It is that time again. No..I don’t mean tax time.  Market stats time.  So here we are with another set of data to go through.  You can view the full market stats by clicking here.  To view all past market stats and the quarterly stats as well go to The Resource Center.

Feel free to check out the articles from the local news papers by reading, Oahu’s Housing Price Median Still $600,000 in the Honolulu Advertiser, Oahu’s Median Home Resale Price Is Flat In January in the Honolulu Advertiser, and Oahu Homes Sales Continue Slump in the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

Helping sustain home prices is a state economy that continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace, as well as low unemployment, rising personal income, limited new-home construction and demand from out-of-state retirees and investors.

Barring some reason for major population loss on O’ahu, home prices are forecast to remain comparatively stable, with only small declines, if any, said Paul Brewbaker, chief economist at Bank of Hawaii.

On page 4 of 20 the number of SFH and condo sales dropped again this month.  Keep in mind, January sales data is December escrows.  How many times have you wanted to move during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Not fun!  Though the numbers are lower than the January 2007 numbers for both SFH’s and Condos.

On page 6 of 20 the median sales price for SFH’s is $600,000, down from $610,000 the previous month, but the exact same price as January of 2007.  The median sales price for a condo is $324,000, up from $320,000 in January of 2007.  If you look at the trend for condo sales the past year the floating range is between $320,000 and $330,000 consistently.

On page 7 of 20 the median number of Days-On-Market (DOM) decreased for condos from 47 days to 42 days.  The median number of DOM for SFH’s increased from 51 to 61 days.  These are both very healthy.  That is roughly two months or less.

On page 14 of 20 the inventory of active listings stayed almost the same for SFH’s and condos for this month with 1,876 SFH’s and 2,349 condos actively on the market. This is good.  You would expect to see people putting hteir homes on the market at the same rate and home inventory increasing, due to the slowdown in the number of sales, but this shows that, not only have buyers slowed down, but sellers slowed down.  I call it the seasonal effect.  It is the was the holidays and we are now getting back into the new year.

On page 18 of 20 we have the Months of Inventory Remaining.  This means if we didn’t bring anymore homes on the market, how long would it take to sell all of the properties.  For SFH’s it is 7.8 months and for condos it is 6.7 months.

On page 19 of 20 we see the breakdown by type of property, price range and geographic area.  The $1.0 million plus SFH’s have 15 months of inventory available.  The North Shore alone has 19.4 months of inventory.  Below $1.0 million the inventory is roughly half that or less.  For condos, the $500,000 or higher condo price range has 10.2 months of inventory and the North Shore is king with 53 months of inventory.  There was one condo sale on the North Shore and 53 active listings.

The economist still say we should hold our price valuations.  I will continue to monitor the number of sales and the New Listing Activity to see where we sit with supply and demand. Feel free to read Harvey’s Blog Post on the January Stats.

Harvey Shapiro, research analyst for the Honolulu Board of Realtors, said that if mortgage rates continue to trend downward, it will make financing for those who can qualify much less costly.  Also, the weaker dollar could attract new demand from overseas purchasers, Shapiro said.  Ishii said buyers have the best selection that they have had since August 2006.