Another season turning here on Kauai.  Spring is giving away to summer and my trusty thermometer is starting to creep up again.  A little bit anyway. Okay.. not so much. Maybe like 4 degrees.  The winter/spring  rains are all but gone.  Hanalei Bay is calm with small lapping waves and the first sailboats are starting to show up.  The boats will be anchored there with their happy wine swilling ahi steak bbq'ing owners until around September.  The sunsets are increasingly spectacular with the clear days giving way to late afternoons of  pinks, oranges and even reds painting the sky as it sets into the ocean and frames beautiful Bali Hai.  The whales are heading north with their calves and the albatrosses will soon part ways forever with their young scruffy-looking offspring.  After the long rainy winter, the warm sun feels particularly welcome.  I'm very grateful for the beautiful days.  Even in Paradise, sometimes it takes a little rain to truly appreciate the sunshine.  

I was having a normal kind of day not too long back, when a sinister realization fell upon like a coconut hitting me on the head.  Bonk! I was sipping my usual CocoDream Soy Latte from Java Kai while standing in line at the checkout counter of the Kapaa Chevron gas station preparing to buy my weekly self-serve $7 carwash.   As I looked around the checkout counter I noticed something that I see all the time but never really thought about. Within my immediate reach were at least ten different caffeine products.  They all promised quick "Energy", "UP" for 8 hours, "Energize" yourself, etc.  There were funky vitamin looking pills in little bright packets with the words "UP" printed in hot pink letters and some other strange looking viles with this strange caffeine/ginseng stuff in them.  I even saw these little caffeine shooters in small plastic cartons that you apparently pour into your coffee to give your coffee more caffeine.  No joke.  As I stared guiltily at my own (double shot) CocoDream Soy Latte, I thought of the Starbucks down in the Safeway shopping center and how they have sprung up in virtually every corner strip mall in the country.  I began counting off all the energy/caffeine drinks on the market that are really liquid caffeine cleverly disguised as soda pop.  Some of these drinks have up to 300 mg per 8oz- that's like 3 cups of coffee squeezed together into one can. Liquid nitro. These stupid horrible tasting drinks are the ones with adolescent names like Red Bull, Monster, and Rockstar.  As I was pondering all this,  I suddenly realized that Mainstreet America has a substance abuse problem.  We have somehow become a nation of caffeine junkies.   Good grief.  This was a shocking revelation. Befuddled, I stood there holding the guilty caffeine evidence in my hand.  I  took my carwash ticket, turned, dropped my beloved beverage in the garbage and walked out.  I ponderX
�ڏ����lZb ed....  What evil forces were behind all of this?  Slowly it came to me. There must be a vast government conspiracy to keep me and my fellow Americans addicted to coffee.  Was Starbucks secretly majority-owned by some shadowy government intelligence agency.  Did the CIA actually stand for The Caffeine Inducement Agency?  It all started to make perfect sense:  America has always been the tireless worker bees of the world and now we are in this horrible energy sucking recession.  What better way to keep the nation's productivity numbers up than to inject us all full of this evil super juice so we toil away without complaint, 8, 9, 10 hours a day, then go home, crash into bed, sleep 5 hours, get up, stumble to the coffee maker, and do it all over again, day in, day out.  No time for Kauai vacations, no time for sick leave.  Just a nation of working zombies fried out on caffeine working ourselves to an early grave.  I decided then and there I had to save the country.  I devised a plan:  first of all, make a commitment to give up my beloved CocoLatas forever and ever. Uh, revise plan.. Cut Back on my CocoLatas from 12 to 2 a week.  And two: I've got to warn America.  This evil conspiracy must be thwarted.  So here's my warning America:  Repeat after me "I will not be a caffeine-filled walking zombie that can't function without the evil juice.  I'm going to grab an OJ in the morning instead of coffee, and not fill my body full of this nasty health-depleting, teeth staining, stinky breath evil drug any longer"  (Remember, OJ stands for "Orange Juice", not an "Outstanding Java") repeat: "I promise to throw out the dastardly Coffee maker and yes, my very pricey but even more dastardly Cappuccino machine. The cappuccino machine too, you say?" Stop it!  No whining.  You must be strong.  Don't let them win.  Do it to save the endangered coffee bean plant.. (Just kiddinX
�ڏ����lZb g, coffee beans aren't really endangered... yet).   Do it for your own life, liberty, justice, good health, whatever. I don't care.  Just do it because it's the right thing to do and I care about you.  Spread the word.

