's 118. So July closings should stay healthy. This wasn't one hungry month clearing the buffet; there's another seating behind it.

Prices tell the same story. The median condo selling price bounced to $625,000, up from May's $597,000, which we called a retest of the bottom. One month doesn't make a floor, and we're not calling one. But when volume surges and the median rises at the same time, that's demand doing the lifting, not a couple of lucky luxury closings. For what it's worth, the average came in at $854,000, the softest of the year, which tells you the action was concentrated in the affordable and mid-range segments. That's welcome news — it's where the deals were, and buyers knew it.

We saw it on the ground, too. Showings and inquiries are both up across our team, and here's the anecdote of the month: we put three condos at Kaanapali Shores under contract on the same day, all at higher prices than comparable units were fetching earlier this spring. One escrow is a transaction. Three in an afternoon is a data point.

A note on days on market for solds: 171 days, near the top of the year's range. Translation: buyers weren't just grabbing fresh listings, they were finally absorbing inventory that had been sitting for months. That's how an overhang starts to clear.

Inventory ticked up to 913 active listings, still below April's 931 peak. Here's the number that changed the most: months of supply. At June's sales pace, 913 listings is about 10.4 months, down from nearly 18 a month ago. At the trailing year's average pace it's closer to 15. Either way, still a buyer's market. But if June's pace holds, and that's an if, the widest part of the discount window may be behind us. That's the good news and the bad news, depending on which side of the table you're sitting on.

Sellers seem to be reading the same tea leaves. Expired listings fell back to 22 after May's spike of 43, withdrawals eased to 55, and the median asking price slipped to $790,000, the first move below the $799,000 shelf it sat on for months. The gap between median ask and median sold narrowed to about $165,000. Still wide. Still narrowing from both directions.

And the elephant in the room got a little louder. On June 19, the County Council passed Bill 88 by a 7 to 2 vote, creating the new H-3 and H-4 hotel districts that could give thousands of apartment-zoned vacation rental condos a path forward. As of this writing, the Mayor has not signed it, and the planning department has not put forward a rezoning process, so nothing is rezoned and nobody's rental clock has changed. But it's hard to look at June's condo surge, especially in places like Kaanapali, and not see some of that optimism getting priced in. We'll break down the whole thing, including what Bill 88 does and doesn't do, in next week's companion blog.

Bottom line on condos: the pendings converted, prices bounced off the bottom, and buyers just showed us where the demand line sits. It's still a buyer's market, but the capital B got a little smaller in June.

Single-Family Homes

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. June figures were collected July 1, 2026.

* Asking price data unavailable prior to August 2025; December '25 median asking price unavailable.

Last month we said the home market's flirtation with balance was on pause. Apparently the pause lasted about four weeks.

June delivered 78 closed home sales, up from 58 in May and the most since the sales spike of 2022. Inventory did rise to 464, the highest of the year, but at June's sales pace that works out to roughly 5.9 months of supply. Six months is the textbook definition of a balanced market, and we are now knocking on that door.

The price whiplash deserves its own paragraph. In May, the median home price was $1,174,500, the second-lowest of the year. In June, it jumped to $1,356,975, the highest since January. The average leapt too, to $1.85 million. What happened? More of everything, but especially more at the top: the well-priced luxury listings that had been aging on the vine finally found buyers, and that mix shift pulls the median up. Days on market for solds dropped to 145, and days on market for active listings dipped to 156, the first decline since January after four straight months of climbing.

Now for the hedge, because you know we always bring one. Pending home sales slipped to 96, matching December for the lowest of the past twelve months. Pendings are the preview of coming attractions, and this preview suggests July closings will cool back toward the historical average of about 60 a month. So no, we are not declaring a new era after one strong month. We've been doing this too long for that.

On the asking side, the median eased to $1.84 million and the average settled around $3.52 million, essentially flat. The luxury end is still adjusting, just slowly, the way luxury does everything except spend money.

