Ask an owner at Wailea Point about hotel zoning and the answer gets complicated fast. The building is zoned Hotel, which under Maui County's rules means it sits entirely outside Bill 9's short-term rental phase-out. No countdown clock, no 2031 deadline, no forced conversion to long-term housing. On paper, that looks like the safest possible position in a market that has spent two years absorbing regulatory whiplash. In practice, the Wailea Point association has restricted stays to six months or longer for years, so the nightly-rental rights the zoning provides go unused. Meanwhile the county still assesses the property at the higher hotel-zoned tax rate, the one that assumes the unit is producing hotel-zoned income. Owners end up carrying the tax bill of a vacation rental and the rental restrictions of a long-term residence at the same time.
That gap between what a zoning map says and what a specific building actually allows is the piece of the Wailea-Makena conversation that gets flattened whenever someone reduces it to "check if it's hotel-zoned or apartment-zoned." The dividing line in this market doesn't run around the neighborhood. It runs building by building, and sometimes it runs through the fine print of a single building's own house rules.
The line runs through Wailea's own street map
Bill 9, signed into law on December 15, 2025, phases out short-term rentals in apartment-zoned buildings across Maui County. West Maui properties have until January 1, 2029. South Maui, which includes Wailea, Kihei, and Makena, has until January 1, 2031. The rule applies only to apartment-zoned units. Hotel-zoned condos were never part of it.
That distinction matters more here than almost anywhere else on the island. Wailea alone has roughly seventeen condo communities, and Makena adds a smaller cluster of its own resort buildings next door. On the hotel-zoned side, sitting outside the phase-out entirely, are buildings like Wailea Beach Villas, Wailea Point, Wailea Elua, Ho'olei at Grand Wailea, the Andaz Residences, Makena Surf, and Polo Beach Club. On the apartment-zoned side, facing the same 2031 deadline as the Minatoya-list buildings in Kihei that get most of the headlines, are buildings like Grand Champions, Kai Malu, Kanani Wailea, Keala O Wailea, Wailea Ekahi Village, Wailea Ekolu, Wailea Fairway Villas, Wailea Palms, Makali'i at Wailea, Na Hale O Makena, Papali Wailea, and the newer La'i Loa Wailea Hills.
A buyer who assumes "Wailea" is a single, insulated market is skipping the one check that actually determines how a specific unit behaves after 2031. The address tells you the neighborhood. It doesn't tell you the zoning.
Why the county's condo numbers don't describe what's happening here
By September 2025, after a sharp pullback the month before, the Realtors Association of Maui's own leadership was blunt about the broader picture. Association President Lynette Pendergast said at the time:
"Maui's housing market is in a period of transition. While single-family home prices remain stable, the condominium market is seeing significant drops. These trends highlight the importance of strategic decisions by both buyers and sellers as the market evolves."
That framing holds up at the county level. As of April 2026, condo prices had fallen roughly 34 percent from their August 2024 peak, a decline sharp enough to stand out against a comparatively modest 7 percent pullback in single-family homes over the same stretch, a gap that tracks closely with which segment carries Bill 9 exposure. As of Q1 2026, the county-wide condo median sat at $699,000, down 12.1 percent year over year.
Wailea and Makena did not follow that script. Condo activity in the submarket was up 16.7 percent year over year in Q1 2026, with buyers engaging at recalibrated prices even as the county-wide median kept falling. The most straightforward explanation, given the building list above, is that a large share of Wailea and Makena's condo inventory simply isn't exposed to the mechanism driving the county-wide slump. Kihei carries the heaviest concentration of Minatoya-list apartment-zoned buildings on the island. Wailea carries a meaningful share of hotel-zoned inventory that was never touched by the phase-out in the first place. The county aggregate blends both stories into one number, and that number describes neither market particularly well.
The luxury single-family market didn't follow the same script either
It would be tidy to conclude that Wailea and Makena are simply the safe half of South Maui and leave it there, but the data doesn't support that either. Between January and August 2025, sales of Wailea and Makena homes priced above $3 million fell by half, even as luxury sales in Kihei increased over the same window. South Maui's luxury segment overall dipped a more modest 22 percent, but the specific shift toward Kihei at Wailea and Makena's expense doesn't fit a story where one neighborhood is simply outperforming another across every price point and property type.
The pattern that actually holds is narrower and more useful: condo resilience in Wailea and Makena appears tied to zoning composition, not to the neighborhood's reputation or price point. Luxury single-family activity moves on a different set of variables entirely. Treating either segment as a stand-in for "how Wailea is doing" misses the building-level and segment-level detail that determines what a given property will actually do.
What actually protects you as a buyer
The Wailea Point situation and the county-wide numbers point to the same practical lesson. Zoning, association rules, and tax classification are three separate documents, and none of them can be inferred from the other two.
Before writing an offer on a Wailea or Makena condo, confirm the parcel's actual zoning designation with Maui County rather than assuming it from the building's reputation or price point. Then read the association's CC&Rs and house rules separately, because a hotel-zoned building can still restrict rentals well beyond what the zoning would technically allow, as Wailea Point demonstrates. Then check the current property tax classification independently of both, since a unit can be billed at hotel-zoned rates regardless of whether it is actually producing hotel income. If the building is apartment-zoned, understand that the 2031 deadline is fixed for South Maui, but long-term residential use is already a permitted use in apartment districts and requires no rezoning, so the building doesn't disappear as a housing option when short-term rental use ends. It simply stops functioning as a vacation rental.
None of this shows up in a listing sheet. It shows up in the AOAO document packet, the county's real property tax records, and a direct conversation with the association's management company, which is exactly the kind of due diligence that separates a smooth closing from a surprise one.
A few questions that come up often
Does hotel zoning guarantee I can rent nightly at a Wailea condo? Not automatically. Wailea Point is zoned Hotel but its association has restricted stays to six months or longer, so the zoning right exists without a corresponding ability to use it. Always confirm the association's actual rental rules in addition to the county zoning designation.
What's the real deadline for apartment-zoned condos in Wailea and Makena to stop short-term rentals? January 1, 2031, for all of South Maui, two years later than the January 1, 2029 deadline that applies to West Maui buildings.
If a condo is apartment-zoned, does it lose all value once the phase-out hits? Long-term residential use is already a permitted use in apartment-zoned districts and doesn't require rezoning, so the building remains usable as a primary residence or long-term rental after 2031. What changes is the ability to book nightly stays, which is the piece that matters most for anyone weighing the purchase primarily as a vacation-rental investment.
Wailea and Makena reward buyers who ask about the specific building rather than the neighborhood's reputation. If you're comparing units across this market and want the zoning, association rules, and tax classification confirmed before you commit to an offer, Kela Fernandez can pull the actual documents for the buildings you're considering and walk through what they mean for your plans. Schedule a personal consultation to get the specific answers your shortlist actually needs.
