Median price of 1-family Maui houses hits $615,000

It wasn’t close to a record, but the median sale price for single-family houses on Maui in June ticked up to its highest point for any month in almost five years.

The Realtors Association of Maui issued its June sales report Saturday showing that houses sold for a median $615,000 last month.

That was up 7 percent from $575,500 in the same month last year, and was the highest for any month since August 2008, when the median was $645,000.

But the record, which was set in May 2005 and matched in July 2006, remains a relatively long distance away at $780,000.

Coincidently, Oahu’s housing market report issued Monday showed that the median price for single-family houses sold in June on Hawaii’s most populous island reached $677,250 and came within 1 percent of the record $685,000 set in June 2007.

On Maui, broad strength in sales activity across the island appeared to drive the median price increase.

For instance, the core of the Valley Isle’s housing market, Central Maui, had 20 sales for a median $430,000 in June compared with 18 sales for a median $390,000 a year earlier. And at the high end in Wai­lea/Ma­kena, there were six sales for a median $3 million in June compared with three sales for a median $1.4 million a year earlier.

The total number of single-family house sales in June was 91, up from 86 a year earlier.

For the first half of the year, the number of sales was up 10 percent to 485 from 440 in the same period last year. The median price for the same comparable period is up 20 percent to $542,000 from $450,000.

In Maui’s condominium market there were 124 sales last month, compared with 122 a year earlier. The median price rose 5 percent to $390,000 from $372,990.

Maui’s median condo price has been higher in several months during the past few years. The condo median price peaked at $820,000 in January 2009, spurred in part by the sale of new luxury resort condos that the Realtors Association of Maui includes in its sales data. On Oahu the Hono­lulu Board of Realtors counts only sales of previously owned houses.

So far this year, Maui’s median condo price is up 6 percent to $372,500 from $351,495 in the same period last year. The number of sales is up 1 percent to 672 from 668 in the same period.