Commercial property investment down 65%

A flood of money that investors channeled to buy hotels, shopping centers and other commercial real estate in Hawaii over the last two years has receded severely, according to a report released for publication today.

Local, mainland and foreign investors spent a relatively measly $1 billion on commercial property statewide this year through June, the report from Colliers International indicated.

The investment total represented a 65 percent decline from $3 billion in the first half of last year.

Colliers expects somewhat of a rebound in the second half of this year but predicts that Hawaii commercial property investment for the full year will lag the roughly $4.5 billion totals in each of the last two years and amount to only about $3.4 billion, which would be the lowest level in four years.

The commercial real estate brokerage firm said in the report that investor confidence has been rattled by global events earlier this year including Britain’s decision to exit the European Union, China’s stock market crash and fallen prices for commodities, including oil.

Some of these events, Colliers said, have driven foreign investors to look more at what they might consider safer investments in U.S. real estate, though there also has been a drag on such activity that contributed to a 16 percent decrease in U.S. commercial real estate sales this year through June as calculated by Real Capital Analytics.

“Hawaii followed similar downward investment sales trends to what happened nationally,” Colliers said in the report.

Colliers said in a March report on last year’s commercial property sale activity that it expected some decline this year because the supply of available properties had gone down. The company also noted that there were a couple of very big sales last year, including a partial stake in Ala Moana Center for $1.3 billion.

The biggest single transaction this year through June was $107 million paid for a rental town-home complex on Oahu called Oasis in Waipahu bought by California-based investment firm DiNapoli Capital Partners, the report said.

Overall, retail property sales accounted for the most sale volume, at $426 million through 28 transactions. These deals included the $86 million sale of Maui Mall and the $65 million sale of Lahaina Cannery Mall.

Resort and golf property was the second-biggest category, with $188 million in sales through five transactions. These deals included the $53 million sale of the Ala Moana Hotel near Waikiki, the $50 million sale of the Koa Kea Hotel on Kauai and the $39 million sale of the Waikoloa Marriott on Hawaii island.

There were 25 multifamily residential property sales for $168 million which were largely rental housing complexes such as the Palms at Kilani, a Wahiawa project purchased for $26 million by DiNapoli Capital.

Three other categories in the report were land (30 sales for $123 million), industrial (21 sales for $79 million) and office (16 sales for $74 million).

In terms of where the buyers were from, Colliers said Hawaii investors bought the most properties, 90 of 125 deals, while investors from the mainland or other countries spent the most money, $637 million of the $1 billion.