Maui Home Construction Statistics
New Home Construction By Decade
Maui County real property data classifies residential dwellings as single family homes or condos.
The data shows that single family home construction was consistently high from the 1970s to early 2000s, but has plummeted to less than half since 2010. Over this entire period, most of these new homes have been built in Central Maui and Upcountry, while less than one-third having been built in West Maui and South Maui, where fewer than 50 new homes are built each year on average since 2010.
In contrast, condo construction has fallen every decade from a peak in the 1970s and has been very low since 2010, with fewer than 50 condos having been built in each region each year on average.
Combining single family home and condo counts, we see that the overall rate of home construction on Maui has generally decreased every decade since 1970 and has been at historic lows since 2010, with less than 400 new homes being built each year on average.
Single family home construction averaged around 600-700 homes per year from 1970-2009. But since 2010, home construction rates have dropped by more than half to less than 300 homes per year. Home construction has historically been highest in Central Maui and Upcountry, with less than 1/3 of homes being built in West Maui and South Maui.
Condo construction has decreased every decade from 1970 to 2009. Since 2010, condo construction has been very low with approximately 100 new units constructed per year on average, in Maui County.
Treating single family homes and condos as equivalent, we see that the overall rate of home construction on Maui has generally been decreasing every decade since 1970 and is now at historical lows, with less than 400 new homes being built each year on average, in Maui County.
New Home Size by Decade
Since the 1970s, the median new single family home size in Maui County has fluctuated from approximately 1,500 - 1,800 square feet. But, since the 1980s, new single family homes built in West Maui and South Maui have consistently been 15% - 80% larger, with new home sizes upwards of 2,500 square feet in recent years. At the same time, West Maui and South Maui have consistently seen much lower rates of new single family home construction that Central Maui and Upcountry.
Taken together, this data highlights a major factor in the extreme unaffordability of housing in West Maui and South Maui - the very low levels of new single family home construction have been dominated by larger luxury homes.
Since the 1980s, new single family homes built in West Maui and South Maui have been considerably larger than homes built in the rest of Maui County. At the same time, West Maui and South Maui have had many fewer new single family homes than Central Maui and Upcountry.
New condo sizes have generally grown since the early 2000s while the overall number of new condos being constructed has dramatically decreased.