The NAR has released data for March and the news is not good.

The national median existing-home price (2) for all housing types was $200,700 in March, down 7.7 percent from a year ago when the median was $217,400. Because the slowdown in sales from a year ago is greater in high-cost areas, there is a downward pull to the national median with relatively higher sales activity in low-cost markets…Existing-home sales in the West rose 2.2 percent in March to a level of 940,000 but are 22.3 percent below a year ago. The median price in the West was $285,100, which is 14.7 percent lower than March 2007.

The good news is that national for sale inventory only increased 1% in March. That means nationally we now have 9.9 months of inventory at the current sales pace. So what does this all mean for Maui real estate?

We don’t think much. The news out of the West shows modestly increasing pace of sales and fading prices. But Maui real estate is, to some degree, an isolated asset and we haven’t seen the massive foreclosure issues faced by parts of the mainland. We appear to be avoiding many of the related problems as well…at least so far.