Bottom line on homes: the best sales month in a year, the highest price since January, and supply back under six months. The balanced-market flirtation is back on. But with pendings at a 12-month low, don't book the wedding yet.

A Quick Word on Land

Twelve vacant-land sales closed in June against 203 active listings, and the median sale price fell to $309,000, the lowest of the past year by a comfortable margin. Small sample, big swings; that's land. It remains a thin, patient market measured in seasons, not months. If you're a buyer with vision and a long timeline, there are sellers out there ready to talk story, and June's prices suggest some of them are motivated.

Our Take

June was the month the fence got uncomfortable.

On condos: everything we watch pointed the same direction at once. Closings at their highest in over 2 years, pendings still elevated, prices bouncing off the bottom, expireds falling, the ask/sold gap narrowing, and our own phones ringing more. Add the Council's passage of Bill 88, and some of the zoning uncertainty that's been sitting on this market like a wet blanket is starting to lift. We're not calling a bottom; we don't do that, and anyone who does is selling something. But if you've been waiting for a sign that demand still exists at these prices, June was about as loud as signs get. The leverage is still with buyers. It's just no longer growing.

On homes: the market spent June reminding everyone that Maui inventory is thin and good product moves. Sub-six months of supply is a different conversation than the ten-plus the condo market is having. Sellers who price to the last 90 days of comps are being rewarded, and in June, even some of the patient luxury listings got paid. The pending dip says July will be quieter. The trend says the window where home buyers held all the cards is narrowing.

For condos, it's still a buyer's market, but June is what the early innings of a turn can look like, and this time the closings showed up to say so. For homes, we're back on the doorstep of balance. Either way, the most expensive thing you can do right now is wait without information.

And remember, next week we'll be back with the companion blog covering the Lahaina rebuild, Bill 88 and what it does and doesn't mean for condo owners, and where tourism stands at the peak of summer. Those forces shape everything you just read, so don't miss it.

Let's Talk Story

If you have questions about your property's value, what these numbers mean for your situation, or whether this market is your moment to make a move, reach out anytime. We're here as a resource for the Lahaina and Maui community, whether you're ready to act or just trying to make sense of the headlines. No pressure, no agenda, just a conversation.

And if you or someone you know is thinking about buying, selling, or simply keeping track of Maui's real estate market, we've got a fabulous team of seasoned, well-trained agents standing by to help.

You can search every property listed for sale at www.AlohaGroupMaui.com, or email me directly at lee@alohapotts.com. I answer every one.

From the greatest island on Earth, I'm Lahaina Lee, saying ALOOHA.

Aloha, this is Lahaina Lee with the June 2026 edition of the Maui Real Estate Advisor.

June has been one of the most consequential months for Maui real estate and Lahaina recovery in a long time. Bill 88 passed. Lahaina is rebuilding — at a painfully slow pace. Infrastructure projects are getting underway. And even as what some are calling a big legislative win sinks in, new questions are already emerging about what comes next. There is still so much of what has been lost, and what has been taken away.

Here is where things stand as we close out the month.

Bill 88 Passes — Now Awaiting Mayor Bissen's Signature

The headline: the Maui County Council passed Bill 88 by a 7-2 vote on June 19, and the bill now awaits Mayor Richard Bissen's signature. As of this writing, no public announcement of a signature has been made, but Mayor Bissen is widely expected to sign it.

Bill 88 creates two new hotel zoning categories — H-3 and H-4 — designed specifically to provide a new legal pathway for the thousands of apartment-zoned condominium units currently affected by Bill 9 that have historically operated as vacation rentals.

It's important to be clear about what this bill does and doesn't do. Bill 88 does not automatically rezone any property. It creates the zoning categories. Each individual complex would still need to apply for rezoning through its own separate process — Planning Commission review, committee hearings, and Council readings. And remember: the planning commissions all voted against creating this zoning. Housing and Land Use Committee Chair Nohelani U'u-Hodgins reiterated this point directly after the vote: the bill establishes the districts, but separate rezoning actions are required for every property that seeks to use them.

