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I'd love to move to Hawaii and could buy with cash a house for about 500k. I'd prefer to spend less, of course, but my impression is that Hawaii is very expensive. Are there are any areas I could afford a 2000 square foot house on a quarter acre property? I want to have some sense of solitude and privacy. The area shouldn't be too dangerous, however, as I'm a young single female. I don't mind if where I live is further from amenities as space is more important. Thank you for you recommendations!
In Puna or Kau, on the Big Island, yes. Edited to add; As of today a look at the BI MLS listings shows 102 houses with your specs. all over the island.
Last edited by leilaniguy; 06-10-2014 at 01:35 AM..
Real estate is cheaper on the Big Island (aka Hawaii) than on the other major islands. As Leilaniguy stated, properties are cheapest in the Puna or Ka'u districts. Where I live near South Point, your budget will buy a lot of land and house. Nearest towns are Waiohinu and Na'alehu, if you want to look around on the web for prices.
Just remember that houses are generally smaller in Hawaii, so it will be harder to find a 2,000 square foot house.
Nearest towns are Waiohinu and Na'alehu, if you want to look around on the web for prices.
Maybe I missed something but is Waiohinu really considered a town? I don't remember seeing much there other than houses. I thought it was beautiful but it seemed more like a residential community to me. However, it was in walking distance to Na'alehu.
Waiohinu has really good tasting water, but it's not really a town. It is kinda a side-bump to Naalehu and Naalehu is more of a village or a hamlet than a town.
Don't go too far overboard for privacy and solitude. There have been folks who have come over and bought out in the boonies in order to get "privacy and solitude" and ran back to the mainland in about a year because they were lonely.
What "amenities" were you referring to? Some areas consider mail delivery to the house as an amenity. A lot of the Puna area is sort of sparse on amenities of any type. Stuff you may take for granted such as pavement, power, sewers, mail delivery, nearby shopping, etc., etc.
Visit for awhile, rent a place on the island for six months and look around before buying anything. Half a mil will buy you a nice house on multiple acres. You can buy a nice house for a quarter mil and bank the rest and live off the interest. Saves ever so much bother about looking for employment.
What "amenities" were you referring to? Some areas consider mail delivery to the house as an amenity. A lot of the Puna area is sort of sparse on amenities of any type. Stuff you may take for granted such as pavement, power, sewers, mail delivery, nearby shopping, etc., etc.
Visit for awhile, rent a place on the island for six months and look around before buying anything. Half a mil will buy you a nice house on multiple acres. You can buy a nice house for a quarter mil and bank the rest and live off the interest. Saves ever so much bother about looking for employment.
Hotzcatz, these are great questions -- exactly what I've been trying to tease out while considering this move. My whole life I've lived in pretty urban areas... definitely nowhere that power, sewers, etc have not been available 24/7. (Also, I have spent significant time in third world countries in which these amenities were not regularly available... and know from those experiences that that is NOT something I want to deal with in my home base setup.)
I'd definitely want power, sewers, mail delivery and "nearby" shopping (i.e. groceries not more than, say, 20 minutes away). I'm a young woman so safety would also be a concern though of course I will have a security system etc.
Could I really buy a fairly large house for 250k? That would be incredible, and very ideal. I agree with you it's better to live off interest than be house poor.
What is the culture on the Big Island like?
Where would be a good place to rent initially? Given my budget, am I limited to the Big Island, or should I consider other ones as well? Is it easy to travel between islands, or expensive / time consuming?
Also, if I wanted to leave for periods of time, is it easy to rent out one's house to vacationers for extra cash? This can be easily done in a place like NYC so I was wondering if the situation in HI is similar since it is such a sought-after vacation spot.
And thanks for that admonition about getting what I wish for re: privacy and solitude. :P I will keep that in mind. Is there something about HI in particular that would exacerbate this, though? I don't see how this would be more of an issue in HI versus any place less densely populated on the mainland.
I cant say much about the big island because I've never been there. I would strongly recommend renting for a bit, to see if you really like it, fit in, can stay for awhile, etc.
An issue that I will bring up, based on the experience of some mainland relatives who moved to Oahu, was there was a definite preference for hiring native hawaiians when it came to employment. lot of competition for only part-time work. just something to consider.
