We have all been victims of the greatest crime of 2021 — the crime by greedy, selfish and myopic real estate agents, sellers and buyers, who have boosted the median house price on Oahu, Maui and Kauai above $1 million.
A year ago July, the median house price on Oahu was $815,000. That increased $185,000 in one year — that’s up 23% in one year.
But Oahu was not the worst hit by far. The median price of single- family homes on Maui hit $1,117,500 in June, up 44.5% from the year before. On Kauai, the median price in June was $1.1 million, up 82% in one year. That’s insane.
It needs to be stressed that we are not talking about the finest homes on the island. The median price is the price for homes in the middle, where half of all homes for sale are higher priced, and half are lower priced. These are average, modest, mediocre, middle- class homes. They are homes of the working class. Half of all house buyers have chosen something better. It is the middle, median home that is now selling for a million dollars.
What will this do to our people? How can they afford to live here? Can’t real estate agents, sellers and buyers read that we are losing local residents who just can’t make it in Hawaii? Are they blind when they drive down the streets and pass homeless encampments? Can’t they put “two and two together” to realize they have abetted in creating this problem?
It seems much of the news media have been celebrating this million-dollar achievement. Why are they not condemning it? This is not a stellar accomplishment. This is a horrendous wrong against our people. The news media need to be helping to get a leash on real estate agents, sellers and buyers.
And where are our leaders of government? Oh, this is America. We are a capitalist country with constitutional restrictions prohibiting interference in commerce and the free flow of capital.
So what are we left with? Praying for a recession to reverse prices?
Can’t something be done?
The average salary for people of Waianae is $18,000 a year. To make more, many travel 30 miles each way for work each day in horrific traffic, sometimes taking more than two hours each way. Commuters from the West side and from Central Oahu all fight unbelievable traffic for many hours a week. Our young people see this. It isn’t at all a pretty life. When they find that all the struggle is useless and they will never be homeowners, they will give up. Many more will move away. They are the victims of this great crime.
We need our young people to stay home. The alternative will be a predominance of old people, bringing in young foreigners to take on their care, and eventually to take the islands. Are we such fools?
We in Hawaii endure so much as Americans — decades of suppression of Hawaiians and forbidding their language and culture, the attack on Pearl Harbor, internment of our Japanese, the military occupying 20% of our land for $1, fuel tanks leaking over Oahu drinking water, nuclear bombs stored just blocks from homes in Ewa, us becoming the American target for North Korea, the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer. And now $1 million median homes as a gift from unbridled American capitalism. All of this on top of the U.S. overthrow of our Hawaiian kingdom, illegal annexation and a bogus statehood vote.
Enough is enough. It’s time to at least give some thought to what a restored Hawaiian nation would be like — for all of us.
Kioni Dudley is a retired educator, Piilani Kaopuiki is a civil rights activist and Poka Laenui is a lawyer and Hawaiian sovereignty activist; public-school teacher Aoloa Patao also co-signed this.