The 7-2 margin is significant. Council members who supported the bill were clear about their reasoning: many Minatoya-listed properties already operate as hotels in every practical sense. Keeping them classified as apartment buildings creates regulatory mismatches, permitting friction, and legal exposure for the county — not to mention the property owners. As one Council member put it, trying to fit these properties into apartment zoning is like putting a square peg in a round hole.

Approximately 4,500 units across roughly 104 complexes are potentially eligible for consideration under H-3/H-4.

The Next Big Question: Implementation

With the Council vote behind us, the conversation has already shifted to what happens next — and the honest answer is that a lot remains to be determined.

Three things that do not yet exist:

• No H-3/H-4 application process has been released by the Planning Department
• No official eligibility list identifying which properties may apply has been published
• No timetable for accepting rezoning applications has been announced

For owners at Bill 9-affected complexes, the absence of the Planning Department's eligibility list and the absence of a process are now the most significant unresolved issues. Post-vote reporting has made clear that this list — which the Planning Department is required to maintain and publish — will be the gateway document for any property seeking to pursue H-3/H-4 rezoning.

The next major development to watch is not the Mayor's signature, though that matters. It's when and how the Planning Department releases implementation guidance, and which properties are included on the eligibility list when it arrives. That is the document that will answer the real question for thousands of condo owners: is my building on the path forward, or not?

Bill 9: Still in Effect

With all the attention on Bill 88, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Bill 9 remains fully in effect. No amendments. No repeal. No new litigation was filed in the final weeks of June. The phaseout of short-term rental use in apartment-zoned units is still the law.

Bill 88's passage is a major step forward — but it is the beginning of a new process, not the end of the old one. If you own in a Bill 9-affected complex, the practical advice hasn't changed: get good legal counsel, understand your specific building's situation, and don't for a minute think passage automatically resolves your situation. A pathway now exists. Whether your building can use it depends on what the Planning Department publishes next.

Lahaina Recovery: Momentum on the Ground

Three years after the August 2023 fire, Lahaina's recovery continues to move forward on the residential side — steadily, if not dramatically.

MauiRecovers.org Dashboard — June 2026

The residential progress is real, and I don't want to minimize it. Those numbers have continued to tick upward through the final weeks of June. It is not a sudden surge — consistent progress is what long-term recovery looks like. And yet, the fire destroyed roughly 2,200 structures. More than 1,000 property owners haven't started, can't start, or may have already given up.

Programs supporting homeowners remain active and have capacity. The Single-Family Homeowner Reconstruction Program has 50 active applications and room for 250 more. HUD raised income limits for Maui County on June 1 — so if you or someone you know was told they didn't qualify before, it is worth checking again.

Commercial rebuilding is virtually nonexistent.

Our state and local leadership has shown no will and no real interest in cutting through the red tape of historic review, coastal regulations, infrastructure sequencing, and permitting layers that are completely blocking any commercial progress. The Lahaina Royal Complex Master Plan process has formally launched with community engagement — but commercial recovery is a multi-year effort at best, and nobody should pretend otherwise.

On the community side, Hot Kūpuna Nights returned to the Lahaina Civic Center this week, and planning is underway for the Lahaina Homecoming event scheduled for July 17–19 — a meaningful moment in the community's ongoing effort to reconnect with place and culture.

Infrastructure Moving Forward

Several significant infrastructure projects are now underway or imminent:

• The Lahaina Waterline Improvement Project begins construction in mid-July — replacing 20,000 feet of water main over two years, with added fire hydrant capacity
• The Lahaina Emergency Evacuation Route (2.5 miles) is in active construction planning
• Guardrail replacement along Honoapi'ilani Highway is underway, with mid-October completion expected
• Five traffic signals between Shaw Street and Hina Street will be replaced by end of 2026
• The Lahaina Harbor railing project is complete — blessing ceremony is July 1
• Playground groundbreaking at the War Memorial Recreation Center is set for August 12

Mayor Bissen also signed the FY2027 County Budget into law this month, which will shape recovery and infrastructure spending priorities in the year ahead.

