Hawaii Real Estate
Hawaii Real Estate
Halloween Special
The latest Hawaii real property data. Plus, three ghoulish stories ripped from cases filed with the Hawaii, California, and New York courts. These stories are real. They are disturbing. Prepare yourself. Happy Halloween!
HALLOWEEN SPECIAL
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Email: har@Hawaiirealtors.com
Introduction
E komo mai. Welcome to Hawaiʻi Real Estate, a poducast on the buying, selling, and leasing of property in Hawaiʻi. Each episode of our podcasts consists of a Real Data Report, which analyzes Hawaiʻiʻs most recent real property data, and a Focus Piece, which provides legal and other special insight into a matter of major and contemporary concern for Hawaiʻi real estate transactions.
The Hawaiʻi Real Estate podcast is produced by the Hawaiʻi Association of Realtors®, with support from its Legal Kokua program. New episodes of the podcast are released on the first Wednesday of each month.
Today is Wednesday, November 1, 2023. Our focus piece for this episode is a special Halloween recantation of chilling true stories of when ghosts and murder invade real estate.
But first, we go to the numbers. Here is our Hawaiʻi Real Data Report.
Real Data Report
Long Mortgage Rate Rise
Mortgage rates in the United States are at generational highs. The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage in the United States on October 26, 2023 was 7.79%, the highest rate average for the 30-year fixed rate note in 23 years.
Of course that’s because the Federal Reserve keeps raising the target federal funds rate. Since March of 2022, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates 11 separate times, for a total increase during that period of 5.25%.
Those ever rising interest rates have had a profound effect on the housing market, which relies in no small measure on the ability of banks to issue mortgages to support purchases. In the Mortgage Bankers Association latest weekly survey, Joel Kan, the association’s vice president, reported that “Mortgage activity continued to stall, [last week] with applications dipping to the slowest weekly pace since 1995.”
Hawaiʻi Median Prices and Time on Market
And Hawaiʻi, in particular, is suffering. Homes in Hawaiʻi are staying on the market 11.39% longer than last year. The news is most troubling in the City and County of Honolulu, where homes stay on the market 18.37% longer than last year, and in Hawaiʻi County, where homes stay on the market 14.71% longer than last year.
As homes stay on the market for longer, their prices come down, and median home prices are down throughout the state. The hardest hit county is Maui, where median home prices are down year-over-year by 5.25%. But the other counties aren’t much behind. In the City and County of Honolulu, median home prices are down year-over-year by 2.3; in Hawaiʻi County, they’re down 4.8%; and in Kauai County, they’re down 2.19%.
Making matters worse, Hawaiʻi isn’t building new homes.
Existing homes are mired in higher interest rates. Their owners don’t want to sell because they’re comfortably ensconced in the lower interest rate they received when they purchased the property. They don’t want to trade their low interest rates in for today’s higher rates, just to purchase a new home, so existing homes are largely staying off the market.
Newly built homes, however, are powering active listing counts across the county. Active listings in the United States are up year-over-year by 4.87%, owing in large measure to newly built homes entering the market. Mortgage applications for those homes, says the Mortgage Bankers Association, increased year-over-year by 14.9%.
Letter from Real Estate Groups to Jerome Powell
But the market cannot endure indefinite rate hikes. Continuing rate hikes keep existing homes off the market. And so the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Homebuilders, and National Association of REALTORS® teamed up to tell the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors: “enough is enough.” In a strongly worded letter dated October 9, 2023, the real estate groups “strongly urged” the Federal Reserve to cease hiking interest rates and to make a clear statement to the world that interest rates would hold at their current levels or drop.
The letter had an effect. 10 days after the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors received the letter, Chairman Powell gave a speech to the Economic Club of New York, acknowledging that recent interest rate raises have occurred at a breakneck pace:
Turning to monetary policy, the FOMC has tightened policy substantially over the past 18 months, increasing the federal funds rate by 525 basis points at a historically fast pace and increasing our securities holdings by roughly a trillion dollars. Given the uncertainties and risks, and how far we have come, the Committee is proceeding carefully.