Real Estate had another month of increasing activity in April.  That makes three months of escalating numbers. Whoopeee!   That's what I call a trend my friend.  Things are looking UP, UP, UP.  Of course, I can hear my naysayer compadres already saying to me from this newsletter "Whoa now, Sunshine,  it's not all rainbows and butterflies.  The economy is going to get worse before it gets better.  There's another big wave coming, so hold on to your little surfboard, it's going to be a rough ride".  That's just mean.  Why can't you let a Realtor have some hope.. Why? Why? Why?  Honestly, the odds are about 50/50 in my book it's going to get better, OR it's going to get worse, so why not look at the glass half full.  Hmmm?

Let's start with Number of Sales:  In March 09 we had 40 total sales, and in April we had 45, a 5 unit increase.  We've actually had 4 months of increasing sales starting in January.  Residential over the entire Island increased from 22 in March to 23 in April.  Vacant land over the entire island increased from 5 to 10 sales.  Condos increased from 10 to 11.. so not HUGE increases, but increases just the same.   North Shore house sales fell from 7 to 2, vacant land fell from 2 to 1, condos increased slightly from 3 to 4.  Koloa/Poipu home sales increased significantly from 2 to 13.  Koloa Homes are on fire, blazing hot.  Poipu condos and vacant land stayed steady at 2.  Kawaihau district homes sales dropped slightly from 8 to 5.

Sales Volume increased over the entire island from $23M in March to $26M in April.  That makes almost three months of increasing volume on the island.  Homes Sales volume increased from $16M in March to $18M in April, Vacant land doubled from $1.5M March to $3.2M in April, condo sales increase very slightly from $4.2M to $4.8M.  On the North Shore Home volume fell from $9.6M to just $1M.  Vacant land volume increased from $510K to $1.4M.  Condo volume increased from $2M to $3.2M.  Homes sale volume increased dramatically from $1M in March to over $11M in April.  Remember they sold 13 houses in Koloa, and there was only one whale in the bunch for $4.5M so that's some fine solid numbers for Koloa/Poipu.

Median Home prices jumped $100K AGAIN in April to $600K.  That now makes 2 months of increasing median prices from our low in February of $400K.  Median price dropped significantly (due to a lack of sales) on the North Shore from $1.5M to $534K.  Condo median prices increased on the North Shore from $600K to $837K in April.  Vacant land also increased from $510K to $675K on one sale.  Poipu/Koloa median prices stayed virtually the same (even with 13 sales) $515K in March to $550K in April.  Poipu condos dropped their median prices from $757K in March to $190K in April.

So there you have it:  everything that's anything about the Kauai Real Estate Market.  Doesn't it feel good to be so well informed?  Now you can go brag to your friends and say "Go ahead, I dare you.  Ask me anything about Real Estate in Kauai, HI.  Anything at all".  If they look at you funny, don't even flinch.  Just know they are jealous of your freaky encyclopedic command of everything real estate related in Kauai.  

Side note:  if you own ag vacant land in Kauai that has an ADU homesite and you are not aware of the December 31, 2009 deadline to pull your building permit, call or email me very soon.  You could lose your right to build a 2nd house if you don't act.

Let me know if you are coming to the island anytime in the next 6 months and would like to look at Real Estate with me.  The deals are amazing right now... condos as low as $200K in Princeville, $900K brand new Nihilani condos selling for around $500K... it's crazy buying season right now.  Interest rates in the 4's... Don't miss out.

Until next time.. AnnMarie, Your Island Realtor