Many of you prospective Maui real estate buyers may be interested to know that the Hawaii economy is expected to grow by about 3 percent in 2014, according to a quarterly economic report by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT).

As for the accuracy of their predictions, they expect a 2.4 percent growth rate in real gross domestic product for 2013, which is 0.2 percent lower than their prediction from the quarter before. Still, they were very close. The forecast for 2014 is 2.8 percent growth, which they revised up 0.4 percent from their last forecast. This means the outlook has improved since then.

If you’re curious as to why the 2013 forecast was revised down a bit, it was as a result of the visitor industry’s slowdown in September and October. They believe the government shutdown was a contributing factor, along with the depreciation of the yen, and Hawaii’s record average daily hotel room rates. On a side note, overly expensive hotel rooms provide a good opportunity for those who would like to make a Maui vacation rental out of their second properties.

Despite the blip in those two months, the DBEDT still expects a record-breaking year for tourism at the end of this December, both in arrivals and spending, which is great news. They also pointed to our 4.8 percent unemployment rate, which puts us at the fifth-lowest in the country.

Another factor of interest to the real estate sector is that the construction industry is going strong. In fact, there were 2,750 added jobs in the first 10 months of the year, in that sector. We look forward to seeing how accurate these predictions are, and hope that performance is better than expected.

If you need assistance with your West Maui real estate search, you’ll find our contact information at the bottom of the page. Mahalo!

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