"The number of sales and speed of sales are very similar to what we had at the height of the Japanese bubble," said Harvey Shapiro, research economist for the Board of Realtors, referring to the period in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Japanese investors pushed up real estate prices in Hawai'i, only to have them collapse as they pulled out a few years later.

The current boom in home sales has been spurred by the lowest interest rates in three decades, and investors deciding to buy real estate instead of stocks, analysts said.

A total of 381 single-family homes were sold in October, topping the previous high of 369 in July 1987, the Realtors said. Condominium sales time dropped to a median of 24 days, the shortest on record, the Realtors reported.

"It is very competitive," said Claude Phillips, president of Mortgage Plus. "If condos are priced reasonably, there is massive competition in terms of multiple offers."

Last month, 524 condominiums sold. Already, more condos have sold in 2002 than were sold in all of 2001.

Still condo prices are well below the peaks they reached during the bubble. The median price in October was $158,500, up 37 percent from a year ago, but less than the $208,000 high set in October 1990.

For single-family homes the median price was $355,000 in October. That's up 24.5 percent from a year ago, but down slightly from the $360,000 median price in September, and well below the peaks of the late 1980s.

Prices have been edging up most of the year as buyers take advantage of low interest rates.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 5.98 percent in October ­ the lowest in 32 years of record-keeping.

Meanwhile, three years of stock market declines have convinced many investors of the need to diversify their holdings, and that has led some to buy real estate.

"We have seen a lot of investment deals," said Richard Lindberg, vice president of Mortgage Plus. "We have one client closing today who normally invests in the stock market."

She is buying housing in Hawai'i because her daughter is out here, said Lindberg.

Others say Mainland baby boomers are buying in Hawai'i as an investment and a possible retirement home.

Phillips said about half of the buyers he sees are investors, and about half of the investors are from the Mainland, with the others coming from Hawai'i.

Regardless of the cause, the increased demand has put a dent in inventory. There are 1,181 single-family homes on the market this month, said Shapiro. That's down from a peak of about 2,500 homes on the market at any point in 1996.

For condos, there are 1,551 for sale now, Shapiro said. At its peak in 1986, there were about 5,000 condos on the market.

The combination of low inventory and increasing demand has made it a sellers market, says Phillips.