In other words, unless there is a major change in labor or inflation, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee’s next meeting will not likely result in yet another interest rate hike.
Open Market Committee Meeting (Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 2023).
The Open Market Committee is meeting today, Wednesday October 31, 2023 through tomorrow. Its favorite inflation measure is the Personal Consumption and Expenditures Price Index.
The current Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index Report, released October 27, 2023 and describing conditions in September 2023, showed no change. The index in July, August, and September of this year held at 3.4%, providing no urgent reason for the Federal Reserve to come off its position to proceed carefully on further rate hikes.
The fed is unlikely, therefore, to raise interest rates. It’s too early to say that the long upward slog to higher interest are done. Some conservative forecasters still expect another rate hike before the end of this year, but evidence suggests that an interest rate hike tomorrow is unlikely and experience suggests that our long hike to higher interest rates is nearing its summit.
That’s good news for mortgages and housing stock. The Mortgage Bankers Association notes that mortgage credit availability has increased recently and it forecasts that mortgage origination volume will increase in 2024 by 19%.
That means more housing stock and higher prices. Barring a deep recission or runaway inflation, neither of which is forecasted, the housing sector seems poised for a healthy turnaround.
Focus Piece
And now for our special Halloween focus piece: three ghoulish stories ripped from cases filed with the Hawaiʻi, California, and New York courts. These stories are real. They are disturbing. Prepare yourself.
Hawaiʻi
Beneath the sultry, silken skies of Hawaiʻi, where the azure waves caress the sun-kissed shore, there lingers a world veiled in shadows, a realm teeming with whispers of the long departed. The isles, resplendent in their verdant beauty, have been cradles of tales most eerie and spectral since time immemorial.
In every rustling palm leaf, in every undulating wave, hushed voices of spirits and forebears speak. The night, shrouded in a cloak of impenetrable darkness, brings forth apparitions, phantoms of ancient warriors and mournful maidens, all adrift in an eternal sea of sorrow.
Oh, how the islands echo with tales of the Night Marchers, ghostly processions that tread soundlessly through the velvety night. These spectral warriors, draped in ethereal cloaks and wielding weapons long lost to the mortal realm, march in silence, heralding omens most dire to those who dare cross their path.
Such is the haunting beauty of Hawaiʻi, where the veil between the realms of the living and the departed is gossamer thin, and where every rustling leaf and murmuring wave reverberates with echoes of the spectral and the supernatural
Souza v. Soares[1]
Maria de Souza’s husband died in Wainaku, Hawaiʻi, on February 29, 1908, leaving to her by will 2.97 acres or real estate. For the first month or two after his death, the widow de Souza and her family continued to live in the home so devised to her, but then received an invitation from her deceased husband’s sister, Virginia Soares, and her husband, Manuel Soares, to take up residence in their home.
de Souza, an elderly and ill woman, gladly accepted.
But Soareses wanted the property left to de Souza. So, while de Souza was living with the Soareses, the Soareses convinced her that the property her husband left her was haunted by ghosts, and that she would suffer from further illness if she returned.
Shaken and enfeebled by sickness and fear, de Souza deeded the property she received from her husband to the Soares and left for California. She returned just nine months later, however, demanding back the property she received from her husband.
She offered to return the money in exchange for receiving back the land, but the Soares refused.
Did a ghost really occupy the property? We will never know.
But the specter of doubt and fear it cast upon de Souza’s heart was as real as the evening’s cold embrace. The sanctuary contained in the property bequeathed to her by her late husband had been cruelly snatched away and forever lost.
Stambovsky v. Ackley[2]
Nyack
In a quaint and somber hamlet nestled amongst the rolling hills of New York, a once bustling riverfront community had descended into an eerie, desolate specter of its former self. Upon its cobblestone streets, weary souls lumbered laboriously, equally beleaguered as their once proud home.
