- Image by wallyg via Flickr
The Princeville real estate market, found on the Garden Island of Kauai, benefitted from the overall strength of the Kauai housing market, which saw a sharp increase in the number of single-family homes. Although Princeville in particular saw extremely strong growth in the month of November, the median sales price fell sharply over the same period. According to the Honolulu Star Advertiser, all three of the main neighbor island housing markets are poised to finish the year with a mixture of lower prices and higher sales volume. The town of Hanalei, which is home to the Princeville Resort, saw a total of eleven sales in November of 2010 compared to only two in November of 2009. On the Garden Island as a whole, buyers purchased forty single-family homes, a sharp increase of seventy-four percent from twenty-three a year earlier. The median sales price decreased, although not as sharply as sales volume increased. The average figure was $452,500, a nineteen percent drop from the $558,000 reported in November of 2009. However, given the small total number of homes sold, the median may not be as accurate as in a larger market, with just a few home or homes potentially skewing the figures.
Condominiums, on the other hand, saw a more modest increase in the number of sales, but saw positive growth in the average sales price. Whereas seventeen condos were sold in November 2010, sixteen were sold in November of 2009, marking a modest six percent increase year-over-year. Over the same time period, the median price increased by thirty percent, moving from $300,000 to $390,000 between November 2009 and November 2010. Over the entire January-November period, there were three hundred and sixteen single-family homes sold on Kauai relative to two hundred and twenty-four a year ago, while there were two hundred and seventeen condominiums sold compared to one hundred and forty five a year ago. Over the same eleven-month period, the median price for single family homes rose from $453,000 to $475,000, while the average price for condominiums dropped from $392,500 to $345,750.
