Often when I'm visiting another island I like to partake of cultural events. Not all art exhibitions, lecturers and performers make it to the Big Island during their stay. One of my favorite venues in Hawaii is the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, which is not far from the airport in Kahului.
Here in Hawaii we feel a certain vulnerability due to our isolation, and so sustainability is a hot topic, especially as we look for economic diversification (beyond tourism) in tough economic times. If you are on Maui this month, here's an event you might want to check out:
The Wisdom of Sustainability A Dialogue on Global Economics and Island Culture with Sulak Sivaraksa and Manulani Aluli Meyer-- pairing a Big Island scholar with an internationally-recognized author.
Monday, April 20, 2009, at 6:00 p.m. McCoy Studio Theater, Maui Arts & Cultural Center
Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sulak Sivaraksa and Hawaiian practitioner and educator Manulani Aluli Meyer will explore our globalized economy and how it affects us personally, spiritually, and as an island community. Sulak is one of Asia's leading social thinkers and activists. His wide-ranging work includes founding the International Network of Engaged Buddhists and dozens of other grassroots organizations, and authoring more than 100 books in Thai and English, including The Wisdom of Sustainability: Buddhist Economics for the 21st Century (www.wisdomofsustainability.com). He was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize and, in 1995, received the Right Livelihood Award, known as the alternative Nobel Peace Prize.
Manulani Aluli Meyer is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Hawai'i, Hilo, specializing in Hawaiian cultural views of intelligence. She is author of Ho'oulu: Our Time of Becoming (www.nativebookshawaii.com), and the forthcoming Hawaiian Knowing.
Admission $15. For information, contact 875-7995 or visit www.alakukui.com. For tickets, call 242-SHOW.
If that's not up your alley, you can catch Sheryl Crow in concert on April 28th!
A hui hou,
Beth Thoma Robinson
Hawaii Palm Properties in downtown Hawi on the Big Island
Specializing in the Kohala Coast and vog-free North Kohala- "We Know This Market by Heart!"
Frustrated with conventional methods of getting homes sold in the current market, the owners of the Castle in Hawaii B&B in the lush Puna district on the Big Island decided to offer their newly built "sweetheart cottage" as the prize in an essay contest. The entry fee is $101 and each essay must be 101 words or less. The topics must be either aloha or mahalo:
Aloha: What does Aloha mean to you? How do you share Aloha? How would you share Aloha if you won this home?
Mahalo: What makes you feel thankful? Why would you be thankful to win this home? How would you show gratitude if you won this home?
Besides awarding the home, the builders/contest sponsors have set up cash prizes for 2nd and 3rd place entries and intend to donate $30,000 of the contest proceeds to the local Pahoa school district.
The contest rules say that the contest will close May 1st or earlier if 6,000 entries have been received. If 6,000 entries have not been received by that date, they may extend. In other words, the owners of the house are expecting to gross $600,000 from the contest, pay off their mortgage and donate and pay out another $45,000.
The house in question is a new, 3 bedroom/2 bath home of 1200 sq ft with a 300 sq ft lanai. According to the MLS, houses of roughly the same size currently in escrow in neighboring subdivisions range from around $125,000 to $200,000, and include a number of bank-owned properties.
The contest is apparently legal and appears to have been carefully set up. According to their website, the contest sponsors intend to write a how-to book if this all succeeds.
Gotta admire their entrepreneurial spirit. This has to be the most creative FSBO I've seen.
A hui hou
Beth
Beth Thoma Robinson R(S)
Specializing in the Kohala Coast and vog-free North Kohala- We Know This Market by Heart!
EMAIL OR CALL for a list of best buys at the resorts: beth@hawaiipalmproperties.com Cell: 808-443-4588 FOLLOW ME on TWitter: www.twitter.com/alohabeth
As Easter weekend approaches, we enter the home stretch of the winter "high season" for tourism in Hawaii, and consequently for resort real estate sales on the Big Island's Kohala Coast. The condo market has been far from "dead" -- but the news has also not been good for sellers of properties on the resale market. Here are the statistics as of today.
In the Waikoloa Beach, Mauna Lani and Mauna Kea resorts, a total of 11 condos have closed so far this year (that's 9 per the MLS and 2 developer sales not reported). Of those 11, all but two were developer sales, split between Halii Kai, Waikoloa Beach Villas, Ka Milo, and the Villages at Mauna Lani. There are another 24 condos in escrow at the resorts, of which 18 are developer sales (11 Wai'ula'ula, 2 Kulalani, 1 Ka Milo and 4 Waikoloa Beach Villas). That leaves only six sales of properties on the resale market, and four of those six are distress sales!