Tourism: Stable, but Deeply Split

No new visitor statistics were released in the final days of June. The picture remains what it has been: Maui's tourism market is steady but uneven — and the gap between who is thriving and who is struggling is widening.

Visitors who do come are spending well. The resort areas of Ka'anapali and Wailea appear to be holding up — in some cases, thriving. Other areas are starving, and low rates don't seem to be drawing the visitors. It's a K-shaped tourism economy, and which side of that K your property sits on matters more than any headline number.

For vacation rental owners, performance increasingly comes down to location, property quality, management, and pricing — in that order. 

For buyers evaluating investment potential, the tourism environment is one more variable to weigh carefully alongside the Bill 9 and Bill 88 landscape. Run your numbers conservatively. Use current occupancy data, not peak-year projections.

The Bottom Line

June 2026 delivered a welcome win in Bill 88's passage. But let's be clear about what that means: at its very best, this is just a pathway to getting back some of the legal rights that were already taken away. Lahaina's residential recovery is gaining real momentum. Infrastructure investment is accelerating.

The work ahead is significant. Mayor Bissen's signature is the next step on Bill 88. After that, the Planning Department's eligibility list and implementation guidance become the most important documents in Maui real estate – and they don't exist yet. That is the story to watch heading into July. And as for the tourism market – let's hope that picks up for the places that aren't on the upward angle of our K-shaped economy.

As always, we're here to help you navigate whatever comes next.

Mahalo,

Lee Potts  |  Aloha Group Maui

Lee@AlohaPotts.com  |  AlohaGroupMaui.com

Have questions about how Bill 9 or Bill 88 affects a specific property? Reach out directly — I answer every message.

From the greatest island on earth — this is Lahaina Lee saying Aloooooha.

Frequently Asked Questions

The questions we're hearing most from buyers, sellers, and investors right now.

What did Bill 88 actually do?

Bill 88 created two new hotel zoning categories — H-3 and H-4 — that give apartment-zoned condominium complexes historically operating as vacation rentals a potential path to legal rezoning. It passed the Maui County Council 7-2 on June 19 and is now awaiting Mayor Bissen's signature. What it does not do is automatically rezone any property. Every complex that wants to use the new categories still has to apply through a separate, full rezoning process.

What happens now that Bill 88 has passed?

The next steps are the Mayor's signature, followed by the Planning Department publishing an eligibility list identifying which properties may apply for H-3/H-4 rezoning. That list has not been released yet. No application process has been announced, and no timetable has been set. For condo owners, the eligibility list is the document that actually answers whether your building has a path forward.

Does Bill 88 cancel out Bill 9?

No. Bill 9 remains fully in effect. No amendments, no repeal. Bill 88 creates a potential pathway for some affected properties to seek rezoning — but that process is separate, requires County approval, and has not yet been defined. Bill 9's phaseout of short-term rental use in apartment-zoned units is still the law.

Which properties are eligible for H-3/H-4 rezoning?

Approximately 4,500 units across roughly 104 Minatoya-listed complexes are potentially in scope. But the Planning Department has not yet published an official eligibility list. Until that list exists, no individual owner or complex can definitively know whether they qualify to apply. This is the most important unresolved question in Maui real estate right now.

What is the current status of Lahaina's rebuild in 2026?

As of late June 2026, the MauiRecovers.org dashboard shows 575 residential permits issued, 220 homes completed, and 310 under construction. Residential progress is real and moving. Commercial rebuilding on Front Street is a different story — no new commercial buildings have opened, no commercial permits were filed in early 2026, and a realistic timeline for meaningful Front Street recovery is years away.

How is Maui tourism doing in 2026?

