Aloha:

 

Warm summer greetings from the beautiful garden island of Kauai! I love summertime.  The temps are moving up and the days are getting so long.  I can now work until 5 pm, get in 20 laps at the Princeville clubhouse pool, feed my dogs, and still have time to make the sunset down at the bay.  Of course I don't eat dinner until 8:30 pm and I've gained 5 pounds even with the extra excercise, but what the heck...Truly, life's a beach in Kauai..

 

Who says there is no excitement on Kauai?  Let me tell you a story.  The temps are getting warmer here and the rain has been a bit scant.  I noticed my lawn was starting to turn very brown so I got a great idea.  A few days ago I went outside on my rain starved lawn in my $15 Hilo Hatti Hawaiian headdress, complete with the matching coconut shell top, grass skirt, and silk flower lei and began performing my tribute to the Hawaiian Goddess of Rain, Lono.  It's called the "Ua Goddess Hula" (Ua is rain in Hawaiian) and I learned it many years ago while taking hula classes.  I remember vaguely being told it's guaranteed to bring rain. There I was, dancing in my yard giving it my best and becoming more and more convinced rain clouds were starting to gather when I looked up and to my surprise saw smoke and some small fire flames coming out of my big leaf pile in the corner of my yard next to the house.  The whole pile was smoldering, with thick smoke all around.  Suddenly the flames began shooting three to four  feet up.  I stared coughing from the smoke, my eyes were burning.  I ran to get the hose, narrowly missing my Chihuahua "Bruiser" who had been in the yard, laying in the sun and watching me perform my Ua Goddess Hula.  As I was turning on the hose trying to save the house from the burning leaf pile, I saw Bruiser pouncing on my headdress which had fallen off in the melee.  Bruiser was attacking it viciously, throwing his little head side to side like an enraged Sumarian tiger, growling and tearing at it, with feathers and sequins flying everywhere.  By the time I got the fire out, my headdress was completely decimated, the neighbors were all standing outside their homes staring at me and the Princeville patrol had pulled up.  To my dismay I didn't get any rain that day, but I did get 3 tickets: one for for holding a public performance without  proper authorization, one for starting a fire in my yard, and one�
�7����lZb for having a vicious dog outside the house without a lease.  

 

After I cleaned up the mess and went back inside to change my clothes, I sat down dumbfounded and tried to think of what went so terribly wrong.  I decided to call up my hula instructor and local hula expert and get her advice.. After I had explained to her everything that had happened, she asked me about the hula I had performed.  When I explained the dance she calmly told me that the hula I performed was to "Pele", not "Lono".  My memory wasn't so good and I had performed a lovely hula to the Hawaiian Goddess of Fire and Violence.  So the moral of the story is this: don't hula, unless you know what you are doing.  It can be stressful and potentially dangerous.  As for my brown lawn, I guess I'll have to get the water sprinkler thingy out now and make rain the traditional way, with the garden hose.  

 

Our total overall Sales volume was down a little in May from April ($26M vs $22M).  Homes across the island were down to $13M from $18M, Vacant Land had a small uptick $3.2M to $4.1M.  It's good that land is finally starting to move after being a slow poke for quite some time.  Condos also saw a small increase in volume from $3.2M in April to $4.1M in May.  On the North Shore Homes increased nicely from only $1M in April to over $6M in May on 2 and 4 sales respectively.  Condos stayed steady at over $3M, vacant land hit a big goose egg this last month.  In Koloa/Poipu area we saw the huge homes  sales of $11M in April slow down rapidly to $2.8M sales in May.  Koloa Vacant land, however, went thru the roof with 6 sales totaling  $3M vs 2 sales totaling $387,000 the month prior. Lihue homes sales increase slightly from $1M to $1.7M.  East side homes sales sputtered in May with sales of $1.2M vs $3.7M the month prior.  

 

Number of Sales across the entire Island dropped slightly from 45 sales in April to 37 sales in May.  Homes sales dropped from 23 to 15, vacant land stayed fairly steady with 10 and 9 sales respectively, and condos had a small increase from 12 to 13 sales.  Northshore home sales doubled from 2 to 4, Northshore land was a goose egg, and condos jumped nicely from 4 to 7 sales.  On the east side sales were down on homes and vacant land from the month prior, but condos were up.  Lihue showed an increase in homes but decreases in vacant land and condos.  Koloa/Poipu showed a big decrease in homes from the month prior 13 vs 4, but increases in vacant land and condos.  Waimea had two sales total, up from 1 the month prior... God love em!

 

The median price of a home on Kaua in April was $600,000 even, and the median price of a home in May?  $600,000 even.  Exactly the same for the last two months.  Okay, that's freaky.  Median price of vacant land jumped from $260K in April to $350K in May, condos jumped also from $222,250 to $330K.  North shore residential home prices jumped from $534,500 to $970K, showing that people are buying further up the food chain and getting in the game.  North shore condo prices dropped from $837,500 to $440K.  East side homes median prices increased slightly from $600K to $634K.  East side vacant land decreased only slightly from $251K to $235K.  Lihue homes increase from $505K to $600K.  Lihue condos dropped slightly  with April numbers of $193K and May numbers of $180K.  Koloa/Poipu homes increase from $550K to $705K.  

 

Until next month, your Island Realtor and ex-hula dancer, AnnMarie