Nearly all the main components of home sale statistics on Hawaii island and Kauai rose last month, according to a report released last week.
Median sale prices and sale volume gains ranged from 8% to 89% on the two neighbor islands, and one element fell 15% based on Hawaii Island Realtors and Kauai Board of Realtors data compiled by Hawaii Information Service.
But as always, there are caveats about the magnitude of the changes given that in some cases relatively few transactions are involved and can easily result in big swings.
The biggest segment of the two markets involves single-family homes on Hawaii island, where there were 178 sales in February which represented a 16% gain from 154 sales in the same month last year.
The median sale price for these homes was $450,000 last month, up 18% from $382,000 a year earlier.
In Hawaii island's condominium market, the number of sales rose 8% to 64 last month from 59 a year earlier, while median prices fell 15% to $321,500 from $380,000 in the same period.
On Kauai there were 34 single-family home sales last month, up 21% from 28 sales a year earlier.
The median sale price for these homes was $806,250 in February, up 17% from $689,000 a year earlier.
For Kauai condos there were 30 sales last month, up 30% from 23 sales a year earlier. The median price for these condos soared 89% to $670,000 from $355,000 in the same period.
Some of the median price jump was from condos sold in the Kawaihau region where there were for four sales for a median $610,000 last month compared with five sales for a median $283,000 a year earlier.
Quality, age, size, location and other factors can affect the median price, which is a point at which half the sales were at a higher price and half at a lower price. The two neighbor island associations for real estate agents also count both new and previously owned homes in their data.
