Housing in Hawai'i is very expensive. How do Hawai'i's households compare to the national households?


Married and Single Households

The pie charts above compare Hawai'i Household types with New York and the entire United States. New York has been chosen for comparison because it is notoriously known for having very expensive housing costs. As shown above, Hawai'i has more married households than the US average while New York has less married households than the US average. It can be hypothesized that due to New York being a state of very business-heavy activity, there are less people focused on being family-oriented, but rather career-oriented. As with Hawai'i, it is not as business-heavy as compared to New York. The main industry of Hawai'i is Tourism. Perhaps the more "aloha" lifestyle allows more leeway for married life.

Owned and Rented Households

Both Hawai'i and New York are known to have the issue where there is less living space for the given population compared to other states. Due to that, more households in both Hawai'i and New York are rentals when compared to the United States as a whole. New York has significantly more rental households compared to Hawai'i. It can be hypothesized that since both states have less land for its given population, there is less land that can be owned. The land would also be more expensive. Thus, the amount of people who need to rent is significantly higher. Assuming New York has a very high population density, especially in New York City, it is no surprise that more households are rentals.

Household Structure Type

Both New York and Hawai'i have more multi-unit households when compared to the United States as a whole. New York has significantly more multi-unit households compared to Hawai'i. This makes logical sense; due to the lack of land for the given population, more living units must be built to accept multiple households. As mentioned before, assuming New York has a very high population density, it is no surprise that there are more multi-unit households. More people tightly packed in an area leads to more people being tightly packed in housing.

Value of Housing

The pie charts above show that Hawai'i has an extremely severe problem when it comes to housing costs. Over half of all Hawai'i housing is priced between $500,000 and $1,000,000. This is significantly higher than the entire United States' 13.3% of housing priced between $500,000 and $1,000,000. Much less housing are priced below $500,000 when compared to the United States as a whole. As for New York, there is nearly twice as much housing priced between $500,000 and $1,000,000 when compared to the entire United States, though not nearly as dire as Hawai'i. It is alarmingly clear that Hawai'i needs more affordable housing.