The marketability of your home as vacation rental might depend on nearness to the beaches or other tourist destinations. Both rental prices and sales prices can be determined by current offerings on your favorite real estate/MLS portal.
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Originally Posted by Dreaming of Hawaii
Nearest towns are Waiohinu and Na'alehu, if you want to look around on the web for prices.
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Originally Posted by McFrostyJ
Maybe I missed something but is Waiohinu really considered a town? I don't remember seeing much there other than houses. I thought it was beautiful but it seemed more like a residential community to me. However, it was in walking distance to Na'alehu.
With a population of 213, I'd personally call Waiohinu a hamlet, except that nobody else seems to use that word in Hawai'i. At least it has a road sign with its name on it.
Keep in mind that the word "town" is very loosely used in Hawai'i, as are "city" and "village." In point of fact, because the smallest unit of government on the Big Island is at the County level, as it is on Maui, Kaui, Molokai, etc. it's probably most accurate to say that the state has only one city (Honolulu) and no towns or villages, only hamlets of various sizes, because there is no town government anywhere. But OK, we'll call Hilo a town, maybe even a city, even though it has no local government, because a population of 44,000 does seem a bit too big for a hamlet.
Yes, the Island of Hawai'i is divided into 9 Districts, which are used for electing representatives to the County Council, and for apportioning County budgets, but apparently not for much else. Rather than being created by town or city government charters, the names and locations of towns for the purposes of mapping were set many years ago by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names many years ago, while the boundaries of towns were established by the Census Bureau as Census Defined Places (CDP) designations, which do not change, in order to facilitate decade-to-decade comparisons.
Then to further confuse things, the Post Office has its own designations, which is why you see the town named Waimea, in the South Kohala District of Hawai'i County having Kamuela postal addresses, to avoid confusion with the two other towns named Waimea in the state. Or Holualoa and Keauhou and Kalaoa all having Kailua-Kona postal addresses, which itself was renamed by the Post Office to avoid confusion with the town named Kailua on Oahu. Or Hawaiian Paradise Park (HPP) having Kea'au postal addresses. And there are many more examples of the Post Office addresses for particular areas being different than what people call them.
As to the question "Is it a town?" I see that one of the definitions of "town" in the Urban Dictionary is that a town is: "A place where there lives people, and a church, a postoffice, and a place where beer is sold exists." That seems as good as any, although in Hawai'i people don't seem too stringent about either the church or the post office.
Coming out of New York, you probably won't have the usual sticker shock on the prices of things, especially real estate. Although, you may have some culture shock between the urban/small town/rural differences.
For safety, I'd suggest going up the coast North of Hilo - which would be up towards Waimea. Since you're a young female, you'd probably appreciate being around a younger group occasionally, so you may perhaps like Honokaa. It has become a thriving town lately with a University annex, First Fridays (kinda like a main street party), a new rodeo arena, a small but lively main street, several new restaurants and now a new skate park. There's new shops, restaurants and entertainments popping up all the time lately. Crime is very low, violent crime even lower almost to non-existent. House prices are currently still within your budget. I'm a bit biased towards Honokaa because I live here, but it is in the middle of an amazing renaissance these past few years. It is a very comfortable small town and has most of the amenities. No pizza delivery yet, but there's several places to get pizza within five minutes of the houses in or near town. There's a new Italian restaurant being built next to the theater and a new Portuguese restaurant just opened last year. This year we now have a new restaurant and I'm not even exactly sure what category it would be in. Local seasonal fare, does that have a category yet? Most of the houses in town have mail delivery, all have power and town is supposed to put in town wide wi-fi soon. I think the People's Theater has it already, they've become our version of Starbucks with coffee and snacks available during the day and movies at night. Honokaa town doesn't have any national chains of anything and it is a real personable town. You will end up knowing the shopkeepers and they will end up knowing you.
Waimea is another very "safe" town, although house prices are more expensive. It's a bit more upscale than Hilo or Honokaa, has a lot of observatory folks up there as well as the best hospital on the island. Not that you'd really be tracking hospitals at a younger age.
