Need some advice.

[#1cheesebuds]

me and the fam are doing whole lot of research on moving to Hawaii. Are plan is to either buy a house right away or rent until we find what were looking for. plan is for April 2014. we both are tired of (Tex-ass) and we want a new adventure and new place to live out our lives.

I have already found a few places in our price range.


So any helpful sites and or good info would be much appreciated.
like best place to live, buy a house, and job market.


thanks... 1CB.

 

[supermanlives]

man I just seen a cheap off grid property not long ago advertised . here in 3 rivers of all places too. it was in three rivers paper here.my friend here is actually from Hawaii and has peeps there.

 

[LEF]

if your looking for adventure, hawaii really sounds like a cool place

 

[#1cheesebuds]

anyone else wanna chime in?

 

[SPG*]

HI USA ! I'd live there in a shot.

 

[Wiggs Dannyboy]

Everybody is jealous that you're moving to Hawaii.

As somebody who has moved to new and distant cities about 6 times in my life, the only thing I can say is that it would be extremely valuable for you to actually visit the place that you believe is your new dream location/home, for a month or two, before making the big time full on move. I've never done that, never wanted to spend the extra money it would take for a test visit, never wanted to wait, felt confident that all my research would be right on. All I can say now is that a test visit is a very smart thing to do, if you can manage it.

Hard to think there would be anything about Hawaii that would be off putting, but there have been a couple of places that I moved to, did a ton of research on, thought I knew the place thoroughly, only to discover that there were subtle things about the place that were missing from the research I had done, and these little things over time became much more important in my ability to enjoy my new city.

Hawaii sure does sound nice though...

 

[Green lung]

Try the big island


.

 

[Tudo]

We were planning on moving to the Big Island and even had plane tickets and a rental house to go house hunting there the same week that prior to leaving by less than 72 hours we found our home in the eye of a cat 5 hurricane with us and our cats inside a walk in closet in the master bedroom when the roof came off in a 180mph gust that also damaged more than 30,000 homes . Had to cancel the trip out there but I remember thinking that a nice place on the big island was about the same money as west boca raton fla, try zip 33428 as a comparison but that was 2004.

Many of the houses we saw on the Hilo side were using what looked like swimming pools to store home water supplies and frankly I would not live without a constant, steady reliable source of water. I did similarly when we lived on an island on the east coast of Thailand where we had a cistern.......... never again.

We would have revisited the idea of retiring there but I am also a heart patient who has had now over 100+ intravenous edta chelation therapies and it's an integral part of my life, for life. I was only able to find 1 ( one ) md who administers edta chelation in his practice on the entire Big Island and he's in his 60's now. Perhaps there's others on Oahu but we didn't think that island hopping for my monthly needle would be appropriate so Hawaii was out at that point. Didn't seem to have the more advanced medical that many of us need at a certain age and that's when socal became a more viable option although I personally wish Hawaii had at least the chelation. I think we would have given it a shot. Now my health is bad enough that making it around the block somedays is impossible much less airplane flights so I wish you all the best in this adventure !

 

[yortbogey]

Why is Buying Real Estate in Hawaii so Different?????

Why is Buying Real Estate in Hawaii so Different?????

The real estate game in Hawaii is unlike anything elsewhere in the United States.

The reason: Hawaii is only 236 years removed from a stone-age civilization – and only 120 years removed from a monarchy.

The legacy of the Hawaiian monarchy still exists today. The last of the Hawaiian monarchs, Queen Lili’uokalani, was forced from her throne by a detachment of Marines from the U.S.S. Boston, acting in concert with a group of American and European businessmen, on January 17, 1893.

Faced with overwhelming military force at her seat of power, Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Queen Lili’uokalani stepped down in lieu of fighting, confident that an appeal to the United States Government would restore her to the throne. That intervention never came. But much of the land formerly owned by the Hawaiian royal family is still held in a few different trusts. It is rarely sold outright, in “fee-simple” transactions. Instead, “leasehold” land and the various trust interests overseeing it are a fact of life in Hawaii real estate and politics.

The largest landowner in Hawaii today, by far, is the Kamehameha Schools system, which currently owns over 365,000 acres of land. The Schools are the beneficiary of a trust set up by a member of the Hawaiian royal family, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who granted the land with directions to trustees to use the land to support the welfare of the Hawaiian people – including the operation of two schools, to educate children of Hawaiian ancestry. The Kamehameha Schools are still in operation today – and the Bishop estate, together with Liliuokalani’s trust and a few other large holders still hold much of the usable land in the state.

The Evolution of Landownership in Hawaii

The result was the creation of a two-tiered landownership system in Hawaii. Those looking to buy real estate in Hawaii must choose between leasehold property – that is, ownership of a home built on land that is actually leased – and which will eventually return to the control of the estates – and land that is owned free and clear, under a “fee-simple” title.

