Walk two Wailea condo buildings on the same afternoon and you can come away with nearly identical impressions. Same resort address, same landscaped walkways, similar two-bedroom floor plates, list prices within a few hundred thousand dollars of one another. What you cannot see from the lanai is that, as of July 2026, those two buildings sit on entirely different regulatory tracks. One has an active pathway to keep operating as a short-term rental for the long term. The other, at the moment, does not. The price sheet will not tell you which is which.
That gap between what a listing looks like and what it can legally do is the single most important thing a Wailea condo buyer needs to read this year.
The friction most buyers meet at the disclosure stage
Under Maui County's Bill 9, apartment-zoned condos that have long operated as vacation rentals face a phase-out deadline of January 1, 2031 for the South Maui area, including Wailea. West Maui runs on a shorter clock, January 1, 2029. Nothing turns off automatically in 2026 or 2027, but the deadline is now a fact that every appraisal, lender file, and buyer's counsel is going to weigh. Owners are already pulling units, and a broker survey of the four Wailea apartment-zoned complexes has documented sold-price reductions running as high as roughly 30% during the uncertainty. If you are buying a unit whose pro forma depends on nightly rental income, that clock is the term of your investment thesis, not a footnote.
Four tracks inside one resort
Bill 88, which the Maui County Council approved 7–2 on June 19, 2026, does not repeal Bill 9. It creates two new hotel zoning classifications, H-3 and H-4, that certain pre–September 24, 2020 apartment-zoned short-term rentals can apply into. On July 9, 2026, a Council committee advanced Resolution 26-111, which names seven properties the county says already operate like hotels and moves them toward that hotel designation. Wailea sits across four distinct regulatory positions right now.
| Track | Wailea examples | What it means today |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel or resort-zoned, unaffected by Bill 9 | Wailea Beach Villas, Ho'olei, Wailea Elua | Short-term rental rights are not on the phase-out list |
| Named in Resolution 26-111 for rezoning to hotel | Wailea Ekahi I, II and III; Wailea Ekolu; Palms at Wailea | An active, county-initiated path to preserve nightly rental use |
| Apartment-zoned, currently excluded from 26-111 | Grand Champions | Still on Bill 9's phase-out clock unless added or separately rezoned |
| Restrictive covenant back in court | Wailea Point | Ninth Circuit reinstated the 30-day minimum lease on July 15, 2026, subject to possible further action |
A buyer comparing two Wailea two-bedrooms in August 2026 is not comparing two condos. They are comparing two positions on that table.
Why Grand Champions matters more than its price tag suggests
At the July 9 hearing, a small-business operator managing vacation rental units at three Minatoya properties in Wailea testified that all four Wailea Minatoya complexes, Ekahi, Ekolu, Grand Champions and the Palms, have operated primarily as short-term rentals since they were built. He asked the committee to add Grand Champions to Resolution 26-111. The committee did not.
That single omission is the mechanism. It is why two nearly identical Wailea vacation-rental floor plans can be priced within striking distance of each other and yet carry very different risk profiles.
Bill 88 does not automatically rezone any property. Each condo community must still apply.
Read that sentence twice before signing anything at Grand Champions. Being on the Minatoya list is not the same as being on Resolution 26-111. Neither is the same as final hotel zoning. And a buyer's diligence period, not the listing photos, is where those distinctions surface.
What the Wailea Point ruling actually restored
On July 15, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a 2022 amendment raising Wailea Point's minimum lease term from 30 days to 365 days had not been validly adopted. Because the amendment restricted how owners could use their property, the Declaration required unanimous owner approval rather than the approximately 70% it received. The original 30-day minimum has been reinstated, and the Wailea Point Association still has a limited window to pursue additional legal action.
For a buyer, that means Wailea Point re-enters the conversation as a resort-zoned oceanfront community whose minimum-stay policy is again 30 days, at least for now. It also means the current legal status is not necessarily the final one. Confirm the Association's leasing policy in writing before you build a rental thesis on top of it.
What the price signals, and what it hides
The headline numbers for South Maui in early 2026 read like a market catching itself. In Q1 2026, Maui closed sales came in at 176, up 12.8% year over year, months of supply eased to 7.6 in March, and Wailea/Makena condo activity was up 16.7% year over year at recalibrated prices. Q2 luxury data from a statewide brokerage put the Wailea and Mākena luxury home median near $2.65M. Buyers who watched from the sidelines through 2024 and 2025 are transacting again.
The recalibration is not evenly distributed. UHERO projects a 20–40% condo value decline in zones where short-term rental use would be phased out, and hotel- or resort-zoned condos in Wailea, even the ban-safe ones, have traded roughly 20–30% below their recent peaks. The macro decline in the Maui condo index is real. What matters for a Wailea buyer is that the same percentage discount off two different regulatory tracks produces two very different assets. Off a hotel-zoned building, it is a cyclical entry point. Off an apartment-zoned building with no rezoning pathway yet, it is a discount for taking regulatory risk.
The median price does not distinguish between those two purchases. The buyer's contract has to.
Questions to raise before you write an offer
- Which zoning district does this specific unit sit in today, apartment or hotel, and is that confirmed on the county TMK record rather than only in the listing sheet?
- If apartment-zoned, is the building named in Resolution 26-111, is a separate community-initiated rezoning application in progress, or neither?
- What has the association actually voted on regarding minimum-stay rules, and are any of those votes exposed to the same procedural challenge the Ninth Circuit identified at Wailea Point?
- Does the seller's rental pro forma assume nightly rental income past January 1, 2031, and if so, on what regulatory basis?
- If financing, has the lender priced the phase-out timeline into the appraisal and reserve requirements?
None of those questions are answered on a portal. They are answered in escrow, and the answers routinely change the number you should be willing to pay.
FAQ
Does buying an apartment-zoned Wailea condo in 2026 still make sense? It can, especially if you are not depending on short-term rental income, or if the building is actively pursuing the H-3 or H-4 pathway created by Bill 88. It becomes harder to justify when the entire pro forma assumes nightly rental use continuing past 2031 with no rezoning application on file.
Are Wailea Beach Villas, Ho'olei and Wailea Elua safe from Bill 9? Bill 9 applies to apartment-zoned vacation rentals. Hotel or resort-zoned communities are not on the phase-out list, though zoning should always be confirmed at the unit level rather than assumed from the building name.
Is Wailea Point rentable short-term again? As of the July 15, 2026 Ninth Circuit decision, the 30-day minimum has been reinstated. The Association retains a limited window to pursue additional legal action, so buyers should verify the current leasing policy directly with the Association.
What happens if Bill 9 is overturned in court? Lawsuits challenging Bill 9 are pending. If one succeeds, the phase-out framework changes, and the price gap between the four tracks above narrows. The current price of a Wailea condo already reflects some probability of that outcome. Paying as if it is certain is a different bet.
The Wailea condo market in 2026 rewards buyers who read the regulatory track before they read the finishes. If you want a private walk-through of where a specific building or unit sits across these four tracks, and what that means for your offer, Mark Budaska works this resort every week. Let's connect and schedule a private consultation.
