In the Big island of Hawaii, more people are buying Condominium and single family homes compared to last year, as home prices are still going cheap.

In fact, single family home sales were 126 in August, compared to around 100 during the same time last year, according to Hawaii information service.

Hawaii was among the places where recession had hit sales of homes after the real estate bust. The US economy went into a recession triggered by defaults on mortgages by home owners and subsequent collapse of financial institutions like Lehman Brothers.

Six more Condos were sold in August to take the total to 356 this year, as against 204 last year.

Home prices in Hawaii are cheaper by 10-20% compared to last year, at the worst of the recession.

Pacific Business News, a local newspaper said that the first half of the year saw higher sales in the region compared to the same period last year.

And clearly you see a spike in June. It has some correlation to those first-time home buyers, who had to be in escrow by the end of April and did a lot of closings in June, said Scott Higashi, executive vice president of sales for Prudential Locations in the paper.

Lehman brothers