Hawaii’s housing shortage eased somewhat with the addition of 6,071 housing units from 2020 to 2022, with help from the state’s declining population, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Honolulu County accounted for 2,696 of the new housing units, while Hawaii County added 1,751 units. Maui County added 1,335 units and Kauai County accounted for 289 units. In all, there were an estimated 568,075 housing units statewide, with 373,875 on Oahu, 90,672 in Hawaii County, 72,927 in Maui County, 30,487 on Kauai and 114 in tiny Kalawao County on Molokai’s Kalaupapa Peninsula, according to the estimates released today.

Chief State Economist Eugene Tian with the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism said the average annual growth rate in housing units of 0.54% from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2022, was slightly lower than the 0.6% rate over the previous 10 years.

“But given that population has been declining,” he said, “the growth of housing units helped to reduce the housing shortage” — albeit mostly for those who could afford to buy a home. According to the Honolulu Board of Realtors, the median sale price for single-family homes on Oahu in April was $999,995 and for condos $500,000, down 10% and 2%, respectively, from the same month a year ago.

“Based on market demand, mainly driven by housing price and income growth, the production of 3,000 units a year is good to meet the market demand for those who can afford the homes,” Tian said in an email. “Based on pent-up demand (if housing is affordable, more people will purchase their own homes instead of double up with parents), Hawaii would need an average of 10,000 a year.”

Census Bureau estimates released in March showed the statewide population dropped 1% to 1.44 million from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2022, with Honolulu’s head count dipping below the 1 million mark to 995,638, a decline of 0.75%.

On the neighbor islands, Hawaii County saw the largest-percentage population growth among the state’s major counties at 2.8%, for a total of 206,315 residents. Maui County, meanwhile, saw a 0.25% drop in population to 164,351, and Kauai a net gain of 0.85% to 73,810.

The state’s population decline coincided with the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Hawaii experienced high unemployment and escalating inflation and housing costs, forcing many residents to move away for jobs and more affordable living on the mainland.

Tian noted that although Hawaii County saw an increase in both housing units and population over the two-year period, the growth rate for housing units did not keep pace with the rate of population increases, “meaning that the housing shortage worsened on the Big Island.”

In other counties, housing unit growth exceeded population growth, “so that housing shortage has been diminishing.”

More recently, residential construction slowed in the first quarter of 2023, according to Tian, mainly due to the high interest and mortgage rates, higher prices for construction materials, and population declines.

The latest Census Bureau estimates provided housing unit totals without breaking down the data by price range or more-defined census tracts.

Recent major home development on Oahu includes the ongoing build out of D.R. Horton’s master-planned, 11,750-home Ho‘opili project in Ewa; Castle &Cooke Hawaii’s 3,500-home Koa Ridge community in Central Oahu; as well as Ward Village’s 751-unit ‘A‘ali‘i condo, which opened in 2021. Ward Village opened its 565-unit Ko‘ula condo in September.

The only new population estimates for Hawaii in today’s release show urban Honolulu, roughly spanning from Diamond Head to Moanalua and Salt Lake, with 343,421 residents as of July 1, 2022, a loss of 4,966 — or 1.4% — from two years earlier. The population for the balance of Oahu was estimated at 652,217 with the departure of 11,701 residents for a 1.8% decline.