Kona Kohala Blog

On the mainland, existing home sales dropped by <9.6%> in February from January.  In North Kona, that number rose 66.7% and in South Kohala they were up 14.7%, both good increases compared to our cousins across the pond.

First time home buyers on the contiguous 48 made up 34% of all buyers, up from 29% in January but down from 42% in February of 2010.  Cash sales made up 33% in February, on the mainland, up from just 27% in '10.

If mortgage credit conditions return to normal we'll see more traditional home buyers return to the market rather than the high number of investors we're seeing today.

More on North Kona and South Kohala; our January to February figures year to year show January was down <8.7%> this year compared to January of '10.  Our condo sales were up January of '11 over January of '10 by 23.8%.  February of this year compared to February of '10 shows Single Family Residences (SFR's) are up 66.7% and condo sales down <4.2%>.  For condos, from January to February of this year we saw an <11.5%> decline in sales.

In South Kohala this January, SFR sales were up 27.3% over January of '10.  February of this year was up 100% over last February and up 14.3% over January of this year.  Condo sales in South Kohala were way up in both months with January improving by 85.1% over January of 2010.  February of this year was a 154.6% jump over February of last year and a 115.4% increase over January of 2011.

So there are some hiccups here and there but overall we're seeing a strong increase in the number of sales in both North Kona and South Kohala.  These increases are accompanied by median price declines but even those are seeing a bottom these days.  SFR median price in North Kona has shown improvements in the last two months, even if it's only been by small single digit percentage points.

Stay tuned as the changes happening in the middle east and Japan can not help but have ripple effects here in Hawaii.