Maui Banyan H514 List Price: $345,000 1bd/2ba

Maui Banyan H514 View

Maui Banyan is one of South Kihei’s popular vacation rental destinations.  The resort is located right across the street from Kamaole Beach Park II and within walking distance to some great restaurants.  Why is unit H15 a great opportunity?

You can see from the photo above that H514 has a decent ocean view and is just high enough in elevation so when people are parking their cars, they do not look directly into the unit.  This unit was in a rental program and was one of the more popular rentals. The list price is $345,000 and it is being represented by Coldwell Banker Island Properties.  I can represent you as a buyer’s agent, contact me for more information.

This post was published by Ken K.K. Wong REALTOR(S) an agent with Coldwell Banker Island Properties on October 23, 2011.

The two photos in the gallery above is of the same kitchen at a unit in the Maui Banyan Resort.  It just closed yesterday for $455,000 and was on the market for almost a year at 300 days on market.  The seller bought the unit in August of 2009 for $365,000 and as you can see just from the kitchen photos, put alot of time and effort into this flip.  Another example of flipping is occurring at Pacific Shores.  A unit there was purchased this past July for $163,080 and it just came back to market at $314,900.  That unit is now pending continue to show and has only been on the market for 12 days.  The market is very strong at the high end and low end.  As the inventory starts to dry up prices will start to creep up, especially as flipping season gets more healthy.

This post was published by Ken K.K. Wong REALTOR®(S) an agent with Coldwell Banker Island Properties on September 14, 2011.

I want to say thank you to all of the men and women who fight or have died to keep our country safe.  With all of the memorials and thoughts of gratitude going on today it got me thinking about the past and how was Maui’s real estate market in 2001.  Since a majority of my sales have been in the condominium market, I’ve chosen several South Maui condos to compare.

In total 688 condominiums were sold in South Maui for $173,729,878 with an average price of $252,514 in 2001.  Compare that to today’s sales since January 2011 of 417 condos for $236,983,039 with the average price being $568,304.

Average Sales Price:

Kamaole Sands:  2001: $234,676  2011: $339,800

Keonekai Villages:  2001: $141,836  2011: $162,500

Palms at Wailea:  2001: $485,181  2011: $912,500

Makena Surf:  2001: $1,329,714  2011: $1,950,000

Maui Banyan:  2001: $214,777  2011: $338,333

Wailea Ekolu:  2001: $445,277  2011: $590,000

The past ten years has been a wild ride for South Maui’s condo market.  In more recent history, condominium sales are on the rise and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.  If anything, I think we will start to see units that were recently sold come back to market all fixed up.  There is still a chance for you to find your opportunity to buy Maui at reasonable prices.

This post was published by Ken K.K. Wong REALTOR (S) an agent with Coldwell Banker Island Properties on September 11, 2011.

The Chinese are coming?

It has been about a month since direct flights from Shanghi China to Honolulu first started.  The flights arrive on Tuesdays and Fridays and are projected to bring in about $60,000,000 in revenue to the state.  How will this affect the Maui real estate market?  It is in my opinion that it will not have any major affect on our market.  From first hand experience, I know that Chinese people always want to have a little bit of Chinese culture around and places where they can congregate and hang out with friends.  In larger cities, this place is called Chinatown.  Just before Hong Kong went back to Chinese control, the city of Vancouver had a small Chinatown.  Now, Vancouver’s Chinatown is one of the nicest in Canada and second only to San Francisco.  So, if Maui wants to take advantage of several million new millionaires, we’d better build that Chinatown fast.  I’m sure home sales and condos sales would increase.  Besides, Maui could use some good Chinese food.

This post was published by Ken K.K. Wong REALTOR®(S) an agent with Coldwell Banker Island Properties on September 7, 2011.

Wailea Beach Villas

The high end, luxury South Maui real estate market is on fire this year.  People with considerable amounts of money are buying up multi million dollar estates here in Wailea & Makena.  Currently, there are 12 properties under contract with a list price of $2,000,000 or more.  Half of those properties are listed for $5,000,000 or more.  The sales figures since the first of January are just as amazing for South Maui’s luxury market.  37 properties sold for $2,000,000 or more and 9 of those properties sold for $5,000,000 or more.  The highest being a Makena, four bedroom/five and a half, ocean front estate selling for $27,000,000.  Want to know another interesting bit of information?  8 out of 9 sales over $5,000,000 were cash sales.  Just because the high end market has very little inventory at this time does not mean that there aren’t other deals to be made.  Contact me to find out South Maui’s other great opportunities.

Kihei Kai Nani is a medium sized resort with 180 units spread out over 5.19 acres.  It is located right across the street from Kamaole Beach Park II and within walking distance to several shopping areas and restaurants.  The resort features a pavilion deck, which is great for parties, a large 60′x30′ swimming pool, shuffle board and several BBQ areas for those sunset cookouts.

