While the Oahu housing market closed out the first quarter of 2025 with a drop in single-family home sales and a small uptick in condo sales, inventory of available units rose across the island, according to a monthly report released Sunday by the Honolulu Board of Realtors.
“The Oahu real estate market is stable, though somewhat muted, as we head into the peak spring and summer months,” Locations Chief Sales Officer Chad Takesue said in a statement. “Although the market has slowed in recent years from the hectic pace of the COVID era, there is continued, pent-up demand for homes.”
In March, single-family home sales were down 10.4% and condo sales rose 7.3% from March 2024, but the total units sold increased 25% since February, according to the report.
Sean Ryan, senior loan officer at Hawaii Mortgage Experts, largely attributes the decrease in single-family home sales to the current conventional mortgage loan rate for Hawaii homes, which sits at about 6.5%, which has made qualified buyers hesitate to take the jump.
While sales are down, single-family homes are more in demand than condos, Ryan said, because condo maintenance costs are extremely high at around $800 to $900 a month.
In February the median sales price for an Oahu single-family home hit a three-year record high of $1,185,000. That price steadied in March at around $1,160,000 — up 5.5% from $1.1 million a year earlier. A median price means half the prices were above and half below the given price.
However, the average sales price in March was the highest it’s been in three years, due to the record-breaking March 14 purchase of Kahala’s Hale Hanohano — a 1.5-acre Honolulu Estate that sold for $65,750,000 — which marked the largest residential transaction in Hawaii’s history, according to a statement from Coldwell Banker Island Properties.
For this reason, the report states the average sales price for a single-family home reached a record high of $1,819,326. Excluding that single transaction, though, brings the average down to $1,507,469 — still the second-highest number the island has seen since March 2022, when the average price sat at $1,570,668.
Average condo prices saw a 6.1% increase since March 2024 at $614,751, according to the report, a slight increase since February’s $610,108. The median price in March for condos was $500,000 — even with a year earlier.
Overall, the numbers show a continuation of a balanced real estate market on Oahu, said Trevor Benn, president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors.
“There are modest ups and downs in sales and median prices, but interest rates are playing a larger role in affordability than any single month’s price point,” Benn said in a statement.
Ryan said while high interest rates are holding back buyers, they might decrease over the next year as the market starts to see some instability.
“This has always been true that instability in the market is good for interest rates, traditionally,” Ryan said.
Buyers had more options in March, the report said, with a 29.6% increase of single-family home listings and a 21.9% increase of condo listings compared with this time in 2024.
“Homebuyers this spring will find a few bright spots in the market,” Takesue said in a statement. “There are more homes and condos to choose from compared to a year ago, and in the resale condo market, the supply-demand balance has now tipped in favor of buyers for the first time since 2010.”
Regions across Oahu saw an increase in available units for sale, particularly in the Ewa plain, where active listings increased 73.5% since March 2024.
The number of condo listings grew in every region, and several offered more than double the number of condo listings since March 2024, including Hawaii Kai with 78 listings, Kailua with 28, Makakilo with 34, Pearl City with 111 and Waipahu with 42, the report said.
However, increased inventory meant more competition in March, which slowed the rate of contractor signings and resulted in longer days on the market for some units, compared with 2024.
Specifically, contract signings declined in both single-family home and condo markets, with a 5.4% drop for single-family homes and 4.3% for condos.
“As inventory builds and fewer properties move quickly, we’re starting to see a shift in how homes are positioned and priced,” Benn said. “Sellers are adjusting to a market with more competition, where attracting strong interest may take more time than in recent years.”
Ryan said he advises future homeowners to buy homes now, if they can “stomach the pain” and afford the sticker price.
“Now’s the time to buy if you can afford it,” Ryan said. “Once the interest rates come down, all the buyers are going to come back to the market, and that’s inevitably going to increase home prices.”
HOME SALES
The number of homes sold on Oahu in March with the median price and percentage change from the same month in 2024:
HOMES
SALES MEDIAN PRICE
March 2025 206 $1,600,000
March 2024 230 $1,100,000
Change -10.4% 5.5%
CONDOS
SALES MEDIAN PRICE
March 2025 369 $500,000
March 2024 344 $500,000
Change 7.3% 0%
Source: Honolulu Board of Realtors
