Hawaii

Report: Home Affordability In Hawaii Is 'As Bad As It’s Ever Been'

Published

2 years ago

May 21, 2024

Report: Home Affordability In Hawaii Is 'As Bad As It’s Ever Been'

Only 1 in 5 households in Hawaii can afford to buy a single-family home — a dramatic drop from just three years ago, according to a grim housing report released by the University of Hawaii on Monday.

In 2021, 44% of Hawaii households could afford the mortgage on a median-priced single-family home. That figure is now 20%. As a result, home sales plummeted last year, hitting a 25-year low. But the slump had little impact on prices.

“We haven’t really seen any drop in prices, but there’s this huge increase in what it costs to buy a house because of interest rates,” said Justin Tyndall, an assistant professor of economics with the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization and the lead author of the report. “Affordability is as bad as it’s ever been.”

University Avenue and South King Street area in foreground with apartment rentals surrounded by condominiums. — Hawaii has “both the highest construction costs and highest land costs of any state in the U.S.,” according to the report. However, regulatory costs play a dramatic role in the state’s high condo prices. (Cory Lum/Civil Beat/2022)

High interest rates have had a crippling effect on would-be homeowners in the state by not only making mortgages significantly more unaffordable, but also reducing the number of houses on the market.

A majority of mortgage-holders in the state are paying an interest rate of less than 4%, according to the report, making many homeowners wary of putting their home on the market and trying to purchase something else at a much higher interest rate.

The state’s housing market has also worsened for renters in the last year. Hawaii has the highest median rents in the nation and a majority of renters — 56% — are considered “rent-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent.

The Maui fires worsened the state’s housing crisis, causing prices to rise while “the availability of rentals have plummeted,” according to the report.

Vacation Rentals And Out-Of-State Buyers

Short-term vacation rentals make up about 6% of the state’s housing stock, a figure that has grown in recent years but also varies dramatically by island. The number of active short-term rental listings grew 9% statewide between 2022 and 2023. Kauai saw the biggest spike, with a 22% jump in listings.

The number of short-term vacation rentals on Maui has actually increased slightly since the fires, despite the loss of 380 vacation rentals in West Maui and tax incentives for unit owners across the island to convert their units into long-term housing.

“The policy was supposed to incentivize a bigger shift away from vacation rentals and toward housing locals, but we haven’t really seen that in the aggregate,” Tyndall said.

While short-term vacation listings on Maui plummeted after the fire, they are now 2% higher than they were a year ago.

The report also found that “a significant portion of Hawaii’s property owners” are not residents of the state. People from out of state made up 13% of property owners on Oahu and 32% on Maui. More than half of property owners in Lahaina had an out-of-state mailing address.

On Maui, about 85% of vacation rentals are owned by people from out of state, Tyndall said.

Another big takeaway from the overall data, Tyndall said, is that the state isn’t building enough housing to have any real impact on affordability. The state has significant issues with permitting delays, although some progress has been made in the last year in multiple counties, according to the report.

However, strict limits on where multi-family homes can be constructed, along with steep developer fees and permitting delays contribute to the high costs of condos and “reduce the amount of new housing the state.”

“While many households have a preference for single-family homes, building high-rise condominiums can provide many more units, allowing vacancies to propagate across the market, and pushing down housing prices everywhere, including for single-family homes,” the report says.

Converting thousands of vacation rentals into long-term rentals — which Maui’s mayor is proposing to do — could have a really significant impact on affordability, Tyndall said.

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Hawaii

Community memorial service for Kazuo Todd today in Hilo – West Hawaii Today

Published

4 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Community memorial service for Kazuo Todd today in Hilo – West Hawaii Today

The funeral procession for deceased Fire Chief Kazuo Todd with pass-in-review for Hawaii Fire Department firefighters took place Saturday morning at HFD Administration in the County Building on Aupuni Street in Hilo.

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Hawaii

What’s Cooking: Celebrating Lunar New Year with Hawaii Dim Sum & Seafood

Published

16 hours ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

What’s Cooking: Celebrating Lunar New Year with Hawaii Dim Sum & Seafood

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A family-run Chinese restaurant in Honolulu’s Chinatown is gearing up for Lunar New Year festivities.

Hawaii Dim Sum & Seafood Restaurant owner Karen Tam and her son Kirave Liang joined HNN’s Sunrise to showcase their dim sum and Chinese specialties.

Lunar New Year specials include a special jai with 18 vegetarian ingredients and the sweet, sticky, steamed rice cake gau in brown sugar and coconut flavors, which symbolize good fortune and prosperity.

”We eat food with a lucky meaning to start the great year,” Tam said. “We have jin dui (sesame balls) every day.“

Feb. 17 marks the start of the year of the Fire Horse, when families gather to celebrate with big meals and auspicious dishes. Hawaii Dim Sum & Seafood will offer set party menus and special orders for foods not commonly found in Honolulu, such as whole stuffed duck, braised abalone in oyster sauce, and basin meal.

