Maui Real Estate in 2026: Navigating the Market After the Fire and After Bill 9
Falling prices, rising inventory, and a market split in two as the Lahaina rebuild grinds forward and Bill 9 reshapes the island’s condo landscape
Maui’s real estate market in 2026 is being shaped by two forces that converged within roughly two years of each other: the catastrophic August 2023 Lahaina wildfire and the December 2025 passage of Bill 9, the most consequential zoning change to hit the island’s housing stock in decades. Together they have produced a market defined by falling prices, swelling inventory, a sharp bifurcation between property types, and unusual amounts of regulatory uncertainty. For buyers, sellers, and investors, the old playbook no longer applies.
The Macro Picture: A Market in Correction
For nearly two years the broad Maui market has been in retreat. Closed sales, median prices, and average prices have all softened, while inventory has climbed and negotiating leverage has shifted decisively toward buyers. Several pressures are stacking on top of one another: Bill 9’s assault on short-term rental rights, elevated mortgage rates, and broader economic and geopolitical uncertainty.
The headline numbers tell the story. In April 2026, single-family home sales fell 30% year over year, with 49 closings versus 70 a year earlier, and the median price slipped to roughly $1.29 million, down between 6% and 7% from the prior April. Homes were sitting an average of about 138 days on the market, and total single-family dollar volume dropped more than 40%.
Condos present a more nuanced picture. Sales volume has actually been running ahead of last year’s pace — April saw about 70 condo closings, up roughly 4.5% to 13% depending on the comparison — but pricing has continued to slide hard. The April median condo price came in around $651,250, down sharply from a year earlier, with units averaging well over 160 days on market. Year to date through April, the condo median had fallen to roughly $699,000.
The combination of more condo transactions and lower condo prices is not a contradiction. It is how a market works through a correction: buyers return when sellers finally meet the market on price. One arguably constructive signal beneath the surface is that the months-supply of condos has started to compress slightly year over year for the first time in a while, hovering around 15 months in early 2026 — still elevated, but no longer expanding.
Bill 9: What It Actually Does
Signed into law on December 15, 2025 as Ordinance No. 5909, Bill 9 phases out transient vacation rental (TVR) use in apartment-zoned districts — the so-called Minatoya List condos. These units, mostly in South and West Maui and heavily owned by out-of-state investors, have operated as vacation rentals for decades under a legacy zoning exemption originally granted in 2001, even though the underlying zoning was meant for long-term residential housing.
At the time of passage, roughly 6,200 Minatoya-listed units were actively operating as short-term rentals. County leadership framed the bill as the fastest way to return more than 6,000 units to long-term residential use without building anything new — a direct response to a housing crisis that the 2023 wildfires made dramatically worse. Today TVRs make up about 21% of Maui County’s overall housing stock, the highest share of any Hawaii county.
Three points are essential to understanding the law correctly:
It is not a blanket ban. Hotel-zoned resort condos, timeshares, permitted bed-and-breakfasts, and permitted short-term rental homes are unaffected. Roughly 6,500 TVR parcels, thousands of hotel units, and more than 2,400 timeshares and B&Bs continue to operate legally. Tourism remains a central pillar of the island’s economy.
It is staggered, not immediate. The law establishes an “amortization period” that lets affected units keep operating as TVRs for a fixed runway. Phase-out deadlines range from 2029 to 2031 depending on location — West Maui apartment-zoned rentals, for example, are scheduled to end short-term operations on January 1, 2029. Owners have time to adjust their strategies.
It targets a specific zoning category. If a condo depends on apartment zoning (A-1 or A-2) plus historic transient use, its short-term rental ability is being phased out. If it sits in hotel zoning or holds a valid specific permit, it does not.
The Bifurcation: A Tale of Two Condo Markets
Bill 9 has carved a clear divide through the condo segment, and this divergence is the single most important trend shaping the 2026 market.
