Well, Summer on Kauai is over, the days are starting to lengthen.  Soon from the Princeville hotel while sipping a cool drink, we’ll be watching the Fall sun setting over the Bali Hai/Makana mountain range, instead of the Blue Pacific ocean.  The waves will come back, along with the yahoo surfer crowd at Black Pot, ripping that last wave, until reluctantly they paddle back to the beach in the dark .. like children who’ve been asked to come in for dinner while still wanting to play.  In a few more months, the whales will swim back down from Alaska to give birth and play in the warm Hawaiian waters, the turtles.. well.. the turtles. what in the heck will the turtles be doing?  Darn, probably the same thing they did this summer..swimming around, acting cool..

You know it’s really hard to come up with season changing dialogue in a place where the seasons never really change!� I’m trying to describe the change from Summer to Winter in Kauai, and I’m at a TOTAL loss.  I've found that one of the oddest things about living on Kauai is that the seasons don’t change much.  You don’t get out the winter clothes, the trees don’t lose their leaves, the grass doesn’t go all brown and ugly on you, there’s not much of a Fall “chill”.  What you get every 3 months here is more of the same great stuff: Sunshine, Surf and Sand, and lots of GREEN!   If you want to break out those cute Uggs, the neck sweater, and the hip trench, maybe you should move to Detroit, not Kauai.  Hmm..on second thought I guess the Uggs could look like of cute with a bathing suit. Yes, keep the Uggs.

Kauai, the place of the truly endless summerKauai, where time stands still.. .sort of.

Well, enough with the sappy poetic musings...how is Real Estate Market on Kauai you want to know, right?   Drum roll pa-leeees!!  I’m proud and pleased as a Kauai Rooster to happily announce we are.....(insert drum roll)  At the Bottom! Or should I say, we are still ...At The Bottom? and we might be for a bit longer, but don’t wait too long.  Now is a great time to get out your Haggle Hat, and haggle yourself a good deal  AND still get a good interest rate, but that window could pass.  So Chop! Chop!  As we all know, the only true Litmus test of The Bottom is when it’s climbing back up again.

Alrighty then, here we go!  Number of Sales on the Island overall (combining land, commercial condo, and house) was down considerably:  40% from last August.  The bright spot that doesn’t show up in that stats was that when you look at the breakdown we didn’t do that bad.  Overall numbers for the Island showed we actually sold a few more Houses this August than last August (26 vs 21 up 23%).   Not a big surprise, Vacant land was way down 56% from last year.  Condos were down 80% (24 vs 5).  Other specific numbers showed we sold more houses on the north shore this year than last 7 vs 5.  We sold zero condos on the North Shore this month vs 8 last year for August.  As a betting woman, I would say I would have to go back pretty far in the years to find an August when there wasn’t a single condo on the North Shore sold.  Summer numbers being our busy numbers, that’s quite a feat!   Vacant land was also very slow.  We sold zero this month on the North shore compared to 4 lots sold last year this time.  Year to date overall numbers showed a decrease of 37% in combined units sales over last year.  This is holding steady with June 2008 38% down and July 2008 36% down.  So we are in the “trench” as I like to call it, or The Bottom if you prefer.

To further illustrate we are at The Bottom, some East side vacant land is beginning to move�finally. We sold one more lots than we did last year (4 vs 3)  Prices have finally gone down far enough for people to realize the value.  North shore land is still pretty pricey and will probably have to drop a bit more for it to begin to move.  No one is biting up there, but make a deal because you never know. Condos unit sales, as has been the case, were down on the east side (2 vs 7 last year).  East side house sales were on even par with last year, another possible sign that the market might see improvement ahead (9 vs 9).

Lihue unit numbers were very low, as is usually for that area, but fairly stable over last year’s numbers.  Poipu/Koloa area showed an increase in homes sold (5 this year vs 3 last), but vacant land was down as was condos.

Looking at Sales Volume, overall for all sales on the Island, we were down 34% from last year.  Surprisingly, house sales volume showed a 61% increase which was in part due to a large $8M sale of a North shore oceanfront estate.  But still, even canceling that out, we were up over $2M this year over last year $16M vs $18M� not too shabby give the dismal market we’ve been in.  In other news..Vacant land down 66%, condos down 90%.... I’m sorry, but that’s not a misprint. Condos down 90% this year over last..  Want to buy a cute little condo on the north shore of Kauai?   Now is the time to make a deal.  Condo Sellers are crying the Real Estate Blues and want to see any offer they can get right now.

Taking away that $8M sales, North Shore home Sales volume indicates houses sales are up about 25% from last year.  Yippee!   Vacant land ..zippo, condos, zippo we didn’t sell one of either on the North shore in August.  Not one lousy condo, or one lousy vacant lot.  How sad.

East Side sales volume is down (prices have dropped from last year), and Koloa/Poipu shows a increase in house sales volume, but a massive decrease condo volume and substantial decreases in land volume.

Moving on to Median Sales prices: overall on the Island residential sales prices showed a 15% decline over last month: Down from last year to $530K from $624K.  July’s decline was 10% so we moved just slightly deeper into the trench on pricing in August.  Vacant land showed a 54% decrease, from $500K to $227K, condos dropped from $587K to $250K a 57% decrease.  That big drop is mostly due to the fact that there were no condos sales on the north shore last month, and only one in Poipu.  Lihue had two sales of obviously very low end units.  Koloa homes increase in price 17% from last month $480K vs $565K.  Median sales prices for homes on the North Shore showed an increase of 58% but the 3 sales over $2M out of  7 sales total skewed that number up just slightly.  High end stuff sold nicely this month on the North Shore.  The super wealthy always find good deals in any market... Ya think that's maybe why they made all that money in the first place?  Hmmmm.

Well that's the long and short of it this month.  Hope to see you on the Island soon, and don't forget your Uggs, or your Haggle Hat.  And, please, try not to look like Dr. Suess.  

Your Realtor, AnnMarie