Or to put in another way, more than three-quarters of the Kohala Coast resort condo sales thus far in 2009 were developer units, and distressed properties accounted for half of the rest.
Although our MLS has recently added a feature for listing agents to indicate "short sale" "foreclosure" or "REO", most listing agents have not gone through their older listings to make them appropriately. My search turned up only 10 resort condo properties, but the true number is a multiple of that. In addition to properties that aren't marked for easy searching, there are a significant number of condos at the stage of the foreclosure process where they have been taken off the market prior to being listed with an agent as REO.
I haven't mentioned single family homes within the resorts, but the numbers are much smaller. One Pauoa Beach home sold for $4.4 million, and there are currently four under contract: two at Wai'ula'ula (developer sales!), one home at Champion Ridge at Mauna Lani, and a home at the beachfront Kolea community. There are a handful of single family homes that are bank-owned or distress sales on the market, but those haven't been the ones sold to date.
A hui hou,
Beth
Beth Thoma Robinson R(S)
Specializing in the Kohala Coast and vog-free North Kohala- We Know This Market by Heart!
EMAIL OR CALL for a list of best buys at the resorts: beth@hawaiipalmproperties.com Cell: 808-443-4588
FOLLOW ME on TWitter: www.twitter.com/alohabeth
READ MY ALOHALIVING BLOG:: Over the Rainbow: Kohala Luxury Home Sales
I blogged over on AlohaLiving about the recently released NAR survey of second home buyers. Although nationwide the respondents indicated that 30% of them plan to use the second home as their retirement home, in my experience that is true of an even higher percentage of buyers looking at real estate here on the Big Island of Hawaii today. I'm surprised how many people for whom retirement is 10 years out are looking for property today. They are savvy enough to know that the real estate market offers them an opportunity that might not be there closer to their anticipated retirement date.
Some prospective buyers arrive having a clear idea of what they want--perhaps to downsize to a resort condo near a golf course and lots of options for dining out, perhaps to own a coffee farm in a rural area. But many buyers aren't sure at the outset, and other times their ideas and objectives will shift midstream as a result of what they learn during the real estate search process itself.
For example, last year I had buyers who were torn between two houses. They liked the floorplan and swimming pool at one house, but preferred the location of the other. They solved their dilemma by purchasing a lot where they can build the retirement home of their dreams.
This year I worked with buyers who were convinced they wanted the flexibility of a condo, the ability to be able to close the door and travel for extended periods without worrying. But after staying at a resort condo for six weeks, they realized they didn't like having a continual stream of vacationers coming in and out of other condos in the building and generally behaving as people do on vacation. Privacy became a more important factor in their minds. Once they started looking at single family homes, the husband started getting itchy to build. Now they are looking outside the resorts and asking "should we buy or build?"
The simple answer is: it depends.
Here are some of the factors to consider.
1. Acquisition cost. In the luxury and resort areas of the Big Island today, there are high end (meaning $3 million, 10 million and up) homes built on spec or bought for investment a
t the wrong moment, Some of them can be purchased for less than the cost of construction. In other cases, more modest homes were bought as fixer-uppers, and the market has brought prices down to far less than they have in the home. In these cases, it is clearly cheaper to buy a completed home rather than to build or remodel.
2. Carrying cost. Maintenance and property taxes are signficantly higher on a residence than on raw land. Depending on where the property is located and your own plans for use, it might be possible to rent on either the long-term or vacation rental market, but won't necessarily generate enoughincome to offset the additional carrying costs.
3. If you aren't paying cash, financing options are very different for land versus homes versus condominiums. Most land loans will require that you build and refinance within three years.
4. Where will you live or stay while your home in Hawaii is being built?
5. Do you have the experience and patience to successfully manage the construction of a home, especially if you can't be here to supervise and make the seemingly endless daily decisions your contractor will ask of you?
There are wonderful lots and acreages available in North Kohala (here are some examples) and some houses listed below replacement cost (call or email me for suggestions in your price range).
A hui hou,
Beth
Beth Thoma Robinson R(S)
Cell: 808.443.4588 Email: beth@hawaiipalmproperties.com
Thought for the day: April showers bring May flowers...
