Lynda Gill’s Poipu, Kauai, Hawaii Real Estate at Pacific Ocean Properties

Home Sales Begin 2011 With An Upward Trend and Historic “Faye House” Comes On The Market

Home sales in Hawaii continued their upward trend in January  while prices slightly slip on all islands except……Kauai and Maui. Single-family homes on Kauai bucked the statewide trend with flat sales but higher prices, while single-family homes on Maui also showed upward movement on prices. Meanwhile, Oahu, which had seen prices nudge upward last year, saw the median price of both single-family homes and condominiums slip slightly. Note that the smaller number of sales on the Neighbor Islands tends to create more dramatic percentage changes than on Oahu?  This is because the outer islands economics are more volatile due to their reliance on tourism while Oahu has a much broader economic base.

Good news for us here on Kauai last week in sales.  We had a larger number of properties that went into escrow and sold than what came on the market.  A really interesting listing is the historic “Faye House” on the north shore that came on the market for $24.5 Million dollars.  This home has never been on the market before and has been in the family since 1915.  It’s on 2 acres of level prime beachfront land in Hanalaei.  It’s impossible to duplicate a historic home like this one.  Email me for a complete MLS sheet on this one.  For an excel spreadsheet of what went into escrow, sold and came on the market CLICK HERE 

Really big news is Obama’s administrations desire to shrink the government’s role in the mortgage system.  The Treasury Department rolled out a plan last Friday to slowly dissolve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who played a part in 90% of the new mortgages last year and who own or guarantee about half of all mortgages in the United States.

Seeking to shift loans away from the government backed Freddie and Fannie would rewrite 70 years of federal housing policy, from Fannie’s creation as part of the “New Deal” of the 1930’s to Freddie Macs birth in 1970.  The government wants the private sector to take a more prominent role and this currently is not possible with the two giants offering rates and terms at a reduced price that is not possible for the private sector to offer.  However the price is incredible taxpayer risk as we have seen in the bailouts.

Exactly how far the government’s role in mortgages would be reduced was left to Congress to decide and the plan would probably not happen for at least five years and would proceed “very carefully.”

Hawaii Hotel Numbers Up!

Hawaii hotel rooms were about three-fourths full during the week ending Feb. 5, and average room rates across the state were strikingly higher than during the same week in 2010, according to Smith Travel Research and Hospitality Advisors.  The average statewide hotel occupancy rate was 74.7 percent, up 7.3 percentage points from the same week a year ago.

Island by island breakdown is:

Oahu’s 81.3 percent occupancy rate was 9.4 percentage points higher than the same week last year.

Maui’s occupancy rate of 77.4 percent was 4.4 percentage points higher than a year ago The Big Island’s 60.9 percent occupancy rate was 8.2 percentage points higher compared to the same week last year

Kauai’s occupancy rate of 51.9 percent was 1.6 percentage points higher than a year ago.

As for the room rates the numbers look good there too and Kauai came in second highest place for gains.

The average statewide room rate of $184.33 was up 8.7 percent compared to the same week in 2010.

Oahu’s average room rate of $161.15 was 13.1 percent higher than the same week a year ago, and Kauai’s average room rate of $191.38 was 8 percent higher than the same week last year. The Big Island’s average room rate of $191.25 was 7.8 percent higher than during the same week a year ago, and Maui’s average room rate of $230.17 was 4.6 percent higher than the same week last year.

Injured Humpback Whale Spotted Off Port Allen

A humpback whale sporting an accentuated curved back, spotted Monday off Port Allen, wasn’t necessarily hit by a vessel, according to an official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“We don’t know for sure, any number of things could’ve happened,” NOAA marine mammal response coordinator David Schofield said. “It could be scoliosis, which is any curvature on the back.”

Schofield, however, didn’t discard a vessel collision, saying the animal could have been hit in an early stage, and then got an infection that caused the scoliosis.

Humpback whales are usually dark gray or black, with white spots and patches. The whale spotted by flight instructor Gerry Charlebois had a much different color pattern.

“The white coloration with the dark patches, and the whale lice on the patches, is definitely a sign of not being healthy,” said Schofield, adding that the whale could have swam all the way from Alaska even if it was already sick.