Homes, once grand and stately, stood as decaying monuments to a bygone era. Their windows, like vacant eyes, gazed out onto a world they no longer recognized.
The Hudson River, which had once been Nyack's lifeblood, flowed silently by, its waters murky and forlorn. The once bustling docks were silent and deserted. Only ghostly echoes and an eerie stillness remained.
In the town's center, the old clock tower stood as a sentinel, its hands seemingly frozen in time, forever marking the hours that Nyack had lost. The once-vibrant market square dimmed and listless.
The wind spread through the trees in weak haltered gusts as if agonizing last gasps of this collectively dying place. With each gasp more feeble than the last, the cruel hands of fate seemed to tighten its grip.
And so, Nyack, once a place of promise and prosperity, had become a ghost town, a haunting reminder of the inexorable march of time and the relentless passage of history. Its streets, its buildings, its people—all trapped in a liminal space, suspended between the past and the present, the living and the dead.
Helen and George Ackley
Within Nyack, a timeworn Victorian mansion glowing beneath a watchful moon beckoned. A married couple from Maryland, Helen and George Ackley, heard the cry. Drawn to the mansion’s cravings for the warmth of life and touch of loving hands, Helen and George Ackley left their Maryland home in 1967 to take residence in the mansion.
George arrived first. The mansion’s walls thirsted for paint and its gabled roof, once proud, had fell into disrepair. Yet the grand panorama of the Hudson River and the twinkling “diamond necklace” of the Tappan Zee Bridge adorned the view and allied any trepidation George may have had in lending his soul to renovating the once great mansion.
His wife, Helen, who had stayed behind in Maryland to close up their previous home, soon joined George at the Nyack mansion.
Alas, what they failed to grasp was that this mansion held haunting secrets within its walls, secrets whispered among the hushed tones of the neighborhood, but unknown to the couple and their children.
The initial inkling of a haunting apparition manifested when a plumber's ears captured the cadence of a phantom’s footsteps. Soon after, a group of local children playing outside, compelled by someone unknown force, approached Ackleys and conveyed to them the mansion’s haunting reputation.
On George and Helen’s inaugural night together in the mansion, Helen was startled to discover George's habit of slumbering with the illumination ablaze. When she inquired about this curious habit, he tersely replied, "I don't wish to discuss it," and turned away, perhaps too terrified or embarrassed to speak what he knew.
As days turned to weeks and weeks to months, the inexplicable occurrences became increasingly resistant to rational dismissal. The living and the other forces in the mansion began a polite and rudimentary interplay.
Cynthia, the couple's ten-year-old daughter, revealed that these spectral entities possessed a sense of reason and a surprising consideration for their living companions. Upon their initial arrival, she recounted her bed's unsettling daily tremors, rudely rousing her from slumber in time for school. Anticipating the forthcoming winter respite, mother and daughter, in an audible plea to their "invisible alarm clock," entreated for the gracious gift of a lie-in during the vacation. Astonishingly, the phantom heeded their supplication.
The spectral apparitions appeared directly to at least two witnesses. A friend, who tarried overnight, bore witness to one ethereal presence—a figure adorned in a long jacket harkening back to the Revolutionary era. As for the other, it was Helen herself who, in solitude while adorning the living room walls with paint, witnessed the apparition.
He appeared as the most cheerful and diminutive figure, a cap of ivory locks framing a countenance ruddy and round. Beneath the thick white brows, his azure orbs shone with an unsettling brilliance. His attire, a light-blue suit impeccable in its presentation, bore cuffs turned back over ruffles adorning his wrists. A white ruffled stock adorned his throat, and below, britches truncated at the kneecaps met white hose and shiny black pumps graced with buckled ornamentation.