Between April 1 - 26th, Big Island Fire Stations are accepting donations of old athletic shoes for recycling. The soles are made into a surface for playgrounds and equestrian arenas.
If you plan to visit the Big Island this month, why not bring your oldest shoes for hiking the Ala Kalakai trail or visiting Mauna Kea or Volcanoes National Park...or playing tennis at your hotel or condo. Then leave them behind to make room in your luggage for your souvenirs!
You can also stop by our office in Hawi and we will be happy to take the shoes for you. I'm hoping we'll collect enough shoes to get some of that footing for the Kohala Equine Educational Center!
A hui hou,
Beth
Beth Thoma Robinson
Specializing in the Kohala Coast and vog-free North Kohala- "We Know This Market by Heart!"
Hawaii Palm Properties, Inc * Office in downtown Hawi near Bamboo restaurant
808.889.1295 phone * 808.889.1296 fax
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The vog-free sunny skies of North Kohala and the Kohala Coast resorts of Mauna Kea, Mauna Lani and Waikoloa Beach Resort on the Big Island of Hawai'i: great places to live your Hawaii Life!
E komo mai—welcome to Kohala on the Big Island! Like most of my clients, this corner of paradise is my chosen home rather than my birthplace. I live and work in North Kohala (Hawi area) because I treasure its physical beauty and the sense of community, values, and Hawaiian culture. I also love the classic lifestyle of the Kohala Coast resorts, where I worked for the developer of the Kolea and Hali’i Kai oceanfront condo communities.
I offer you the diverse skills of a “professional chameleon” to work as your trusted advisor in Big Island real estate. As a PhD economist by training, I understand markets. As an 11-year veteran of Wall Street, I understand finance. As an entrepreneur, I ran both an artistic talent management business and a membership organization providing education for high net worth families. I’ve invested in real estate and managed my own rentals since I was in college. When my husband and I became full-time residents in Hawaii in 2005, I saw real estate as a natural avenue to continue to serve the client base I’d been working with for 30 years.
It really is a BIG Island, so I concentrate on only the districts of North and South Kohala (I can refer you to great agents elsewhere on the Big Island or throughout Hawaii).
Although there are modest starter homes from the $300,000s in the Hawi area, most of our Kohala and resort properties would be in the $500,000 to $5 million+ range.
Sellers--I take listings here in the Hawi/Kapaau area as well as in the Kohala Coast resorts, and if you have a property to sell I can bring the best of Internet technology to help us find the perfect buyer. I understand how to sell land and equestrian properties.
Buyers--Whether you are looking for a carefree second home in a luxurious Kohala Coast resort community, searching for a unique lot to build a “green” residence, planning for future retirement, or seeking savvy investment opportunities, I can help you sort through the options, guide you through the transaction and get you situated in the community. We often have pocket listings or ideas of who might consider selling to the right person, so don't be afraid to ask.
Sustainable agriculture is alive and well here in North Kohala, Hawi area and Waimea. And if you are interested in an equestrian property, acreage, or ranch, my horse consults free of charge!
Beth was my real estate agent on the purchase of two condos at the oceanfront Hali I Kai community. As a real estate investor and developer, I am very particular about the quality of the properties I buy and whom I deal with. Officially, Beth was working for the developer, but I felt like she was working for me. Many real estate agents try to sell you what they have, rather than listening to what you want. Beth listened to find me the right units, and creatively addressed my concerns during the months I was under contract in a shifting market. I appreciated her professionalism and initiative.
Michael J Newell Coeur D'Alene, Idaho (re: oceanfront Kohala Coast condos)
When we first considered buying property on Big Island we contacted a number of Realtors. Beth was the only Realtor who responded to our many questions the same day, always with a thoughtful considered response. She impressed us with listening very carefully to our specific needs and requirements so we were able to use our limited time to maximum effect. Her detailed local knowledge helped us to identify a property to buy on our second visit and we still have a great working relationship. We would have no hesitation in recommending her for buyers of either land or the many types of property on the Island.
Andrew and Corinne Latham, CA and Hawi
I want to thank you again for all your time and help that you gave us. If anyone else asks about a realtor to buy or sell, I will certainly send them your way. You are very competent and so prompt with all your communications. Continued blessings on your work!
Much Gratitude,
Francis Clare Fischer, Splendora, TX (re: sale of single family home in North Kohala)
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