About Bryn Kaufman

Principal Broker and Creator of OahuRE.com

Change does not come easily 😂 at the Honolulu Board of Realtors.


I have been trying since April of 2021 😡to get them to remove the rule that the buyer’s agent commission is NOT negotiable.

In May 2021 they said they would reach out to the National Association of Realtors to investigate this, but I still have no resolution. 😯

I have not given up and will continue to pursue this even if it takes years. Eventually, I am confident they will do the right thing and make it negotiable. đŸ‘đŸ‘đŸ€˜

Buyer’s Agent Commission

I am waiting on the Board of Realtors to allow me to show the buyer’s agent commission percentage on all listings.

However, they continue to ignore the National Association of Realtors guidelines which say the buyer’s agent commission should be negotiable.

Maybe once it is displayed consumers will start pressuring Realtors to negotiate it so they can change that rule.

Real Estate Stats for December 2021

The O‘ahu housing market ended 2021 with a slight decline of 10.0% in single-family home sales and a healthy 15.4% increase in condo sales year-over-year. The median sales price for single-family homes tied the previously set record in August 2021 at $1,050,000, while condos saw a median sales price of $485,000, slightly up from December 2020.

While O‘ahu’s single-family home market saw new listings, pending sales, and total inventory in escrow all drop year-over-year, the condominium market remained strong, with new listings up 13.1%, pending sales jumped 16.7% and total inventory in escrow rose 11.5%. 

“It was clearly a seller’s market in 2021,” said Chad Takesue, president of the Honolulu Board of REALTORSÂź in 2022. â€œNot only did properties enter escrow at a record pace, but they often marked multiple offers and sold for a premium.”

Single-family homes were in high demand throughout 2021, but sales leveled off in the last quarter of the year as buyers faced low inventory and a slight rise in average mortgage rates since the summer and early fall.

“With high demand and dismal inventory of single-family homes, buyers turned their sights to condos, driving competitive activity in some areas and leading to low supply in this market as well. As a result, every price point in the condo market saw more sales in 2021 and every region across OÊ»ahu marked more sales,” added Takesue.

Is A Flat Fee Buyer’s Agent Commission Coming Soon?

Have you ever heard of a Flat Fee Buyer’s Agent Commission? Maybe soon you will.

There are at least 3 big class-action lawsuits against Realtors claiming the fixed 2.5% buyer’s agent commission should not be paid for by the seller but instead the buyer should pay their own agent.

Their argument is this would allow buyers to negotiate the commission, the same way sellers have options, such as our $3,500 Flat Fee.

It would be a huge change for Real Estate buying and selling if sellers are no longer forced to pay a 2.5% commission to a buyer’s agent.

We will see how this turns out.

Condos Outpace Single-Family Homes in Sales, New Listings

Closed sales activity for single-family homes lags behind the condo market, with single-family properties marking just a 9.8% increase in sales compared to 47.7% jump for condos in November. The median prices for single-family homes and condos tied the previously set record prices at $1,050,000 and $500,000, respectively.

Though single-family homes continue to move into escrow at a quick pace of 11 days, it’s the condo market that set a new record low median days on the market of only nine days. Buyers scooped up condo properties an entire week faster compared to November 2020’s median of 16 days on the market. Meanwhile, around 61% of single-family home sales and 42% of condos sales closed over the asking price in November.

“It’s evident that O‘ahu buyers are entering the market well-prepared and are wasting no time, working with their REALTORS¼ to get their offers submitted and accepted as soon as possible,” said Shannon Heaven, president, Honolulu Board of REALTORS¼. “Additionally, a large portion of sellers are receiving bids above their original list prices, which tells us that we remain in a competitive market despite the expected holiday lull.”
 
Year-over-year new listings for single-family homes dropped 5.5%, with just 358 new properties entering the market in November. On the other hand, sellers added 639 new condo listings, representing a 13.9% uptick compared to this time last year.
 
“Sales in both the single-family home and condo markets appear to have leveled off over the past few months. However, we continue to exceed 2020 sales, which dropped due to the initial waves and economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic,” added Heaven.

O‘ahu’s Housing Market Holds Steady Ahead of Holiday Season Lull.

Median prices of single-family homes stand at $1 million, condos at $500K.
Closed sales rose year-over-year with single-family homes ticking up modestly 10.4% and condo properties surging higher to 27.3%.
The median sales price for a single-family home fell slightly from the August 2021 record of $1,050,000 to $1,000,000, while the median condo price tied the August record of $500,000.
“The market appears to be holding steady, and the increase in closed sales for all properties is a welcome sign that Hawai‘i families are getting their offers accepted and moving into their homes,” said Shannon Heaven, president, Honolulu Board of REALTORS¼. “Homeownership is about much more than simply owning a home. It poses many benefits including building equity and generational wealth and reaping the benefits of tax deductions and deductible expenses.”

Early Occupancy – Seller’s Point of View

We do not recommend early occupancy. It opens a can of worms and a lot of problems can come up.

The closing is not guaranteed until all the money is in escrow, and escrow has reported everything to the City and County. This is normally 2 days prior to the actual closing date. So if you are allowing early occupancy 2 days prior to closing you are probably OK. We can check with escrow to verify they can’t pull the recording before you allow the buyers to move in.

However, prior to that, it is very easy for the buyers to decide they don’t want to close, or for the lender to pull the closing because something came up at the last minute such as a job change or job loss. We have seen escrows fall out due to job loss, especially when COVID-19 started and many buyers lost their jobs. We have also seen buyers just change their minds and cancel the escrow.

If anything happens and you do not close, now you have a tenant who hopefully will leave sooner rather than later. They hopefully caused no damage while there, and they hopefully pay you for their time spent in your home. There is a lot of “hoping” things will go right, but plenty of chances things won’t go right and now you have to wait for them to get out until you can relist your property and sell to another buyer.

Other issues could come up once the buyer occupies your property. Maybe the buyer finds the noise level is not acceptable to them, or the commute is longer than they expected. Maybe for some reason, they are just not in love anymore with your property the way they were when they made their offer. That is all it takes for them to cancel the escrow.

In summary, you take all the risks when allowing early occupancy, so it is not something we recommend.