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Tell us your income and savings instead, and we'll work out the max home price and a qualification signal for Hawaii.
How much house can I afford in Hawaii? →Hawaiʻi Housing Finance & Development Corporation's statewide first-mortgage program for first-time homebuyers (successor to the former Hula Mae Single Family Mortgage Program), offering a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage roughly 0.5 percentage points below prevailing market rates, with optional down payment assistance up to 4% of the purchase price as a second mortgage (1% simple interest, no monthly payment, potentially forgivable after 10 years of compliance). Subject to HHFDC's county-by-county income and purchase-price limits, updated annually to IRS mortgage revenue bond guidelines.
Second-mortgage down payment/mortgage-insurance-avoidance loan of up to $125,000 offered by HHOC Mortgage, the mortgage-lending affiliate of the Hawaiʻi HomeOwnership Center (a HUD-approved 501(c)(3) nonprofit housing counseling agency serving the state). Interest is fixed at 4.5% or the first mortgage's rate, whichever is lower, amortized over 30 years, with no mortgage insurance and no prepayment penalty; requires at least a 3% down payment on the first mortgage, which must also be originated through HHOC Mortgage.
Fewer listings, fewer buyers, and sellers who have a reason to be on the market in December. Here is what a winter discount is actually worth on a $400,000 house — in monthly payment, in lifetime interest, and in the seller concessions a quiet market makes possible — and the three ways a winter purchase goes wrong.
Hawaii's 2-4% buyer closing-cost range sounds mild until you apply it to a $747,660 median price: $14,953 to $29,906, before you touch the down payment.
The operational guide to buying property with a partner, friend, sibling, or parent — credit and DTI mechanics, title vesting, a clause-by-clause co-ownership agreement, and how the exit actually works.
A month-by-month plan for the year before you buy: what to do in each phase, what never to touch, how to document every dollar, and how to survive closing day.
Hawaii guide
Compare Hawaii's buyer closing-cost range to the rest of the country and it looks almost gentle: 2-4% of the purchase price on a financed purchase. Plenty of states ask buyers for more.
Then you apply the percentage to a Hawaii price. Against the statewide median sale price of $747,660, a 2-4% range is $14,953 to $29,906, midpoint around $22,430. Run identical percentages against a $350,000 home — an unremarkable price almost anywhere on the mainland — and you get $7,000 to $14,000. Same percentage, roughly double the cash.
That gap is the whole story here. Nothing about Hawaii's fee structure is exotic — escrow fees, title insurance, appraisal, inspection, recording, and prorations are the same categories you'd see in Ohio, computed against one of the highest price bases in the country. The offsetting good news is real: the conveyance tax is customarily the seller's problem, and Hawaii charges no mortgage recording tax at all.
For what each fee is and does, start with our line-by-line breakdown of every closing-cost item. Below is only what Hawaii does differently.
A note before you start: this is general education, not financial, legal, or tax advice. Every figure below is a statewide number from CalculatorByState's sourced dataset, and your island, lender, escrow company, and contract will all move the total. Hawaii's median price is genuinely disputed across sources, enough that it gets its own section below, and the conveyance tax is computed bracket by bracket rather than at a flat rate. Your Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure are authoritative; use this to sanity-check them.
The 2-4% range applies to financed purchases and excludes agent commissions and the seller-paid conveyance tax. Cash buyers land lower, typically 1-2%, because the lender-side charges vanish.
Smaller numbers get quoted elsewhere. A lender-fee-only measure comes in under 1% of price, but it omits the prepaids and escrow reserves most buyers have to fund on closing day — see how escrow accounts get funded.
Read the full Hawaii guide →9 min read · Updated 2026-08-24