1. Maui Consistently rated the "Best Island in the World" by travel experts, this Hawaiian beauty underwent a growth spurt during the past decade that some critics bemoaned as excessive. But the southern coast, anchored by the hamlet of Wailea, has weathered it all well. One of the first master-planned resort communities in the nation, it's a balanced blend of understated gated communities, luxury resort hotels, three excellent golf courses, a tennis center and, of course, several crescent sandy beaches. Wailea has 500 single-family homes, and their views are stunning: lush, verdant hills, brilliantly blue ocean and, after the steamy sun showers, rainbows over the horizon.

 

Hear! Hear!

 

Increasing tourism on Maui can only be good news for the Maui real estate market.

 

For first time home buyers that tax credit is $8000 and for repeat home buyers that credit is $6500.

 

What does this tell us? Could be a pretty good time to lock in rates.

The industry is in shambles for two reasons, the first of which must be lived with if the U.S. economy is to recover. This reason concerns U.S. housing starts (including apartment units). In 2009, starts were 554,000, by far the lowest number in the 50 years for which we have data. Paradoxically, this is

good news. People thought it was good news a few years back when housing starts – the supply side of the picture – were running about two million annually. But household formations – the demand side – only amounted to about 1.2 million. After a few years of such imbalances, the country unsurprisingly ended up with far too many houses. There were three ways to cure this overhang: (1) blow up a lot of houses, a tactic similar to the destruction of autos that occurred with the “cash-for-clunkers” program; (2) speed up household formations by, say, encouraging teenagers to cohabitate, a program not likely to suffer from a lack of volunteers or; (3) reduce new housing starts to a number far below the rate of household formations. Our country has wisely selected the third option, which means that within a year or so residential housing problems should largely be behind us, the exceptions being only high-value houses and those in certain localities where overbuilding was particularly egregious. Prices will remain far below “bubble” levels, of course, but for every seller (or lender) hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits. Indeed, many families that couldn’t afford to buy an appropriate home a few years ago now find it well within their means because the bubble burst.

For those interest in Maui Real Estate the bold is obviously the most interesting part of the text.

Data through December 2009, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller

1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that the U.S. National Home Price Index fell in the fourth quarter of 2009 but has improved in its annual rate of return, as compared to what was reported in the third quarter.

That is year over year. What that then implies is we are seeing month over month improvements. Indeed prices rose in December in Dallas, Denver, San Diego and San Francisco. 

 

Home sale prices in Southern California showed fresh strength in January, bouncing 8.6% from the same month one year earlier — a period when the market was inundated with steeply discounted bank-owned properties.

 

This is undoubtedly good news, but it isn't all the news.

 

But compared with a particularly strong December, the median fell 6.1% to $271,500 in January, ending eight consecutive months of price appreciation

 

This is largely a function of the change in "mix" with the lower priced Inland Empire being even more active in January.  This report must be viewed as good news with apples to apples prices increasing while unemployment remains high.

 

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