Gone are the days when opportunistic Oahu sellers could count on listing a home without improvements or staging and expect to sell it at or above the asking price.

The Honolulu Board of Realtors released sales data Saturday that showed more inventory is coming on line while fewer sales are being made in what has morphed into a more balanced market.

The board reported a near double-digit drop in March single-family home sales, which fell 9.5% to 276 properties. Condominium resales also declined, by 3.7% to 467 units.

Total active listings of single­-family homes increased by 33.6% and condominiums were up by 23.3% over the same period last year. And the listings kept coming, with newly listed single-family homes and condos rising 12.8% and 3.6%, respectively.

Single-family homes spent an average of 24 days on the market compared to last year’s 14-day average. At the same time, days on the market for condominiums increased to 22 days from the prior year’s 16 days.

The less frenetic market, where buyers had more choices and less competition, produced mixed results for median prices, the midpoint where half of the homes were sold above and half were sold below. The median price paid for a single­-family home rose 3% to $782,500 while the median price for a condominium resale fell 1.4% to $429,000.

March continued February’s lackluster results, but both months were an improvement over January when Oahu home and condo prices and sales all declined for the first time in a decade.

Despite the subdued start to the year, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization is still predicting gains for this year and at least two years after that. UHERO’s February forecast anticipated that Oahu’s median price in 2019 would rise 2.1% for single-family homes and 3.2% for condos.

The strength of Oahu’s market was what drew Jim Pickens to Hawaii Military Realty Inc. in 2017 after his retirement from the U.S. Marines as a master sergeant.

“Oahu has been a seller’s market for a long time. Now we see the natural cycle of things; the market can only go up so fast for so long before it takes a little bit of a break,” Pickens said. “But there really aren’t too many disadvantages in this market, which is much more balanced than it’s been in quite a while.”

Softer pricing now and belief in the strength of the market over the longer term also has encouraged some relocating homeowners to hang onto their properties, said Barbara Matz, a Realtor associate with Island Sun Real Estate Pros.

“Many owners I talk to choose to rent out their properties either because they want to hold onto their slice of paradise as they plan to return to Hawaii to retire or simply because they want to hold onto it as an investment,” Matz said.

Of course, it’s still a good time to sell for well-prepared homeowners who have priced their properties accordingly, said John Riggins, owner of John Riggins Real Estate.

“There’s more competition so I’m seeing more sellers deciding to invest in staging their properties. They know today’s buyer wants a turnkey property,” he said.

Margaret Murchie, a vice president of Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties Honolulu, said favorable interest rates are assisting the market. While tax season and the wobbly consumer confidence at the start of the year affected some buyers, Murchie already is seeing the market pick up.

“Traditionally this is a slower time of the year, I started to see it pick up in April and I expect the market will stay busy into autumn” Murchie said. “In some sought-after neighborhoods, homes that are priced right are still fetching multiple offers.”