#Honolulu, #Kauai, #Maui, #Molokai, #Oahu #RealEstate #Rentals #Hawaii

Calling Hawaii a “salad bowl” where people of different ethnic and economic backgrounds can coexist and thrive is a common narrative. The part about ethnic diversity is largely accurate, at least compared to most other states.

The state of Hawaii is home to about 1,400,000 people (the fortieth most populous state among the US states). The average population density in the state is about 83 people per km2 (13th place in the USA).

Racial composition of the population of the state of Hawaii:

• White – 24.7%
• Black (African American) – 1.6%
• Asians – 38.6%
• Native Americans (Indians or Alaskan Eskimos) – 0.3%
• Native Hawaiian or Oceanian – 10.0%
• Other races – 1.2%
• Two or more races – 23.6%
• Hispanic or Latino (any race) – 8.9%

Hawaii is one of four (along with California, New Mexico and Texas) US states in which the majority is a minority. Fewer white people live here (relative to the total population) than in any other US state. There are also more people from Asia and their descendants, as well as representatives of “mixed” races.

And Hawaii is constantly adding to its population, attracting a higher share of new arrivals both from other parts of the country and from the world than the nation as a whole.

How willing residents, both new and old, can thrive here is a different and more complex question. Concerns about inflation, driven by higher prices at supermarkets and gas stations, dominated 2022 even before we began to consider the spillover effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In fact, inflation has disrupted the lives of many Hawaiians since the pandemic began. Unfortunately, dealing with the effects of the pandemic will do little to offset the incredibly problematic housing environment.

Because the local real estate industry faithfully reports county-by-county sales data, we have become accustomed to monthly reminders about Hawaii home values. Median price numbers have value, often to highlight how expensive housing is.

For homeowners, rising prices can become a source of income. However, the data masks a harsher inflationary reality.

In December 2019, the average home price in Honolulu was $557 per square foot. Two years later, as the Omicron Covid-19 variant threatened to further prolong the pandemic, that price reached $672, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Inflation has driven up prices in Honolulu’s already very expensive housing market. 

The 21% increase over two years was the lowest among Hawaii’s four counties; the Maui level increased 39% to $998. These levels do not reflect the willingness of buyers with sufficient resources to bid above list price.

Over the same period, the national figure rose from $148 to $196, indicating that housing inflation was a problem in the United States. There are regional differences, but no state comes close to Hawaii’s December 2021 levels for Hawaii’s two favorite vacation spots. California and Nevada were $403 and $243.

Income differentiation

The U.S. Census Bureau measures economic inequality by comparing the median income for the highest quintile of households ($252,492 in Hawaii in 2019) and the lowest ($18,445), with a factor of (13.7) indicating a measure of income inequality .

Nationally, the rate is 16.4, meaning Hawaii faced less income inequality than much of America in 2019, although stark differences become apparent upon closer inspection.

Hawaii County has the highest inequality in the state: 17.1. Larger, more successful cities tend to have greater income inequality: San Francisco (26.2), Washington, D.C. (30.2), and Manhattan (43.8) are notable examples.

The pandemic has been disruptive in many ways, and remote work is a clear and important example. The ability to work remotely has made Hawaii an opportunity for many, including tech workers previously working on the West Coast. Recognizing the huge economic impact caused by the decline in tourism, the government has not been shy about encouraging people to move here.

What’s less clear is how carefully the impact on Hawaii’s fragile housing market has been considered.

After five years in which the market was relatively stable ($13 billion to $14.6 billion in annual sales), the value of residential property sales (single-family homes and condominiums combined) rose 66% statewide in 2021, exceeding 22 billion dollars. Honolulu accounted for 58% of turnover value, but its market grew by the smallest (but still astonishing) margin, 56%, well behind Kauai’s 126% and Maui’s 84%.

Less obvious is the change in market participation. Local buyers accounted for 65.8% of sales value in 2021, up from 73.8% in 2020. Together they accounted for only 43.5% of the value of turnover in the Neighbor Islands in 2021. Unsurprisingly, prices jumped significantly across the state, with single-family home prices ending the year higher in Kauai and Maui counties than in Honolulu.

Remote workers keep their wages when they move to Hawaii , and most pay significantly higher wages than local employers. The median household income in Hawaii, according to the Census Bureau, fell 16.3% in 2020 to $80,700, barely enough to buy homes that are selling for more than three times the national rate, according to per square foot.

Amid this recognition, there are loud calls for “affordable housing.” Rental prices , which have been in short supply for a long time, are also rising. What is called market-rate housing has become unaffordable for too many local buyers.

We cannot coexist successfully when so many people cannot afford to live here. If Hawaii fails to cool down the housing market, the result could be catastrophic.

Vaccines have helped us survive the pandemic. There is no vaccine for the housing shortage Hawaii faces. Our housing crisis has become widespread and promises to be far more devastating than the pandemic. 

According to officially published data, there are 291,484,482 people in the United States over the age of 5. Of these, 879,434 people speak Russian, 152,325 speak Ukrainian, 1,805 speak Belarusian. In the US, 237,840 people speak Armenian, 39,790 speak Lithuanian, 16,035 speak Latvian, 435 Americans speak Tajik at home, and 50 speak Ossetian at home. – a little more than two thousand.

In the United States, only 6,035 Estonians speak their native language.

This means that now more than 1,300,000 people in the United States speak and understand Russian, and they can read our portal and be interested in helping legislators defend the interests of residents and businesses of the United States and the state of Hawaii.

In Hawaii, 1,169 people said they spoke Russian at home, 85 Ukrainian, 45 Lithuanian, the same number Estonian and 50 Latvian. There are a total of 1,287,075 people living in Hawaii.

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