Unit 174 is towards the back of the resort, away from the noise of South Kihei Road and the very popular Fred’s Mexican Restaurant.  This unit has not been in the vacation rental pool and has been owner occupied or rented long term the past couple of years.  If you are thinking about making this unit a vacation rental, Kihei Kai Nani has an onsite property management company which charges between $85 to $139 per night depending on the time of year and upgrades to the unit.  Questions concerning vacation rentals should be directed to John Longmire of Kihei Kai Nani Rentals at www.kiheikainani.com.  Unit 174 is wheel chair friendly with parking close to the unit.  There are no stairs required to climb to get to the unit.  The unit features tile flooring, a tankless water heater, extra storage on the lanai, and it has a washer and dryer in the unit.  Many of the units have to use the onsite laundry facilities.  The unit is being sold unfurnished and is ready for you to add your own personal touches.  Owning a vacation rentable condominium allows you visit Maui on your own terms.  Why not make this condo be the one.

This post was published by Ken K.K. Wong REALTOR®(S) an agent with Coldwell Banker Island Properties on July 21 at 5:46 pm.

Renaissance Wailea To Become Andaz Wailea Resort & Residences

One of my favorite restaurants used to be “The Maui Onion” at the old Renaissance Wailea Resort.  A visitor to my open house inquired about what is going to happen to the property since Bacarrat did not develop the property.  After a bit of research, here’s what information I came up with.

Hyatt Hotels Corporation and an affiliate of Starwood Capital Group have agreed to do a joint venture and redevelop the old Renaissance into Andaz Wailea Resort and Residences.  Andaz is a division of Hyatt Hotels which specializes in providing attentive, uncomplicated services to their guests while reflecting the spirit of the individual hotel’s location, and are dedicated to creating natural and vibrant living spaces.  Andaz Wailea is projected to be a resort featuring 255 rooms and 35 suites ranging in square footage from 456 to 2,321 and six four bedroom villas averaging about 3,500 square feet.  Of course all the amenities will be there too.  The resort is being designed by  an internationally acclaimed architect and designer David Rockwell of Rockwell Group.  The hotel is slated to open in the fourth quarter of 2012.

This post was published by Ken K.K. Wong REALTOR®(S) an agent with Coldwell Banker Island Properties on April 10, 2011.

Canadian Dollar History via Yahoo! Finance

Today is April 4, 2011 and the Canadian Dollar is worth $1.03 versus the American Dollar.  I’ve also done a little research regarding several condominium complexes here in South Maui.  Most of the average prices have dropped to about 2004-2005ish price levels.  For example the average price for a two bedroom unit at Kamaole Sands sold for $511,805 in 2010.  The last time prices were in that range occurred in 2004 when the average sale price was $538,460 for a two bedroom unit.  If you look at the graph above, the Canadian Dollar was worth around $0.80 compared to the American Dollar.  What does that mean?  It means as a Canadian buyer, you have about $0.23 on the dollar more in buying power than you did in 2004.  Of course all of this is base largely on the price per barrel of oil. And as I see it, cheap oil is a thing of the past.

This post was published by Ken K.K. Wong REALTOR®(S) an agent with Coldwell Banker Island Properties on April 4, 2011.

Residential Condominium: Keonekai Villages

Somebody came into my open house today asking what kind of properties are selling these days.  Here’s the information I came up with:

190 properties are under contract and in escrow here in South Maui.  The lowest priced property is listed for $99,000 and the highest property is listed for $6,000,000.  74 of the properties are listed as potential short sales and 32 are bank owned properties.  Of the 190 properties, 79 properties are listed for $300,000 or less.  19 properties are listed for $1,000,000 or more.  Out of the 190 properties, 132 are condominiums and 49 of those 132 are vacation rentable.  The remaining 58 properties under contract are homes with the exception of one parcel of vacant land in Makena listed for $6,000,000.  The price range of the homes under contract range from $249,000 to $5,995,000.

I hope this post wasn’t too confusing but I wanted to give you an overview of what is selling here in South Maui.  Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
This post was published by Ken K.K. Wong REALTOR®(S) an agent with Coldwell Banker Island Properties on April 1, 2011.

South Kihei Condominium Sales

Wailea and Makena Condominium Sales

I absolutely love the Kamaole Beach Park areas of South Kihei all the way to Makena Beach.  This has to be some of the most desirable locations to own real estate.  Since I deal mostly with condominiums, I thought I would post some interesting sales data.  The data is divided into two specific areas: South Kihei, Wailea and Makena.  The areas are further broken down into vacation rentable condominium and residential condominiums.  The most recent sales data was used for each category and was taken from the Maui Multiple Listing Service.  For more current and in depth information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

This post was published by Ken K.K. Wong REALTOR®(S)  an agent with Coldwell Banker Island Properties on March 24, 2011.