Inquisitive about her artistic endeavors, Helen queried the apparition's sentiments toward her remodeling choices, to which he lingered for but a fleeting minute before vanishing into the ether. Upon later questioned, Helen affirmed, "No, I had not indulged in spirits that day, nor had the fumes of paint intoxicated my senses. He seemed content in his presence, and I, in turn, was honored by his acquaintance."
Weird lady, OK, but harmony prevailed among them thereafter, and as Helen inscribed her tale, she confessed to relishing these spectral visitations. She pondered whether, should the need to relocate arise, there existed a means to transport these otherworldly companions to a new dwelling.
Indeed, Helen embarked on a crusade to disseminate the tale of her unearthly visitors, which culminated in a feature within the pages of Reader's Digest and even an inclusion in a Nyack walking tour. Her pride in the spectral tenants knew no bounds.
Yet, time, the relentless arbiter of destinies, decreed that the Ackleys must depart. In the year 1990, Jeffrey and Patrice Stambovsky, seeking refuge from the suffocating embrace of New York City, set their sights on Nyack and the Ackleys' bustling abode. An offer was made, negotiations ensued, but it was not until the pact was nearly sealed that the Stambovskys were made aware of the dwelling's spectral tenants.
Alas, their joy was eclipsed by trepidation at this unforeseen revelation. While one soul may find ethereal solace in the spectral embrace, another may endure torment from the same specter’s grasp.
Reed v. King[3]
Vichis and Faylors
In the midst of the shadowed valleys near the Nevada frontier, the township of Grass Hollow echoed the whispers of bygone ages. Situated along the ancient path of Route 20, the village lay amidst undulating mountains, where towering redwoods concealed its mysteries and shimmering rivers danced under the moonlight. Born from the echoes of the Gold Rush, the town now bore an aura reminiscent of the olden Northern California.
In the winter chill of 1971, the melancholic Charlene Vichi, along with her children, sought refuge in Grass Hollow. Fleeing the torments of a sundered marriage and haunted by her own brush with the abyss, she sought solace in the embrace of her parents, Charlotte and Russell Faylor.
But on one fateful eve, the mists of Grass Hollow bore witness to an unspeakable tragedy. The vengeful specter of Charlene’s detached spouse, John Vichi, infiltrated the Faylor residence, and with a .22-caliber, began spraying.
Distress signals emanated from the secluded household, yet owing to their emanation from an old party line, lawmen of Nevada County could not divine their origin. By the time the lawmen arrived, they were met with a scene of sheer desolation.
Charlene laid lifeless, along with her children, only her parents survived, though they were gravely, hideously injured.
The sheer malevolence of the act was accentuated by the choice of weapon. A .22 caliber gun is oft deemed too feeble to grant a swift end. The household bore witness to the innocent’s futile attempts at escape, their footprints tainted crimson.
The aftermath was no less grievous. The surviving Faylors, burdened by sorrow and debts of final rites, were cast into profound misery, and the property was eventually sold.
Reed
Dorris Reed, a woman in her 70s seeking a serene environment to live out her days, purchased the property. She had no idea when she purchased the property that it was the site of a gruesome multiple murder. You see, while the tales of Grass Hollow’s tragedy had reverberated like a thunderclap across the land when it happened, it equally quickly quieted.
But “truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long.” About a year after purchasing the property, Reed learned from a neighbor that it was, as Reed would later describe in court papers, a “house of death.”
Sleep eluded her in the house, as she starred at what seemed to be sanguine stains lurking beneath the layers of paint. The home seemed to resonate echoes of the unspeakable horrors once there wrought. Peace, for her, was lost.
Conclusion
And that’s our episode. Remember: we release new episodes on the first Wednesday of every month. Please join us next month for our next focus piece and for the latest Hawaiʻi property data.
Mahalo. A hui ho.
[1] 22 Haw. 17 (1914).
[2] 572 N.Y.S.2d 672 (App. Div. 1991).
[3] 145 Cal.App.3d 261, 193 Cal.Rptr. 130 (Ct. App. 1983).
