Maui Real Estate Market Trends: September 2009

September 2009: Economists Say We’ve Hit Bottom…

According to Hawaii Pacific University professor Leroy Laney, Maui has hit the bottom of economic times as cited in this Maui News article. I hope he is right even though he says it will take a long time to start heading up. The article didn’t talk about the real estate scene.

I still see real estate declining for a LONG time. What do I base this on? We continue to see prices falling. 30% of the sales last month were bank-owned properties or short sales. The inventory of these bank-controlled properties continues to increase. They are defining the market but motivated sellers are lowering prices to compete. Until we see this inventory declining, prices will continue to fall.

We know that most short sales will either sell or turn into foreclosures. We know that about 50% of properties in foreclosure are not listed. So by my counts that makes the inventory of bank-controlled properties in Maui between 500 and 1000. We only had 125 properties sell last month total. So the earliest would be 6 months if the only properties selling were distressed properties and no new properties came to the distressed party. 2-3 years is probably more realistic.

This month, I’ve made a 5 minute video to highlight our Maui market trends. Tell me what you think. For my realtor friends, feel free to embed this on your blog or site and add your own interpretation.

* Foreclosure counts are based on those advertised in the Maui News. This is not a complete list but reflects trends.

View available Maui Bank-Owned Properties
View available Maui Short Sale Properties

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Maui Statistics This data is published by the Realtors® Association of Maui, Inc. It contains monthly updates on sales by area for the County of Maui.