It was a sign of tough economic times: Only a handful of applicants showed up yesterday for a chance to own one of 32 brand-new, affordable homes in Kapolei.

The housing plan is part of a private-public partnership designed to help beginning home buyers. The first time the state and Castle & Cooke Homes Hawai'i opened a similar application process on July 14, 2007, more than 120 people began lining up outside the sales office in the middle of the night. Some 550 people signed up in the first hour.

Yesterday, one woman with her young son showed up at the sales office at 6:30 a.m. and waited alone for more than an hour and a half before anyone else arrived.

"We were just sitting in our cars, wondering what was going on," said Brenda Tejeda of 'Ewa, who briefly thought maybe the application handout kickoff had been canceled. Still, she hoped that she and her husband might qualify to buy one of the fee-simple homes for their family of four.

Tejeda learned earlier in the week that Castle & Cooke and the state Housing Finance & Development Corporation would hand out application packets for the Makali'i development project starting yesterday morning. Qualifying home buyers would be selected based on a lottery in January.

Tejeda decided to show up more than three hours early to avoid ending up at the tail end of a long line.

But by the time the sales office in Kapolei opened at 10 a.m., only a dozen people representing five families waited to pick up applications. Other applicants trickled in and out during the day.

The three- and four-bedroom Makali'i homes start out in the low $400,000 range. The median price for single-family homes on O'ahu in October was $625,000, according to the Honolulu Board of Realtors.

Tejeda said she didn't doubt that the short line was a response to the current economic turmoil. She admitted to being apprehensive about buying a new home right now — even one that's a relative steal.

"You don't know what's going to happen in six months — or even next month," she said, adding that she and her husband could opt out even if they were among the qualifying buyers selected by lottery drawing in January.

DIFFERENT TIMES

To be sure, things were different back in the summer of 2007. The local economy was booming, and the multitude of people who streamed to the Kapolei sales office then were vying for one of 118 affordable, multifamily, two- and three-bedroom homes.

Plus, many who showed up back then were under the impression that the application process was for one day only — not the month and a half it actually lasted. Castle & Cooke officials said yesterday that applications for Makali'i would be accepted through Dec. 15.

Still, HHFDC housing specialist Kent Miyasaki said, "It's the financial climate," when asked to explain the short line at the sales office.

Rick Prahler, HHFDC development branch chief, said that because qualified applicants that end up in the lottery come from the entire number of people who sign up over the one-month application process, arriving early doesn't increase your chances.

"I think there's a hangover from the old days, when typically you had these huge lines and that did in some ways impact your chances of getting a home," he said. "But now virtually everybody does the lottery system. And, certainly in our case, all of the buyers have to be qualified according to the HHFDC requirements."

Mary Hakoda, vice president of sales for Castle & Cooke, greeted the applicants and told them the Makali'i homes offered a unique opportunity.

"It's been a long time in coming that we've been able to offer a single-family affordable project — since the 1980s," said Hakoda, who added that she wanted applicants to know the process wasn't first-come, first-served.

"We're going to take care of everybody."