Some West Maui Vacation Rentals Have Become Long-Term Housing

Long-term rental housing on Maui was already tight before the deadly Aug. 8 fires wiped out homes in Kula and nearly the entire town of Lahaina. Today, vacant long-term rentals in West Maui are virtually nonexistent.

While listings for short-term vacation rentals from Kā‘anapali to Kapalua are plentiful, only a handful of long-term rentals are listed, outside of luxury properties commanding $13,000 or more per month.

Before Aug. 8, West Maui had the highest concentration of the island’s 16,000 vacation rentals and the Valley Isle had the second-most short-term rentals in the state, after Kaua‘i, according to an April blog post by UHERO, the UH Economic Research Organization.

But with tourists gone – they are set to start returning to West Maui in phases on Sunday – some owners of vacation rentals decided to open their units to families who lost everything in the fires.

“We have seen there’s been an influx of new inventory for long-term rentals,” says Kahea Zietz of real estate company Hawaiʻi Life. “And as soon as those come up, they’re immediately leased. Our last few that we’ve had, they haven’t even gone to market mainly because we’re using the list for families that have been affected” by the fires.

Kahea Zietz is vice president and co-owner of the statewide real estate firm Hawaiʻi Life. She has run Hawaiʻi Life’s rentals and property management divisions since 2010. | Photo: courtesy of Hawaiʻi Life

“So before they even go to market, we’re finding families in need and we’re prioritizing that,” she says. “There’s such a greater need here. We’re in tune with that, and that would be what we feel is the right thing to do.”

Zietz, who is based on Kauaʻi, was recently named VP and co-owner of the statewide real estate firm after running Hawaiʻi Life’s rentals and property management divisions since 2010. Hawaiʻi Life manages more than 260 rental homes on Maui; about 100 of those are short-term rentals – which the County of Maui defines as less than six months – and the rest long-term rentals. Statewide, it manages more than 700 short- and long-term rental properties.

Hawai‘i Life says 16 West Maui homes have been switched from short-term to long-term rentals since the fire.

Some Vacation Rentals Offered to Locals

Zietz and her team have gotten through other major crises that have impacted housing in the past five years, including two in 2018: the eruption of Kīlauea volcano and floods on Kauaʻi that cut off part of the North Shore for months. Then there was the Covid-19 pandemic that shut down Hawaiʻi’s visitor industry for most of 2020 before reopening to “this massive pent-up demand to come to Hawaiʻi.”

This time, the firm’s clients – the owners of vacation rentals on Maui and across Hawaiʻi – pitched in to help local families that lost their homes. Zietz noted that several Hawaiʻi Life agents also lost their homes.

“A lot of homeowners stepped up and allowed evacuees or affected families to live in their homes,” Zietz says, some free of charge. “And then we took it a step further and we broadcasted the message across all of our homeowners across the state, not just on Maui.”

They told homeowners about the need for housing and asked if they were willing to rent their homes, at whatever expense and whatever terms. They did a similar program during the Covid shutdowns.

“We were able to because we offer both short-term and long-term,” Zietz says. “We’re able to pivot and immediately add homes into our long-term rental pool and offer the marketing for that. We had a very beautiful return rate on what they were willing to do. It seemed they were more focused on wanting to help families than they were focused on rent or terms.”

Meanwhile, Zietz’s new role puts a focus on growing the short- and long-term rental market for Hawaiʻi Life, which is the largest locally owned statewide independent real estate firm in the Islands.

“The rental market is ever growing and ever changing,” she says. “And there’s going to be a constant need for both short-term and long-term rentals.”