The Top 100 in Real Estate 2019

AN EXCLUSIVE RANKING OF THE BEST PERFORMING REAL ESTATE AGENTS

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Hawaii Business Magazine spends a lot of time and effort measuring the performance of businesses and nonprofits in the Islands.

That’s why every year we publish a series of lists: the Best Places to Work, the Top 250 ranking of Hawai‘i’s biggest organizations, Hawai‘i’s Most Profitable Companies and the Most Charitable Companies. Our readers find value in each of these lists and so do the organizations being ranked – it tells them how they measure against their peers and competitors.

There’s a new look this year to the Top 100 in Real Estate. After 12 years of giving us its MLS sales data, the Honolulu Board of Realtors declined to provide that information this time to Hawaii Business Magazine. Board leaders told us the Top 100 put too much emphasis on the top tier of Realtors rather than on the services provided by many thousands of other Realtors on O‘ahu. They also said part of the data could be skewed because some Realtors had formed teams and attributed all the team’s sales to a single person.

But the Neighbor Island boards continued their partnership and provided data to us, so we compiled a list of the Top 100 based only on Neighbor Island data. 

We wish we could provide a statewide list, but we think this revised Top 100 is still useful to buyers and sellers of local real estate and offers a look at the accomplishments of Neighbor Island real estate agents.   

The complete methodology we use is explained here.

First-time homebuyer? The Hawai‘i Homeownership Center helps navigate the complex world of buying a home. Learn more.

QUICKLINKS

TOP REAL ESTATE AGENTS: HAWAIʻI ISLAND
TOP REAL ESTATE AGENTS: MAUI
TOP REAL ESTATE AGENTS: KAUAʻI
METHODOLOGY

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TOP 49 REAL ESTATE AGENTS ON HAWAI‘I ISLAND

This home and 7.45-acre property in Kamuela on Hawai‘i Island sold last year for $18 million and was back on the market at press time for $23.9 million. Robert Chancer and Stephen Hurwitz of Mauna Kea Realty represented the seller last year and Hurwitz represented the buyer. | Photo: Courtesy of Jonathan Davis

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TOP 26 REAL ESTATE AGENTS ON MAUI

No. 1 Statewide: Neal Norman of Kaua‘i

Neal Norman always ranks high on the annual Top 100 in Real Estate, but 2018 was an especially good 12 months for the No. 1 agent statewide on this year’s list.

“We had several properties (up for sale) that were beyond ‘special’ … and that does not always happen,” Norman says.

Based out of Hawai‘i Life’s Princeville office, he was involved in 34 transactions last year, including deals on seven parcels of vacant residential land.

He represented both the buyer and seller in 2018’s most expensive purchase, valued at just over $46 million. The estate is on Kaua‘i’s north shore, and includes a working farm, private beach access and “expansive” mountain views.

He also credits his uptick in sales to an increased interest in the “easy Hawai‘i travel experience,” which attracts luxury buyers to “one-of-a-kind” properties on Kaua‘i.

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TOP 25 REAL ESTATE AGENTS ON KAUAʻI

ALL QUALIFYING SALES

$10.9  billion
Total value of 2018’s qualifying residential real estate sales
on the Neighbor Islands, involving 2,341 agents

33%
Top 100 agents’ share of the sales total

17,864
Total transactions

18%
Top 100’s share of all transactions

Editor’s Note

Our original plan this year was to split the Top 100 into three lists: Top 25 lists for both Kauai and Maui and a Top 50 list for Hawai‘i Island. After compiling the lists and notifying all the winning agents, we recognized late in the process that one agent with sales on all three islands had the most sales on Maui, so we moved him from the Hawai‘i Island list to the Maui list. Hence the odd numbering: a Top 26 list for Maui and a Top 49 list for Hawai‘i Island.

Methodology

Here is the methodology that Hawaii Business Magazine uses to compile the Top 100 in Real Estate.

For 12 years, the list has included sales data from across Hawai‘i. This year, for the first time, the Honolulu Board of Realtors declined to provide its sales data to Hawaii Business Magazine. As a result, the Top 100 in Real Estate this year includes only Realtors from the Neighbor Islands. We broke the Top 100 into three lists: the Top 25 on Kaua‘i, the Top 26 on Maui and the Top 49 on Hawai‘i Island.

Here are our Criteria:

• Covered are sales that closed from Jan. 1, 2018 to Dec. 31, 2018.
• Only MLS transactions in Hawai‘i are accepted.
• Sales of single-family homes and condominiums are counted, and so are sales of residential vacant land.
• Primary listers receive full credit for the transactions; co-listers do not receive credit.
• Each side in a transaction – both the seller’s agent and the buyer’s agent – is credited with the full selling price of a home.
• If the real estate agent represents both the seller and the buyer, that agent is credited with twice the selling price.

MLS is a dynamic platform that continuously changes as new information is entered into the system. That means the Top 100 in Real Estate is a snapshot of activity taken at the time the data is collected in January of each year. (It takes many months after that to evaluate the data.) Amendments made in MLS after Hawaii Business Magazine gathers the information in January are not reflected in the published lists.