The first thing I do each morning is review the “Listings Update” on our MLS database to see what’s new on the market, price changes and what’s going into escrow. Over a period of time this gives me an indication as to where the real estate market is trending. Based on these MLS factors and other indicators, I expect our market to continue to trend downwards until prices point back to the 2004 levels. Hawaii is more sensitive to some factors such as price of oil and tourism, yet somewhat isolated from others because we are becoming more of a global market. Also, our foreclosure rates will probably be less than the mainland because we had fewer of those sub-prime mortgages loans. However, for every forecaster with a pessimistic outlook there are equal numbers with a positive spin.

In general, because our real estate investor market is driven by west coast buyers and sellers, so if you are living in California you may be able to gauge the trends here before they happen.