Julie's January 2021 Newsletter Kauai Dreams Digest

Kauai End of the Year Statistics.
2020 (1008 properties sold) had fewer number of sales then 2019 (1164 properties sold). This was primarily due to a few slow months in the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic.

The median sales prices of residential homes went up from $659,900 in 2019 to $810,000 in 2020 for the entire island. However, the Hanalei district saw the biggest leap from $950,000 in 2019 to $1,465,000 in 2020.
 
The median sale price for vacant land for the entire island also rose from $440,000 in 2019 to $640,000 in 2020.
 
The median sales price for Kauai condos bucked the appreciation trend and went down from $575,000 in 2019 to $555,000 in 2020.
 
The median sales price for property in general will probably appreciate during this period of increase interest and low interest rates.

Property tax updates:
The County of Kauai has come out with its new affordable 2022 rental rates. By following these guidelines, and filing the proper forms, your rental house can fall into the “Homestead tax class”. The Homestead tax rate is quite a bit lower than the “Residential Investor tax rate” The homestead rate also puts on a 3% cap on raising the assessed value of your property. This will be especially important as Bill No 2814 (not yet law) will lower the threshold for the Residential Investor tax rate from $2,000,000 to $1,300,000. If you have a property assessed at higher than 1.3 million but lower then 2 million you will probably see your property taxes increase significantly if you don’t have the homestead tax rate and this bill passes.
 

• From 1/1/2019 to 12/31/2019 there were 128 residential houses that sold for over $1,000,000 dollars.
• From 1/1/2020 to 12/31/2020 there were 189 residential houses that sold for over $1,000,000.
• This is a little over a 32% increase in a Pandemic year.
• The highest priced residential property that sold on Kauai in 2019 was $6,500,000.
• The highest price property that sold on Kauai in 2020 was $36,750,000. This phenomenal sale was actually 3 contiguous parcels of Hanalei Bay oceanfront.