The number of escrows opened on Maui is going UP!!!

Although inventory is at a all time high, the number of escrows currently opened on Maui is slowly but surely going up. There are 406 escrows opened as of today, Sat 10/10/09. Given the fact that 16 sales took place in the past few days, it means that 21 escrows alone were opened in the last two days! Just for reference, July to December 2008, on average only two escrows were opened daily, while the total number of escrows opened at all times ranged in the mid 200's. A lot of those escrows were actually developer units that were still under construction, like Honua Kai, Opukea or West Maui Brakers.

86 escrows , that is 21.1% of the total number of escrows currently opened are short sales. 59 escrows (14.1%) are bank owned properties. This means that the remaing 64.8% of escrows are very motivated sellers, that recognized the new market conditions.

Almost half of the number of escrows are RESIDENTIAL, while 37% are condos. Less than 10% of the current escrows are for LAND and a lot of them are parcels that await final subdivision approval.

Only a handful of people seem to be buying timeshares. They are all resales, since the developer timeshares are not included in the Multiple Listing Services.

We surely hope this trend continues and that the short sale and foreclosures share of the market stays low!

Disclaimer:All raw data was obtained from Maui Multiple Listing Service.