"Short-term rental is the only thing that makes ownership here mathematically possible," Heidi Winslow told the Maui Planning Commission in late September. She owns a unit at the Hale Mahina Beach Resort in Honokōwai, where all 52 units are leasehold. "It isn't a loophole. It's the load-bearing wall of this entire ownership structure, and it has been since 1981."

Her point was about underwriting, not tourism. A leasehold unit earns a different return than a fee simple unit, and it gets financed differently. If you take away the income that justified the purchase, the math under the building changes. In September the commission recommended against hotel rezoning for leasehold properties because it saw them as potential housing. That one ruling shows the bigger change in Maui's condo market. Bill 9 no longer works as one deadline over thousands of units. Each building now gets its own decision, and the deciding factor is mostly how the building is owned and what legal paperwork it already holds.

The Deadline Is Fixed, but the Exit Door Is Narrow

The baseline hasn't moved. The Maui County Council passed Bill 9 on final reading, 5-3, on December 15, 2025, and Mayor Richard Bissen signed it the same day. The law phases out short-term vacation rentals in apartment-zoned districts by December 31, 2028, in West Maui and by December 31, 2030, everywhere else in the county.

The second law is what turned this into a building-by-building question. Bill 88 passed final reading 7-2 on June 19, 2026, and took effect June 22 as Ordinance 6008. It created H-3 and H-4 hotel districts. A qualifying former apartment-district property can be rezoned into one of them and keep its vacation rental use. To qualify, a property needs a legally existing structure, vacation rental operation before September 24, 2020, no expansion beyond its authorized unit count, and current tax licensing and payments. Molokaʻi is excluded. Honolulu Civil Beat reported that the new districts give the owners of roughly 4,500 units a way to seek that designation. Bill 88 itself rezoned nothing. Each property still needs its own rezoning bill, which goes to the Planning Commission for hearings and a recommendation before the Council takes final action.

Five Buildings Out of 48

The first batch was a test of how the commission would sort properties. The Council proposed rezoning 3,402 units across 48 properties as hotel districts, according to Maui Now. The Planning Department's staff report gives a larger count for the two resolutions, 3,823 units. Expect the exact figure to vary by source.

Greg Pfost, administrative planning officer for the Maui County Planning Department, divided the properties into categories. The commission's recommendations followed those categories closely:

The five approved properties hold 397 units combined. Against Maui Now's 3,402-unit total, about 12% of the first batch got a favorable recommendation.

Look at what decided the outcome. The approved properties had paperwork or a uniform ownership structure: a variance already on file, a building that is entirely timeshare, or an operator's license with no residential units mixed in. Hotel-style operations weren't enough. Properties that argued they already run like hotels were denied, often with the details right in front of commissioners. The Resort at Papakea cited a 24-hour front desk, property-wide laundry and housekeeping, and a staff of 35. Maui Hill cited its resort management contract with Aqua Aston and a staff of 40. The Palms at Wailea pointed to an Outrigger-run front desk and 18 employees. The Council's Housing and Land Use Committee had floated amenities and staffing as signs of a "hotel-like operation." The commission said it wanted more objective standards for what counts as a hotel.

Size makes the uncertainty bigger. Kama‘ole Sands has 428 of its 440 units on the Minatoya list. A recommendation on one complex like that affects more units than all five approved properties put together.

The Vote Math on the Next 32

The commission only recommends, and it has until November 24 to send the first batch back to the Council for the final decision. The second batch shows how close those final decisions may be.

On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, the Council voted 5-4 to refer 32 more condominium complexes in Māʻalaea, Kīhei and West Maui to the commission. Nineteen are A-1 properties proposed for H-3, and 13 are A-2 properties proposed for H-4. The referral rezoned nothing. If the commission recommends against those bills, the Council needs six of its nine members to pass them. That is one more vote than the referral got. Chair Alice Lee, Vice Chair Yuki Lei Sugimura, and Council Members Kauanoe Batangan, Tom Cook and Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins voted yes. Council Members Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, Gabe Johnson, Shane Sinenci and Tamara Paltin voted no.

These properties were chosen with shoreline-location criteria the Housing and Land Use Committee adopted for this resolution only. They also had to be buildings not originally intended as affordable or workforce housing. An amendment to add two West Maui buildings, Nohonani at 3723 Lower Honoapiʻilani Road and Hoyochi Nikko at 3901 Lower Honoapiʻilani Road, failed. Sugimura had argued that both buildings' founding documents allowed short-term rentals from the start. For a buyer, that failed amendment matters. Even a building with a strong founding-document argument can be left off the list.