Land in Hawaii is scarce and notoriously expensive. Many buyers are initially attracted to leasehold properties because they can typically be had for a lower cost than fee-simple properties. However, the looming expiration of these long-term leases creates a significant downside to owning leasehold property: Leasehold land cannot be passed down to future generations, nor can it be easily developed, because as the expiration of the lease approaches, it becomes more and more difficult to obtain financing for projects on leased land.

“With leasehold land, you only own the box above ground” explains David Nash, a real estate agent who specializes in the Island of Oahu. “At some point – after five years, 20 years, 50 years, you’re going to have to give that property back.”

Buying “fee-simple” real estate in Hawaii is just like buying real estate elsewhere in the country. You get permanent title to the land, as long as you pay your mortgage and tax obligations and zoning laws, subject only to the right of the government to condemn under imminent domain.

But when you buy leasehold land in Hawaii, you must take into account a number of complicating factors:

How long is left on the lease? If your lease gives you the right to enjoy the property for 30 or 50 years or more, you might not have a problem. Though your heirs may have some complications to deal with after you’re gone.
How much is the monthly lease payment? Can it go up?
Will the lessor sell the fee-simple title to you? At what price?
When is your lease up for renegotiation? Most long-term lease agreements have built-in mechanisms for renegotiating lease rates based on market rates.
What will happen at the end of the lease term? Will you or your heirs be able to extend? On what terms? Will you be able to buy out the lease and become the fee simple owner?
Thus far, lease expirations have not been accompanied by draconian measures. “It’s only happened a couple of times, in Hawaii, where families get booted out of their homes. Normally, they do get an opportunity to renegotiate their fee for another 30 years or 50 years.” Nevertheless, Nash warns, it could happen at some point in the future – the leaseholder could take back the whole property, including the structures on it.

“If you’re young, and you want to stay in a home for 40 or 50 years, but there’s only 20 years left on the lease, you might want to keep looking for something that’s fee simple,” counsels Nash.

Screening Hawaii Real Estate

So, when researching real estate for sale in Hawaii, how can you tell which listings are fee-simple and which are leasehold properties? Mike Bates, another veteran Oahu real estate agent, advises you to check the listing: Leasehold properties will have a special designation on the upper right hand corner of the customer short page in the MLS, next to the asking price: “LH – Leasehold.” If you see “LH – Leasehold / FA,” it means the leaseholder is willing to sell a fee-simple title to the property. And properties being sold fee simple are designated with “FS,” says Bates.

 

[Hash Zeppelin]

my advice is to explore as much as possible and get in good with a few locals. dont waste a second in that incredible place.

 

[The OrigF/clred]

i've moved twice in my life, would have been 3X but after living in the 3rd "target location" for 12 months, decided to return

my suggestion - rent for 12 months to get to know all you can about the "nuances" of the area and the different locations. Also it will give you time to learn what about the area the realtor didn't tell you or you might have overlooked - ie, was the area a chemical testing site in wwii, is there a 6 lane highway coming thru next to your back or side yard, is there a medical waste treatment facility going in own the road or a landfill, with trash trucks roaring thru twice a day (i know it sounds crazy, but those are simply examples).

On our move to nova scotia, canada, we found how lucky we'd been to have bought where we did, ie exactly who are the neighbors - something we hadn't factored in. The area we were in, was close to the shore (Bay of Fundy) and lots of lobster fishing in the area. Problem was, the lobster season is only open for 5 or 6 months of the year - so the lobster fishermen, while they enjoy hellaciously high salaries when they're working, apparently more than a few drink it up in the first few months of "off season" and some then turn to burglaries. Yeah, i know, sounds crazy but true.

We found out we were lucky, later, cause we got to know the folks that did buy the house about 4 miles away that we almost bought - they were yanks, same as us, so it was a natural we'd meet and feel something of a connection. Their house was on a beautiful lake, but the neighboring houses looked "so so" - about half had junk in their yards, either old junked cars, whatever.

They had been broken into 3X in 2 years or so, and surprisingly, every time when they were away for a few days. It was a little odd that no neighbors had ever seen anything - and most likely some of the neighbors knew the perps, maybe even alerting them to the fact that the owners were leaving for a few days. All the homes on the lake were pretty much in full view of each other, with maybe 1/8th - 1/4 mile distance between them.

Where we did buy, all the surrounding land on the road, was owned by one family - had orig been a 4,000 acre tract that the father had given tracts to his 5 kids and they'd built houses on. But the point is, they were all related, and decent people, and watched out for each other incluing us, when we went on "exploration" trips to other parts of canada. Where we bought, the area is real rural, about 50-60 drive to closest decent town - closest neighbor was across the road with the next nearest neighbor 3/4 mile down the road (our across the road neighbor's sister). We never had the first problem with break-ins

just a suggestion - fwiw

 

[supermanlives]

one word. spam. only in Hawaii is spam so popular