“It’s the biggest fest of the year. We celebrate Chinese New Year by eating with family in a round table,“ Tam said.

Hawaii Dim Sum & Seafood also has private rooms with karaoke systems and a banquet hall to accommodate small family gatherings to large parties.

Hawaii Dim Sum & Seafood is located on 111 N. King St. and is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, There is street parking and paid parking behind the restaurant on Nimitz and Maunakea.

For more information, visit hawaiidimsumseafood.com or follow on Instagram @hawaiidimsumseafood.

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Hawaii

Hawaii suffers first defeat of the season against Loyola Chicago | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Published

1 day ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

Hawaii suffers first defeat of the season against Loyola Chicago | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

The second-ranked Hawaii men’s volleyball team expected a different Loyola Chicago team to show up Friday night in the rematch of Thursday’s 94-minute sweep by UH.

They were certainly correct in that assessment.

Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said flatly the Ramblers were better after No. 7 Loyola Chicago handed Hawaii its first home loss in January in two years in a 25-23, 25-22, 24-26, 29-27 win before a season-high crowd of 5,811 at Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

Aleksandar Sosa put down a match-high 19 kills and setter Ryan McElligott set the tone with four of his five aces in the first set for Loyola Chicago (1-1), which out-served and out-blocked the Rainbow Warriors.

“I thought they touched a lot of balls on the block and those first two sets, the first set, we had three or four balls back on our side to score some points and we didn’t,” Wade said. “We kind of screwed it up. We weren’t quite as crisp and efficient and against a good team, we let them hang around and they come back and make some plays late.”

Hawaii looked done for the night trailing 20-13 when it mounted a furious comeback in the third set to avoid a sweep.

Loyola Chicago had five match points in the fourth set and finally put the contest away with a double block of Ofeck Hazan to complete the upset.

“I think they served way better and we really struggled passing their serve,” said Hazan, who started in place of Trevell Jordan in the middle. “They were more creative out of system. (Thursday) they just hit into our block and today they just found the touches or just played better.”

Louis Sakanoko led Hawaii with 18 kills and set a career high with 12 digs, and Kristian Titriyski added 16 kills before sitting out the fourth set. UH hit .254 for the match and had six aces to the Ramblers’ eight. Loyola Chicago hd 15.5 blocks to Hawaii’s 10.5.

“We weren’t clicking on all cylinders and I’m not trying to use this as an excuse, but (setter) Tread (Rosenthal) didn’t practice all week. He had a back that tightened up,” Wade said. “Trevell’s back tightened up and I thought Ofeck played pretty well and he gave us a nice spark, but you’re just a little off rhythm there. Kristian was kind of grabbing his back late and obviously we made the decision to go with Kainoa (Wade) to give us a spark and he gave us that.”

Kainoa Wade and Sakanoko each served three straight points for UH in the third set after it fell behind 20-13 and Finn Kearney came off the bench to serve the final two points that ended in blocks to get UH back in the game.

Hawaii hit just .171 in the fourth and made eight service errors. It had 20 serving errors for the match and served in at less than 80%.

“Obviously it’s a work in progress. We’re in game four of the year,” Kainoa Wade said. “We got a lot of work to do, but we’ve got to trust what we know. We’ve served a lot of balls in our lives, all of us, so we know we can go on runs and make plays.”

The Ramblers gave Hawaii a taste of its own medicine in the opening set with McElligott building a strong poker hand of aces during an 8-0 run during which Charlie Wade used both timeouts.

McElligott had three aces after Jake Read’s kill put him behind the service line, and despite two Hawaii timeouts and the media timeout, he poured it on until UH caught a break with a Loyola Chicago net violation on an overpass that almost certainly would have been a Ramblers point.

Sakanoko followed with back-to-back kills, including a deep tip into the far corner over a triple block that prompted Loyola Chicago to call timeout leading 17-14.

Hawaii extended the run to 5-0 after Titriyski put down a kill following a long rally to pull UH within a point.

The Rainbow Warriors got back to even at 22-all on Kainoa Wade’s ace as a serving sub. The set was tied once more until a Rosenthal service error and a McElligott ace for his fourth of the set handed UH its first set loss of the season.

Rosenthal wasn’t able to spin serve all night due to the back injury.

Neither team separated by more than a point in the second set until Justin Todd had two aces during a 4-0 UH run to put the ‘Bows ahead 13-10.

Hawaii led 21-19 when the Ramblers scored six of the next seven points to go up two sets to none.

UH’s only point during the final 6-1 run came on a Loyola Chicago service error. The Ramblers scored three of their points on errors by UH and another on their sixth ace of the match.

The Rainbow Warriors will have four days off before playing four matches in three days next week.

Hawaii has doubleheaders against Roberts Wesleyan and Rockhurst in reverse order on Wednesday and Friday.

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