April 2018
Sales Statistics
The official month end real estate sales statistics for April are published by the Realtors Association of Maui around mid-month. The numbers in this report were pulled from the Maui MLS on May 1, 2018. These numbers will vary slightly from the official figures due to factors such as late reporting.
SALES
Condo sales were the story of April. The number of sales jumped 32% for the month and the median selling price increased by 11%. Why the big increase? My first thought was that some large blocks of new inventory that just finished construction had closed. But digging into the numbers revealed that new inventory accounted for only 17 of those sales, so demand for condos is very strong.
We had been watching the number of pending sales, sales that hadn’t yet closed, which was increasing, but the large increase in closed condo sales was still a surprise. The number of condos in the pending category is still high at 352. So, we may see the high number of condos sold repeat itself next month.
How long can that continue? Well, while the pending number is high, there are 3 factors working against the big sales numbers continuing.
First, the inventory dropped by almost 9% in April following a near 7% drop in March.
Next comes prices. After a bit of ups and downs in the last 6 months, the median selling price moved to the second highest level in the last year.
Finally, consider the interest rates. Fluctuating interest rates can have a big impact on buyers at the lower end of the price range and investors on Maui.
The story on Home sales was mostly stable. The number of sales stayed in the 90’s and the number of pending home sales also remained stable.
What didn’t stay stable was inventory, as you might expect by now. 469 homes for sale is the lowest inventory level in over 5 years. The current sales volume cannot be sustained without new listings coming to market.
Pending sales along with other key statistics are detailed below.
PENDING SALES
Pending sales represent properties that are under contract, but have not closed yet. They are an indicator of future sales.
INVENTORY
Inventory tells us how many units are available for sale in each category. Inventory for homes and condos had significant drops in the month.
AVERAGE AND MEDIAN SOLD PRICES
We look at Average and Median prices in all categories. A lot of people like to know the average price; however, we tend to use median for most of our analysis, because median is less likely to be skewed by outliers of a few very high priced or very low priced sales.
DAYS ON MARKET
The days on market is the number of days a property has been on the market without selling. That number seems pretty stable. Normal financed sales take between 45-60+ days, so on average, homes and condos are on the market up to 100 days before they go into escrow.
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