Maui Rental Market

Maui’s Challenging Rental Market

The Maui rental market has become increasingly challenging over the past several years due to a combination of issues. The issue is not the availability of rentals but the affordability.

A modestly sized 2 bedroom rental in a rural area such as Haiku rents for about $1600/ month. Suggested rent equations say that your rent should be about 30% of your monthly income, meaning you would need to be making more than $4000/month to afford the previously mentioned 2 bedroom in Haiku.

Maui landlords have had alternative options to renting their spaces monthly using vacation rental sites such as VRBO and AirBnb. When vacation renting by the night landlords can make $6000/month rather than $1600/month.

Recently Maui County has gotten tougher on issuing vacation rental permits and harsher punishments for illegal vacation rentals so there are many rentals which are back on the market. However, some landlords have gotten used to receiving these higher rental rates.

It is a renter’s market, so landlords have the ability to be picky when choosing renters. It can be especially difficult for renter’s with pet’s to find suitable housing, breeds such as pitbulls are even further discriminated against.

Rental prices for a 4 bedroom single family home can be like basically paying a mortgage.