Prices Are Falling While Sales Rise

All this sorting is happening inside one islandwide condo market. The REALTORS® Association of Maui's August 2026 report shows the pattern:

• Median sale price: $564,950 in August 2026, down 13.1% from $650,000 in August 2025
• Average sale price: $893,388, down 21.9% from $1,144,168
• Closed sales: 68, up from 57; year to date through August, 546, up from 466
• Pending sales: 79, up from 51
• Months of supply: 12.2, down from 15.2
• Days on market until sale: 171, against 168 a year earlier

In a stalled market, prices fall and sales dry up. Maui's numbers show the opposite. Sales and pending deals are up, supply is shrinking, and sellers received 94.2% of list price in August 2026. Buyers are closing at lower prices. The average fell faster than the median, which suggests the mix of what sold shifted toward lower price points, not just that every unit lost value equally.

These are figures for all condos combined, so they can't show what Bill 9 did by itself. Prices were already falling before the law passed. UHERO's 2026 Housing Factbook gets closer. From 2023 to 2025, the median condo sale price fell 16.3% for Minatoya-list properties, against 10.8% for Maui overall and 4.2% for the state outside Maui. UHERO also reported Maui condos averaging more than 100 days on market.

That gap of about five and a half points is a discount on the Minatoya list as a whole. The commission's first batch shows the list doesn't share one fate. An all-timeshare building with a favorable recommendation and a leasehold building with an unfavorable one both count in the same Minatoya median.

Who Is Buying Affected Units So Far

Early buyer data is thin, and the two available counts use different methods. McKenna Woodward of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs cited Maui County Finance Department data showing 101 Bill 9-affected properties sold as of July, 25 of them to local buyers. Caitlin Miller of the Maui Vacation Rental Association counted 162 affected sales between December 1, 2025, and August 14, 2026. Checking them against property tax records, she found 12, or 7.4%, confirmed as owner-occupied, and nine more that appear to be likely Maui resident owner-occupants. Miller cautioned that it is still early. The two counts shouldn't be combined into one trend.

No figures we found establish how many affected units have switched to long-term rentals, or how rents have changed because of the law.

Underwriting a Minatoya Building in Late 2026

For an investor or exchanger looking at an affected property, the rezoning record now matters as much as the rent roll. In practical terms:

1. Find the building's category. Variance, all-timeshare, mixed timeshare and vacation rental, leasehold, single owner or hotel-like operation. In the first batch, the category predicted the recommendation more reliably than amenities or staff count did.
2. Check whether it is on a referral, and which one. A property in the first 48 has a commission recommendation due by November 24. A property in the second 32 faces a vote count where an unfavorable recommendation means finding a sixth Council vote.
3. Price the leasehold layer separately. Under the phase-out, a leasehold unit loses short-term income while its financing and ownership terms stay the same. The commission's view of leasehold buildings as housing candidates puts them in the most exposed position.
4. Model the deadline that applies. West Maui income ends December 31, 2028. Kīhei and Māʻalaea income ends December 31, 2030, unless a rezoning happens first.
5. Treat the lawsuits as unresolved. Kāʻanapali Royal owners filed Malter v. Maui County on December 19, 2025, arguing that Bill 9 is an unconstitutional taking and asking for a preliminary injunction. Lynam v. County of Maui, filed December 22, 2025, seeks class status for Minatoya owners. As of a September 10, 2026 trade-press review, no injunction had been issued. Check the docket before you rely on either case.

FAQ

Does Bill 88 protect a building from the phase-out? Not by itself. It created the H-3 and H-4 districts, but each property needs its own rezoning approved by the Council after Planning Commission review.

Is the Planning Commission's recommendation final? No. The Council makes the final decision. For the 32-property referral, an unfavorable recommendation raises the bar to six Council votes.

Do the RAM price declines show Bill 9's effect? They show the whole condo market, so they can't separate the law's effect from everything else. UHERO's comparison of Minatoya-list properties is the closest measure available, and it covers 2023 through 2025.

A Minatoya-list building can't be valued the way it was in 2025. Its rezoning category, ownership structure and phase-out date now carry real weight in the price. Commercial Investment Strategies underwrites Hawaii income property against current rules and how lenders are treating it, for owners deciding whether to hold, reposition or sell, and for exchangers deciding whether a Maui asset belongs in a replacement search. What's your property worth under the rules that will actually apply to it?