Question -- Hawai'i County (condos, new home, purchase)

[Spammasubi]

First a Little Background:

My Japanese wife and I are planning a move to Hawai'i in the next two years, however we want to purchase a condo or small-lot home sometime before then. We really want to downsize after three kids and numerous pets. We have always lived rather modestly and we won't be changing our lifestyle. We're starting to reduce the clutter here, and we should have a minimum of personal goods to ship once we make our move. We plan to use a small pickup truck once we are in Hawaii. We're still both young enough to work and want to work on a part time basis. Both of us speak Japanese which should be of some use. Of course we are looking forward to being able to purchase Japanese foods at prices cheaper than we can at our Northwest Coast mainland home, and this may be a surprise, but we expect our food costs to actually go down a bit.

The Question:

The island of Hawai'i is a big place, and we haven't had the opportuinity to see all of it. We am interested in the Hamakua district, however it has been
years since we have been there, and we are wondering if there has been much housing development there. Can someone help us here?

[leilaniguy]

Aloha Spammasubi. Actually not very much. The sugar plantations have been broken up mostly into large farm acreages, a few new homes in Honoka'a and scattered up and down the coast. No condos at all. The biggest change you may notice is large forests of eucalyptus where the cane fields were. Speaking fluent Japanese, you should easily get jobs in the visitor industry.