A buyer calls with a straightforward request: a two-bedroom condo at Mauna Lani, resort zoned, good for a few weeks of family use and a rental program the rest of the year. Two units come up. Both sit inside the same 3,200-acre resort. Both are technically zoned for short-term rentals under Hawaii County code. One can be booked for a weekend. The other has a homeowners association bylaw that will not let a guest check in for less than three nights, no matter what the zoning map says.
That gap is not a rounding error. It is the difference between a property that behaves like a vacation rental and one that behaves like something closer to a monthly lease with better views. And it lives inside a resort whose headline number, a condo median of $1.9 million through the first half of 2026, tells you nothing about which kind of unit you are looking at.
The Median Everyone Quotes Is An Average Of Four Markets
Through the first half of 2026, Mauna Lani's condo median sits at $1.9 million, up 9.4 percent from the same stretch a year earlier. Average price per square foot runs around $965. Months of supply is holding near 6.0, a tighter and healthier balance than some neighboring resorts on the Kohala Coast are seeing right now. Mauna Lani also carries the highest condo closing volume of the three major Kohala Coast resort communities this year.
Those numbers describe a market that is absorbing inventory at a steady pace and holding its value. What they do not describe is what a buyer actually gets for that $1.9 million, because the resort is not one product. It is 17 distinct communities spread across roughly 3,200 acres, and the condo inventory alone spans four genuinely different price tiers.
| Tier | Complexes | Current Range |
|---|---|---|
| Entry villa | Palm Villas, Fairways at Mauna Lani, Golf Villas | $1.1M to $1.8M |
| Mid villa | Kulalani, Islands at Mauna Lani | $1.3M to $2.5M |
| Premium villa | Villages at Mauna Lani, Mauna Lani Terrace, Residences of Laule'a | $2.1M to $3.7M |
| Oceanfront trophy | Pauoa Bay, Makaiwa Bay estates | $10M to $30M+ |
A $1.9 million median sitting between the mid and premium villa tiers is a statistical midpoint, not a description of a typical purchase. Nobody buys the median. They buy a specific unit in a specific complex, and the difference between an entry-tier Fairways unit and a Mauna Lani Terrace oceanfront condo is not a matter of degree. It is a different asset class wearing the same resort name.
What Sits Behind Each Price Tag
The entry tier, Palm Villas, Fairways, and Golf Villas, currently prices from roughly $1.1 million up through $1.8 million. These are the smallest floor plans in the resort, generally two-bedroom townhome-style units, and they represent the most accessible way into Mauna Lani ownership without stepping down to a different resort entirely.
Move into Kulalani and Islands at Mauna Lani and the range climbs to $1.3 million through $2.5 million, reflecting larger floor plans, more private settings, and in Kulalani's case, one of the largest amenity centers in the resort.
The premium villa tier, Villages at Mauna Lani, Mauna Lani Terrace, and Residences of Laule'a, runs from about $2.1 million to $3.7 million. These are oceanfront or near-oceanfront positions with larger square footage and, in Laule'a's case, private pools.
Then there is the tier that does not behave like the rest of the market at all. The three oceanfront single-family sales that have closed so far in 2026 averaged $16 million at $2,613 per square foot. That number is real, but it is built on three transactions, all oceanfront, at Pauoa Bay and Makaiwa Bay. It says almost nothing about what a typical Mauna Lani single-family buyer will pay, because there is no typical buyer at that tier. There is a small, tightly held pool of trophy estates that trades rarely enough that three sales can swing the average by seven figures in either direction.
The Zoning Map Says Yes. The HOA Might Say Otherwise.
Most of Mauna Lani's villa complexes, including Mauna Lani Point, Mauna Lani Terrace, Islands at Mauna Lani, Kulalani, and Palm Villas, are zoned V for Resort under Hawaii County code, which generally permits short-term vacation rentals under the framework the county adopted through Ordinance 2018-114, commonly known as Bill 108. That ordinance defines where the use is allowed and creates a path for existing rentals to apply for a Nonconforming Use Certificate if they operate outside a permitted zone.
Zoning is the floor, not the ceiling. Within that same resort-zoned footprint, individual homeowners associations can and do impose their own restrictions on top of what the county allows. Kulalani is the clearest example at Mauna Lani. Even though the complex sits on land zoned for short-term rental use, its association enforces a minimum three-night stay, which rules out the one and two-night bookings that a buyer might assume comes standard with resort zoning.
A resort zoning stamp tells you what the county permits. It does not tell you what your specific building permits. Read the condo documents before you read the comps.
This is not a Kulalani-specific quirk so much as a resort-wide pattern worth checking complex by complex. HOA bylaws across Hawaii Island's resort zones have increasingly been updated to set a minimum length of stay, which changes the revenue math for anyone underwriting a purchase based on nightly rate multiplied by 365 days.
Custom Estates Play By A Different Rulebook Entirely
The villa complexes are only part of Mauna Lani's residential footprint. Custom single-family estates line the fairways of the North and South Courses, and those properties typically carry different rental restrictions than the resort-zoned villa complexes around them, even when they sit inside the same gated boundary. A buyer who assumes that any home inside Mauna Lani automatically inherits the same short-term rental rights as a Kulalani villa is working from an incorrect map. Zoning, CC&Rs, and HOA rules need to be confirmed at the individual parcel level, not extrapolated from the resort's general reputation as a rental-friendly address.
This distinction matters most for buyers who are weighing a custom fairway home specifically because they want the flexibility to rent it out occasionally. That flexibility is not guaranteed by the resort's overall zoning posture. It has to be verified property by property.
What To Actually Check Before You Compare Two "Mauna Lani" Listings
Before treating two Mauna Lani condos as comparable simply because they share a resort name, it helps to confirm a short list of specifics:
- Confirm the complex, not just the resort. Palm Villas, Fairways, Kulalani, and Mauna Lani Terrace are not interchangeable price points. Know which tier you are actually shopping in.
- Read the HOA's rental bylaws directly. Zoning tells you what the county allows. The condo documents tell you what the building allows, including any minimum-stay requirements layered on top.
- Check the county's current registration status. Hawaii County's Ordinance 25-50 introduced a new transient vacation rental registration requirement with a compliance deadline of July 1, 2026, which has already passed as of this writing. Confirm any rental-intended property is properly registered before assuming it can operate.
- Treat oceanfront trophy comps as their own category. A $16 million average built on three sales is not a benchmark for the resort's broader condo market. Keep that tier separate in your thinking.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Directly
Does every condo at Mauna Lani allow short-term rentals? Most villa complexes are zoned for it, but individual HOAs can restrict how that plays out, as Kulalani's minimum-stay rule shows. Always confirm at the complex level.
Is the $1.9 million median a good benchmark for budgeting? It is a useful signal of overall market direction, up 9.4 percent through the first half of 2026, but not a reliable price target for any specific complex. Use the tier ranges instead.
Why did the county add a new registration requirement in 2026? Ordinance 25-50 established a transient vacation rental registration system with a July 1, 2026 deadline, part of the county's broader effort to track and enforce existing zoning rules rather than change them.
The resort's own gate might be the same for every buyer. What is on the other side of it is not. If you are comparing two listings that both say Mauna Lani and want to know which tier, which rental rights, and which HOA rules actually apply to each, MK Letterman can walk through the specifics complex by complex before you make an offer.
