You read that right, kids: since January 2008, a solid 52 percent of homes sold in Maui County have been to buyers from either the Mainland or foreign nations, states a new report from the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT). According to the report, this trend appeared only in Maui County, according to the report, with Honolulu, Hawaii and Kauai counties all showing at least 54.6 percent of their home sales during this period were to local residents.
This table, which appears in the report, shows this trend pretty dramatically:
The report states that home sales in the neighbor islands to mainlanders or foreign buyers made up a far greater percentage than those on Oahu.
“Of the homes sold statewide, 72.5 percent were sold to Hawaii residents, 23.5 percent sold to U.S. mainlanders, and 4 percent sold to foreigners,” states a Dec. 1 DBEDT press release on the new report. “About 47 percent of the neighbor island homes were sold to out-of-state residents, while only 15 percent of Oahu homes were sold to out-of-state residents.”
Keep in mind home sales in Maui County during the period of January 2008 to September 2015 (the years in the DBEDT study) made up just a small percentage of total home sales in Hawaii (20,752 sales in Maui County out of 139,998 for the entire state). That being said, the trend is still fascinating–especially when you look at where these homes are in Maui County that are so attractive to Mainland and foreign buyers. This chart, also taken from the DBEDT report, shows a couple areas are especially popular (the pink bar represents local buyers, the dark gray Mainland buyers and the teal foreign buyers:
According to this chart, way more than half of home sales in West and South Maui from January 2008 to September 2015 were to Mainland or foreign buyers. Further, nearly half of home sales in the same period on Molokai and in East Maui were to people who weren’t local residents.
As for where these non-local residents buyers are from, the report provides some detail. For Mainland buyers, the report states that slightly more than half came from just three U.S. states: California, Oregon and Washington (the report doesn’t break down what states the Mainland buyers in Maui County came from). But for foreign buyers, the report offers a little more info. In fact, it states that Canadians really seem to love Maui County–53.5 percent of the 2,497 homes Canadians bought in Hawaii from 2008 to 2015 were in Maui County.
The DBEDT report states that their data came from Title Guaranty, “which is based on the recorded conveyances from the Hawaii Bureau of Conveyances.” This data includes resales of existing homes and new developments as well as single family houses and condominiums.
Click here to read the DBEDT report.
Photo: LeBlanc Construction Photos 2012/Wikimedia Commons
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