As you know bank of Hawaii Chief Economist Paul Brewbaker is one of our favorite sources of information. He has just released his January Hawaii Economic Trends. Here are some high points:

Hawaii’s labor market is still tight, but monthly unemployment rates increased by 1 percentage point—from 2 to 3 percent—during 2007, rising at an accelerating pace. This is because labor force growth also slowed, reversing to

-0.1 to -0.2 percent in October and November 2007…Despite high and rising energy and commodity prices, lower inflation took hold in Hawaii during 2007…Tourism declined slightly in 2007 from record arrivals volumes in 2006, but constant-dollar tourism receipts and total visitor days extended their decreases from 2006 for the second year in a row. (At roughly $12 billion, constant-dollar visitor expenditure today is $2 billion lower than two decades ago.)….Construction activity continued to rise in Hawaii through 2007, driven by prior building commitments and the full ramp-up of military housing privatization-related homebuilding…Housing production in Hawaii has been in decline since the beginning of 2006.

Comments specifically related to real estate include:

the lag between home price movements between the mainland and Hawai is shrinking. Technology has reduced the information asymmetry that used to put out-of-state investors at a disadvantage, and allowed more aspects of investors. search process in real estate to be efficient. Still, the