The Market Pulse is our monthly read on the Oahu market — the numbers first, then what we think they actually mean. Everything below comes from HiCentral MLS closed-sale data (via InfoSparks), pulled August 5, 2026, covering July closings.
This month, two numbers came in that flatly contradict each other:
- The average sale price crossed $1 million for the second straight month — $1,010,446, up 9% from last July.
- The median price per square foot fell to $653 — the lowest reading in our dataset going back to January 2023.
You're going to see headlines built on the first number. "Oahu prices surge past $1M." So before that narrative hardens, here's the honest version.
The $1M average is a mix, not a raise
An average goes up two ways: the same homes get more expensive, or more expensive homes start selling. July was overwhelmingly the second.
Look at where the action was. Metro Honolulu single-family closed at a median of $1,437,500 — the highest monthly median since November 2023 — and those homes went under contract in a median of 14 days. The upper end of this market, which spent most of last year on the sidelines, is transacting again. When $1.4M+ houses start closing in volume, they pull the island-wide average up with them — even while per-square-foot values across the broader market stay basically flat.
That's what $653/sq ft is telling you: the typical Oahu home is not appreciating 9% a year right now. It's holding.
So two different messages, depending on who you are. If you own a typical home and you're tempted to price off this month's headlines — don't. Your comp set didn't move 9%. But if you own at the higher end, the more important number isn't price at all: it's that your buyer pool came back, and it's moving in two weeks.
Demand returned without the rate cut everyone was waiting for
736 homes closed in July — up 17% from last July — the second straight 730+ month, and the strongest genuine back-to-back stretch we've seen since 2023. Sellers got a median 99.7% of list price, up from 99.3% a year ago.
Here's what makes that remarkable: national 30-year mortgage rates spent July in the mid-to-high 6s. No relief arrived. Buyers adjusted to the math and came back anyway — which has quietly flipped the supply picture. Active inventory (3,472 homes) now sits below last year, and months supply is at 5.0, down from 5.8 last July. Last summer supply peaked at 6.0 and the story was "the glut is building." This summer it appears to have peaked at 5.1 in June and turned. The "soft market" narrative is aging faster than most people realize.
Ewa is knocking on the $1M door
The Ewa Plain — the island's busiest single-family market and its traditional entry point — closed July at a median of $992,919, the highest month in our three-year dataset, at 20 days on market. Barring a pullback, the region where local families have long gone to buy their first house is about to carry a seven-figure median. We'll flag it when it happens, but the affordability implication is already here: "entry-level Oahu" and "$1M" are converging, and the workarounds — condos, townhomes, new-project reserved housing — keep getting more important.
Condos: quietly finding a floor
Last month we called condos "a different market entirely," and that's still true — but the direction changed. Metro condos posted 236 closings in July, up 16% from a year ago and the busiest July in our dataset. Days on market improved to 45 from 59 last July, and months supply is down to 6.7 from 8.2 a year ago.
One honesty check on our own reporting: in June we noted the Metro condo median had held above $500K two months running. July's median came back down to $447,500 — which is exactly why we keep saying condo medians are noisy and read direction from closings and supply instead. Those both point the same way: buyer's-market conditions, but a firmer one than last summer. Carrying costs — maintenance fees, insurance, assessments — are still doing most of the negotiating, and a building with clean financials is still the single best marketing asset a condo seller has.
The bottom line: Ignore the $1M headline — and don't ignore what's underneath it. The typical home isn't appreciating 9%; the market's top end woke up, demand is back at mid-6% rates, and supply has started tightening while the public narrative still says "soft." If you're a buyer waiting for either lower rates or more leverage, July's numbers suggest you're now waiting on two things that are both moving away from you. If you're a seller, the price you can get hasn't jumped — but the speed and certainty of getting it have.
Questions about what this means for your specific property? That's a 15-minute conversation — schedule one, or get a real valuation built from your actual comp set.
Data: HiCentral MLS via InfoSparks, pulled August 5, 2026, covering July closings. Late-recording sales can nudge these figures slightly in the weeks after month-end. Data deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Published August 5, 2026 · Maxs Yoon & Dylan Fujimoto, Realtor (Lic. RS-80515 · RS-86710), MY Realty Group at Keller Williams Honolulu.
