Download the January 31 Griggs Report here: Griggs Report January 31, 2013
Download the February 15 Griggs Report here: Griggs Report February 15 2013
North Kona Residential Real Estate Market Trends to $4M
Neutral Market = Pending Ratio from 30 to 50 | Peak Market = Signals the end of real estate cycle
January 31st Report Highlights:
In January, the North Kona residential median price hit a new high of $399,000 after coming off the 3/31/2012 bottom at $365,000. (This includes only homes priced below $4M and is a moving average/median price based on 12 months of sales.)
Included in the January 31st report is the Hawaii County Statistics for September 2012. Building permit numbers are generally up substantially although new permits for single-family homes are down YTD (-15%).
Tourism number are up slightly mostly due to strong cruise ship numbers. Labor force numbers are positive with a slightly larger labor force and fewer unemployed. Unemployment rate in September was 7.9%.
The Pending Ratio is showing a seasonal boost in all categories. The Pending Ratio is a reliable indicator of the demand vs. supply trend. The greater the ratio the stronger demand vs. supply. Table 6 on Page 6 shows the 12 month trend in Pending Ratio. The last line shows the year over year percentage of change. Most importantly, year over year improvement is seen in the $500,000-$700,000 and $700,000-$900,000 price ranges.
February 15th Report Highlights:
At the top of page 2 (in the price range table) you will see the inventory or North Kona homes priced to $400,000 was at new low of only 29 homes available (as of 2/15/2013) and the total number of homes available under $500,000 was down to 55. This is less than a 3 month supply. Overall, the N. Kona residential inventory is down 22% from a year ago.
In an effort to better display the distressed property trend, I have added two tables below Chart 5 and Chart 6. These tables show the number and percent of decline for each district or market areas included in the charts. Currently, the number of REO properties is down on average 40% from a year ago for the five areas covered and lenders included. The percentage of distressed properties in the MLS is down 34% over the 12 month period for the market areas covered. The Waimea area appears to be leading the rate of decline followed by North Kona.
Michael B. Griggs, R(B)
The North Kona condo median price is now showing a 17% appreciation from a year ago. In the previous year the median price was $160,600. Currently, it stands at $187,500.
Another important part of the report is the Kona vs. West Coast residential inventory. For details, see page 7.
One other important parts of this report is the headlines from DQNEWS.COM. In this report we see that Southern CA reported a median price jump, up 23.5% from a year ago. West Coast data is considered to be a leading indicator for market direction here on Hawaii Island.