On one side are the “Bill 9 risk” properties — apartment-zoned units with a shrinking rental runway. These are seeing rising inventory, motivated sellers, and meaningful price erosion as the income thesis that supported their valuations evaporates. Some turnkey legal vacation rentals are being listed at prices not seen since before the pandemic.
On the other side are hotel-zoned condos in places like Wailea, Kāʻanapali, and Kapalua, along with permitted single-family homes in areas like Launiupoko and parts of Kula, and newer developments that locked in permits before the moratorium. These have become the “gold standard” for investors seeking rental income, and they are holding their value far better. Regulatory clarity has become as important as location and views.
The Unresolved Variable: H-3/H-4 Rezoning and Litigation
The story is not finished, and that is precisely the problem for anyone trying to price risk. A proposed pathway would let qualifying complexes upzone into two new hotel-zoning classes (H-3 and H-4), preserving short-term rental rights for a substantial number of properties. But in February 2026 the Maui Planning Commission denied the proposed H-3/H-4 framework, kicking the decision to the County Council, where it requires a supermajority of six votes to advance.
Layered on top is litigation: lawsuits against Bill 9 have begun, including class-action arguments asserting vested property rights. Implementation is multi-stage, and the outcomes are genuinely not finalized. The practical takeaway is that the affected condo market is being priced today against a regulatory question that may not resolve for months or years.
Lahaina: Rebuilding, Slowly but Measurably
The recovery of Lahaina runs alongside all of this. The August 2023 fire killed over 100 people, destroyed more than 2,700 structures, and displaced close to 10,000 residents. Two and a half years on, the rebuild is real but gradual.
By spring 2026, the county reported on the order of 570 to 629 building permits issued — the large majority for residential rebuilding in the burn zone — with roughly 180 to 185 structures fully completed and around 300 to 310 homes under construction, plus several hundred more applications in process. Officials note that about 60% of fire-destroyed single-family housing is either permitted or under construction, a pace that compares favorably to other major disasters nationally. Expedited permits now average around 44 days overall and under 30 days for residential properties.
Other moving pieces include the more-than-$4 billion wildfire settlement, with initial payouts expected to begin flowing in 2026 and help homeowners close financing gaps and mobilize contractors; Hawaiian Electric’s plan to underground power lines along Lahainaluna Road; and Front Street infrastructure repairs targeted for completion around mid-2026, after which commercial rebuilding can proceed in phases. Some west-side beachfront condos, such as the reopened Lahaina Shores, have seen asking prices fall roughly a third from pre-fire levels.
What This Means for Buyers, Sellers, and Investors
Buyers are in the strongest position Maui has offered in years. Inventory is elevated across both segments, days on market are long, and sellers who price realistically are the ones transacting. The opportunity is real, but so is the homework: zoning status and rental runway now matter as much as the view.
Sellers of affected condos need a strategic pivot. The winning approach is transparency — disclosing exact zoning, rental status, and remaining runway upfront — and pricing for the property’s future as a long-term residential asset rather than its current short-term cap rate. Across all segments, the listings generating activity are the ones priced in line with where the market actually is, not where it was in 2022.
Investors face a clarified risk hierarchy. Hotel-zoned condos, timeshares, and permitted STR homes have become the stability play. Apartment-zoned Minatoya units carry binary regulatory risk that could resolve favorably through H-3/H-4 rezoning or litigation — or not. That uncertainty is the trade.
The Bottom Line
Maui’s 2026 market is a correction layered on a recovery layered on a regulatory upheaval. Prices are down, inventory is up, and the market has split into properties with regulatory clarity and properties without it. For well-capitalized, well-informed participants, the buyer-friendly conditions are genuine. But succeeding here now requires a thoughtful strategy and diligent due diligence in a way it simply did not a few years ago — and a clear-eyed acceptance that some of the most important variables, especially the fate of apartment-zoned short-term rentals, remain unresolved.
