Kailua, Hawaii.
Typical home $1,526,023 (+2.7% in a year), asking rent $3,753 (+5.8%). Urban Honolulu, HI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$4,313 (+117%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $40,581 +3%
- $1,485,443$1,526,023 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $277,657 +22%
- $1,248,367$1,526,023 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Kailua$8,010
- Hawaii$4,372
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Kailua, HI rose 2.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Kailua, HI rose 5.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Kailua runs $6,252/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $6,683 in Oct 2023.
That is $10,005 a month against $3,753 rent: a $8,010 mortgage payment, plus $362 property tax and $1,634 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Kailua
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$10,005
- Renting$3,753
- Mortgage only$8,010
Property tax · $362/mo 0.28% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Honolulu County, HI
Insurance & upkeep · $1,634/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Kailua, Honolulu County, Hawaii
Kailua, in Honolulu County, had 40,514 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $148,582 a year and half less, against $106,195 across Honolulu County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 72% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 28% are rented. Unemployment in Honolulu County was 2.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 26 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Kailua is a town on the windward side of Oahu, home to a good many people. Residents tend to be older than in much of the country, and most households own the home they live in. Incomes run well above the county's, relatively few people live below the poverty line, and a four-year degree is common among adults. Homes and rents are expensive. The winters are mild, with the coolest weather in February and the warmest in September, and snow is rarely a concern. Rain falls through the year at a moderate pace.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in government, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in Kailua are Adventist Health Castle, Target and Safeway. Commutes are on the long side, and a fair number of people work from home. Unemployment across Honolulu County has edged up compared with a year earlier, and the number of jobs there has barely changed.
Things to do. Lanikai Beach is in or beside town, and it is the easiest place to spend an afternoon. A short drive away are the Honolulu Museum of Art and Manoa Falls, a waterfall reached on foot. For a longer outing, the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor is a museum and memorial a longer drive away.
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- 13,641households
- 56%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Honolulu County had 455,202 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in February, with highs near 78° and lows near 65°; warmest in September, with highs near 85° and lows near 74°. About 42 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Waimanalo Experiment F weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kailua
- Adventist Health CastleGeneral hospital1,098FTE
- TargetDiscount department stores355
- Kailua Oahu162
- SodexoFood service contractors84
- KailuaMail and parcel delivery78
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores60
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores57
- Down to Earth KailuaGrocery stores47
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 14 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,102 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- LandslidesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- TsunamisRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Kailua’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Honolulu County and the Urban Honolulu, HI metro.
Kailua home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Kailua$1,526,023
- Hawaii$832,932
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Kailua listings, and the typical home goes pending in 28 days — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Kailua25.36%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Kailua28
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Kailua139
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Kailua38
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Kailua$1,404,111
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Kailua99.43%
Zip codes with a Kailua address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Kailua — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.