Hilo isn't bad, but you'd have to lock your doors and be more aware of folks around you. There's beginning to be an undesirable element creeping into Hilo. Mostly at the level of car break-ins, purse snatching and being creepy at dusk in some areas, but not usually violent crime although there's beginning twinges of such. Hilo has the University there so there's a larger younger population. It is the seat of County government so if it's available on the island, it's probably available in Hilo. Well, except for Costco, that's in Kailua-Kona. Hilo has "a bit of rain" (somewhere above ten feet annually), but it's usually a fast shower and then the sun comes out, not days and days of gray like the Pacific Northwest. Sometimes you can go from sunshine to rain back to sunshine within several minutes although it usually takes a bit longer.
Puna/Pahoa has a huge theft problem, you not only need to lock everything but not expect that to actually work. It's mostly property thefts, although there is the occasional violent crime, too, although those aren't frequent. Nasty traffic if you're using the Kea'au - Pahoa highway. Although, "nasty" traffic here isn't anything like nasty traffic on Oahu. The County is starting to address the Puna highway problem by looking into alternate routes in and out of the area, but that's still in the talking stages. Puna also has the occasional outbreak of lava. There's a really slow finger of lava moving behind Hawaiian Acres/Orchidland sort of creeping towards the highway but it could stop at any time. Or it could keep creeping, who knows? It's real slow, though, and doesn't look like it will get to the highway for a couple years.
Kailua-Kona is on the expensive side mostly because they are closer to the nicest beaches. However, they now have vog over there occasionally, so that has really dimmed our enjoyment of going to Kailua. They do have Costco and a lot of the major chain stores, though, should you feel the need for them.
If you are into gardening, Puna and Kailua have very rocky soil. Between Hilo and Waimea has amazing soil and growing conditions.
I'd definitely want power, sewers, mail delivery and "nearby" shopping (i.e. groceries not more than, say, 20 minutes away). I'm a young woman so safety would also be a concern though of course I will have a security system etc.
You can get power all over the island, but it isn't connected to every property once you get into the more rural areas. That's one of the reasons we have perhaps the highest percentage of residences in the country with solar power.
County water (or private company water) is available in a number of areas, but not everywhere. Rainwater catchment, wells, and water hauling are widely used outside the key population centers.
Sewer service, ditto, except that it's less widely available than piped-in water. Septic tanks and cesspools are the rule elsewhere.
Residential mail delivery isn't common outside key urban areas. Some areas have clustered mailboxes, like most mainland suburbs do today, or mailboxes at a post office. But with actual physical mail becoming less and less important, it's a declining interest to most people.
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Could I really buy a fairly large house for 250k? That would be incredible, and very ideal. I agree with you it's better to live off interest than be house poor.
One thing to consider is that houses in Hawai'i are generally smaller than mainland houses, with bigger porches (or lanais, or decks) both because it is more expensive to build in Hawai'i than on the mainland, but also because typically more time is spent outdoors, year around. Middle of the 20th Century a 1,000 sq ft house, 2 bdrm, 1 bath was pretty much average for a family of 4, so how much space do you really need? And a smaller house on a bigger lot is better if you're concerned with privacy and quiet.
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What is the culture on the Big Island like?
Take advantage of the Search function here to read through the archives for in-depth answers. Short answer is... largely rural & agricultural, plus localized touristy. Slowed down, laid back, relaxed. Mostly the island closes down by 9pm.
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Where would be a good place to rent initially? Given my budget, am I limited to the Big Island, or should I consider other ones as well? Is it easy to travel between islands, or expensive / time consuming?
Kaua'i is another choice, although it's a much smaller island and a bit more expensive. Maui and Oahu are generally about 20% more expensive. Figure on $100-125 to fly one-way between islands unless you catch a special.
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Also, if I wanted to leave for periods of time, is it easy to rent out one's house to vacationers for extra cash? This can be easily done in a place like NYC so I was wondering if the situation in HI is similar since it is such a sought-after vacation spot.
Proximity to tourist destinations or areas of interest is the key for success doing this. Dreaming of Hawaii is the best reference, since she and her husband did that for years before moving to the Big Island permanently.
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And thanks for that admonition about getting what I wish for re: privacy and solitude. :P I will keep that in mind. Is there something about HI in particular that would exacerbate this, though? I don't see how this would be more of an issue in HI versus any place less densely populated on the mainland.
If I were to have a single piece of advice for you, it would be that you should not assume anything about living in Hawai'i. There are 1,001 ways Hawai'i is different from New York, even the rural areas of New York. You really need to spend some time in Hawai'i before making any commitment to buying property.
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