Stable but uneven. Ka'anapali and Wailea resort areas are performing well. Other areas — particularly those dependent on the Lahaina visitor economy — are struggling, and low rates aren't drawing visitors the way owners hoped. The visitor profile has shifted toward higher spenders, which helps revenue for premium properties but doesn't lift the whole market. Overall volume remains below 2019 levels.

About Lahaina Lee & The Maui Real Estate Advisor

Lahaina Lee is a licensed real estate broker on Maui, Hawaii, and the publisher of the Maui Real Estate Advisor — a monthly market report covering Maui condo and single-family home trends, luxury real estate, short-term rental regulations, the Lahaina rebuild, and Maui's broader economic picture.

Contact: Lee@AlohaPotts.com  |  AlohaGroupMaui.com

The Maui real estate market in May 2026 is telling two stories at once. Condo closings slipped to 51, one of the weakest months of the past year, yet pending condo sales surged to 121, the highest in at least twelve months, just as the median condo price touched $597,000. On the home side, sales rebounded from a sleepy April, the median price slid to its second-lowest level in a year, and days on market hit a new high. Here is what the data shows, what it means, and what we're watching.

Aloha, this is Lahaina Lee with your June edition of the Maui Real Estate Advisor market report.

First, a little housekeeping. Starting this month, we're splitting the report in two. Today is all real estate: the numbers, the trends, and what they mean for buyers and sellers. Next week, we'll publish a companion piece covering the Lahaina rebuild, Bill 9, and tourism. Those topics deserve more than a paragraph squeezed between data tables, and frankly, so do the data tables. Same talk story, two sittings.

So, how's the market? Well, if you only looked at closed sales, you'd say the condo market took another nap in May. Just 51 closings. But look one layer deeper and you'll find the most interesting number of the month: 121 pending condo sales, the highest we've seen in at least a year. Buyers aren't gone. They're circling. And I think I know why.

Let's do the numbers. Condos first, as always.

Condos

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. May figures were collected June 1, 2026.

* Asking price data unavailable prior to August 2025.

Coming into May, the condo story was a modest recovery: 44 closings in January, then 64, 74, and 70. May broke the streak at 51 closed sales, a 27% drop from April. After three encouraging months, that stings. But I'd caution against reading it as a reversal, and here's why.

Pending sales jumped to 121, the highest level of the past twelve months, beating February's 118. Pendings are our leading indicator, the preview of June and July closings. When closings drop but pendings spike, that's not a market rolling over. That's a market where buyers smelled a deal and started writing offers.

And the deals are real. The median condo selling price dropped to $597,000, down from $651,250 in April. Outside of last November's $595,000, that's the lowest median of the past year. Call it a retest of the bottom. The average selling price came in at $890,000, ending a stretch where the average held above $1 million for much of the spring. Maui condos are on sale, and the pending numbers tell you the shoppers have noticed. For sellers, that's the good news and the bad news.

Inventory eased to 902 active listings, down from April's peak of 931. That's the first meaningful dip since winter. Don't celebrate yet: at May's sales pace, that's still nearly 18 months of supply, and even at the past year's average pace it's about 15 and a half months. A balanced market is roughly six. This remains one of the strongest buyer's markets Maui has seen in a generation.

Two more telltales worth your attention. Average days on market for active condo listings is sitting at 170 days. And 43 condo listings expired in May, double April's count and the most in over a year. Some sellers are reading the room and stepping off the field rather than chasing the market down. The ones who stay are pricing closer to reality: the median asking price has now settled at $799,000 for a second straight month, down from $839,000 in February. The gap between asking and selling is still wide (about $200,000 at the medians) but it's narrowing from both directions.

One quick note on the elephant in the room: Bill 9 is now law, and it is absolutely part of why condo pricing looks the way it does. Every apartment-zoned condo now has a rental-rights clock attached to it, and the market is pricing that clock in. We'll cover the latest, including the H-3/H-4 rezoning question, in next week's companion blog.

Bottom line on condos: closings dipped, but pendings hit a 12-month high right as prices retested the bottom. It's still a buyer's market with a capital B, and the buyers know it.

