Market Analysis: Hawaii's real estate market is still ripe for the picking

With a little more than half a year under my belt as a real estate analyst for Avalon Development/Commercial, there has been much activity to notice in probably one of the most important industries in Hawaii not named tourism.

What’s surprising is that many felt that deals would slow down in 2017 and then slow even further in 2018. However, that has not been the case. There has been a slew of recent major hotel deals with major real estate player Blackstone buying the iconic Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu’s North Shore and then the Waldorf Astoria’s Grand Wailea Resort on Maui.

Beyond hotels, there has been lots of trading going on in other such industries such as industrial, retail and office sectors. So why do the deals keep on flowing? It could be for a variety of reasons. For one, there’s still tremendous consumer confidence and the credit markets continue to favor aggressive investors. The stock market continues to soar and here at home, Waikiki is embarking on its best year ever in 2018, possibly eclipsing the 10-million visitor mark.

Real estate continues to be an attractive investment for both offshore and local investors, large and small. Many experts have said that big investments would taper off in 2017 and this year as well, and that local, smaller investments would partly fill in those gaps. My sense is that both types of investments continue to push ahead. For how long? No crystal ball here but my best guess would be through at least 2020, mainly because Hawaii’s attractiveness to a wide variety of investors from all over the world.