The average single-family home and condominium also stayed on the market for a relatively short period of about a month and sold at modestly higher prices compared with January 2002.

The board expects robust resales to continue in step with low mortgage rates, despite growing threats of war in Iraq and slow growth in the economy.

"Conditions could change at any time in the event of a war or other conditions that have an impact on Hawai'i's economy," said Harvey Shapiro, research economist with the board. "For now, however, the housing sector continues to be the strength in our economy."

There were 278 single-family homes resold last month, up 9.4 percent from 254 sales in January 2002. The median price was $350,000, up 12 percent from $312,500 a year ago and unchanged from December.

For condos, there were 476 resales last month, a 46.5 percent increase over the 325 sold in the year-ago month. The median price was $158,300, up 14.7 percent from $138,000 a year ago and down 1.1 percent, or $1,700, from December.

The last time there were more combined single-family and condo resales in January was in 1990 when there were 797 transactions primarily driven by 551 condo resales. The 246 single-family resales in January 1990 were fewer than last month's figure, which Shapiro said is an all-time January high.

Anne Keamo, chairwoman of the Realtor board and president of Properties Unlimited, called the continued market performance over the past 13 months "spectacular," and predicts more records will be broken this year.

"This year I can already see we're going to have champagne again," she said, noting that 2002 was the best year in about two decades for Properties Unlimited.

Keamo said Hawai'i Kai has been really active in the high end of the market, while the bulk of the volume has been coming from Leeward O'ahu. She said homes under $100,000 have been appreciating rapidly and selling fast, helping build total-dollar volume and transaction speed.