Single-Family Homes

* Data collected on the 1st of the following month. May figures were collected June 1, 2026.

* Asking price data unavailable prior to August 2025; December '25 median asking price unavailable.

Last month we told you the home market was approaching balance. March's 76 closings against shrinking inventory had supply down to 5.7 months, and we said the buyer-friendly window might be narrowing. Well, the market heard us and decided to be difficult.

April closings slumped to 49, and May recovered to 58 closed sales, a solid bounce that lands right around the two-year average of roughly 60 per month. Meanwhile, inventory ticked up to 444 homes. Run the math and we're back to about 7.7 months of supply. So the flirtation with a balanced market is on pause. Buyers, you've been given a reprieve.

Pending sales came in at 108, down from 119 in April and within range of the 12-month norm. Expect June closings to land somewhere in the high 50s to 60s unless something surprises us.

The price story is where it gets interesting. The median home selling price slid to $1,174,500, the second-lowest of the past twelve months, behind only last November's $1.15 million. The average came in just under $1.5 million. As we noted last month, when the median drifts down toward a level where more buyers can transact, sales volume tends to follow, and that's consistent with the rebound we saw in May.

Now look at the asking side. The median asking price held at $1.85 million, and the average asking price came in around $3.49 million, down significantly from March's $3.71 million peak. That's two months of softening at the top, which suggests some luxury sellers are finally adjusting. They may want to hurry: average days on market for active home listings has climbed every single month this year and now sits at 158 days, the highest of the past twelve months. The well-priced homes are selling. The aspirationally priced ones are aging like fine milk.

Oy.

Bottom line on homes: sales bounced back, prices came down to where buyers live, and the top of the market is slowly getting the memo. It's a mild buyer's market, for now.

A Quick Word on Land

Eleven vacant-land sales closed in May against 202 active listings, and the median sale price dropped to $495,000, the lowest of the past year. Land remains a thin, patient market measured in seasons, not months. If you're a buyer with vision and a long timeline, there are sellers out there ready to talk story.

Our Take

Maui is a place that earns your patience, and May 2026 is a good example of why that patience pays.

On condos: don't let the 51 closings fool you. The combination we saw in May (prices retesting the bottom, inventory off its peak, expired listings doubling, and pendings at a 12-month high) is what the early innings of a turn can look like. We're not calling a bottom; we don't do that, and anyone who does is selling something. But the buyers writing offers right now are getting selection and leverage that simply didn't exist two years ago. If you've been considering a Maui condo, the homework matters more than ever; zoning and rental rights now drive value as much as the ocean view does. The math, though, has rarely been more in your favor.

On homes: the market keeps finding its footing right around $1.2 million. The action is at the entry and mid-level; the luxury end is sitting, and the steady climb in days on market is the proof. Sellers who price to the last 90 days of comps are closing. Sellers pricing to 2022 are watching their listings turn stale, and increasingly, watching them expire.

For condos, it's a buyer's market with a capital B, and the pending numbers say buyers have figured that out. For homes, it's a mild buyer's market with a moving floor. Either way, the most expensive thing you can do right now is wait without information.

And remember, next week we'll be back with the companion blog covering the Lahaina rebuild, the latest on Bill 9 and the H-3/H-4 rezoning question, and where tourism stands heading into summer. Those forces shape everything you just read, so don't miss it.

Let's Talk Story

If you have questions about your property's value, what these numbers mean for your situation, or whether this market is your moment to make a move, reach out anytime. We're here as a resource for the Lahaina and Maui community, whether you're ready to act or just trying to make sense of the headlines. No pressure, no agenda, just a conversation.

And if you or someone you know is thinking about buying, selling, or simply keeping track of Maui's real estate market, we've got a fabulous team of seasoned, well-trained agents standing by to help.

You can search every property listed for sale at www.AlohaGroupMaui.com, or email me directly at lee@alohapotts.com. I answer every one.

From the greatest island on Earth, I'm Lahaina Lee, saying ALOOHA.