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You don't say you are broke, so if you can, take a visit again, this time with the eye for settling there, but leave your ticket "home' open-ended.
Plane tickets cannot be bought "open-ended". Either you buy a round trip ticket and pay change fees to change the return date, buy one-way tickets, or a very expensive refundable ticket that can be changed with no fees.
Quote:
Originally Posted by galaxyhi
Find yourself a good realestate agent in HI who WILL HELP you either rent or buy, but expect 300-400 sq ft with a bath to your name if lucky for mega bucks for a condo to start you off with.
This isn't New York or Boston - realtors aren't going to bother taking the time finding you a rental apartment. They don't make any money doing that in Hawaii. Craigslist is pretty much the only game in town or going building to building and seeing what is posted on bulletin boards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by galaxyhi
1} transferring money/opening account will be a problem without HI address
2}renting will be problem without HI bank account
3} renting will be problem without proof of income
4}getting HI account without HI D/L and said address can be a problem.
5} getting a HI D/L without acceptable HI address can be a problem {don't expect a Waikiki hotel address to carry you}
6} getting anywhere without a HI reference/referral can be a problem
1) You don't need a Hawaii address to open a bank account
2) You don't need a Hawaii bank account to rent an apartment
3) We agree on this one, It WILL be very difficult/almost impossible to get an apartment or even a roommate share without a job
4) Hawaii bank accounts don't require a Hawaii drivers license. You don't even have to get a Hawaii drivers license, Hawaii does not require you to get a new one when you move - the current one lasts until it expires.
5) You do need a Hawaii address to get a drivers license - but you don't have to get a Hawaii drivers license
6) A lot of people move to Hawaii without Hawaii references
Plane tickets cannot be bought "open-ended". Either you buy a round trip ticket and pay change fees to change the return date, buy one-way tickets, or a very expensive refundable ticket that can be changed with no fees.
Um, I meant "Open ended" as in having a return ticket available to you..as in "keep your last $1000 {or whatever it costs} for your flight home".
This isn't New York or Boston - realtors aren't going to bother taking the time finding you a rental apartment. They don't make any money doing that in Hawaii. Craigslist is pretty much the only game in town or going building to building and seeing what is posted on bulletin boards.
Our REA is willing to help us find a rental to start with if need be, It may depend on the AGENT. HEnce why I said "find an Agent who will work with you". OURs is very nice, The reason for the rental? SHe knows we have 3 porperties to unload here first {we will keep a 4th to come back to for summers "vacations" probably}. In the meantime, we can enjoy Hawaii in a rental at our disposal,while waiting for the cash to buy in cash outright. Its all in how you work with people...or how they work with you. Judy is very helpful.She also advised most won't write mortgages for under $150K, {but it could be possible to get one}.We are trying to avoiding that step
1) You don't need a Hawaii address to open a bank account
2) You don't need a Hawaii bank account to rent an apartment
3) We agree on this one, It WILL be very difficult/almost impossible to get an apartment or even a roommate share without a job
4) Hawaii bank accounts don't require a Hawaii drivers license. You don't even have to get a Hawaii drivers license, Hawaii does not require you to get a new one when you move - the current one lasts until it expires.
5) You do need a Hawaii address to get a drivers license - but you don't have to get a Hawaii drivers license
6) A lot of people move to Hawaii without Hawaii references
I am not being difficult but I meant these as helpful hints, not hard fast rules, and these are some things Judy warned us of. In our case, by the time everything is arranged {if we are laki}, It will be helpful if you have HI references, a steady income to show you can afford the rental {OUR REA said it COULD be retirement income that is steady {like SS}, or disbursements from a retirement account that is steady {IRAs, 401Ks,etc} "sufficient to support the rental", a "LARGE bank account" {like $100,000 in deposits not used} or the like}, a HI D/L, all helpful. SHe stated many landlords want to see a HI bank account-not a mainlander account. They want to see some connection to the 'aina. She only wishes she could get commisions on the properties we are selling too!!! KNow any Kama 'Ainas who want to move to NY???
[color="red"]I am not being difficult but I meant these as helpful hints, not hard fast rules,
Sorry, but I'm afraid you were given a lot of bad information, so your "tips" were off, which is not at all helpful to others. By contrast the corrections to your post which were supplied to you here were right on the money. No need to be embarassed... you just didn't know.
I appreciate your desire to be helpful, but there are some areas of advice which people who are brand new to the islands should really just sit back and listen to to the old-timers talk about, and this is one of them. I think the following piece of Stephen Covey's advice is 100% in regard to Hawai'i... "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." Matter of fact, if you spend some time reading through the archives here, I think you'll learn a lot. And since there are at least 1,001 ways that Hawai'i is not like the mainland states, there's a lot to learn.
Well, I don't know about the technical writing thing, but sure, you could do it. I once moved to San Francisco (back before they invented the wheel) with just $200 and a suitcase. And I moved to Hawaii once w/ $600 and a bicycle. My first day I saw an ad in the Big Island newspaper for rooms and a shed for rent in Kea'au. $200 a month. This was 1992. The shed sounded interesting. Turned out that it was a goat shed that Tomas Belsky, a local artist, had turned into an art "studio", which was kismet, as I'm an artist. The skeeters would eat you alive as soon as you walked out the door, and Kea'au back then was not much for stimulating conversation or anything else (probably still isn't), but it worked, and although we left Hawaii 11 years ago (met my wife there in fact), Tomas and I are still great friends. If you are motivated and able to think on your feet, you can move anywhere, anytime. Just what the quality of life may be initially, that may be a little hair raising, but it is definitely doable.
Hawaii is a funny place. There is a certain sort of energy there, for lack of a better word for it. Or, maybe it's because the housing and job things are so very difficult to put together that it encourages creative thinking and action. In any case, that energy can go either way, so you have to stay on top of it to know which way it may be going. We think of going back now and again, and make all these plans and do all this thinking, which is absolutely the wrong way to go about I've come to believe, because if you do that, the negatives, of which there are many, will set you right back on your heels. But maybe we should just go and "show up". It sounds crazy, as we're seniors now, have health issues like anyone our age, a cat w/ cancer, not so much money, etc. but maybe that's the way to do it. One thing I will insist on w/ the ol lady is that we HAVE to have "escape to the mainland" money, just in case. It's a lot more expensive to live on the BI than when we were there before, and there are a lot more problems. It may not work. Sometimes things don't. So it would be good to be able to get back to cheap Flori-DUH which we both don't much care for, but we KNOW we can make it here. So I say, go for it.
Well, I don't know about the technical writing thing, but sure, you could do it. I once moved to San Francisco (back before they invented the wheel) with just $200 and a suitcase. And I moved to Hawaii once w/ $600 and a bicycle. My first day I saw an ad in the Big Island newspaper for rooms and a shed for rent in Kea'au. $200 a month. This was 1992. The shed sounded interesting. Turned out that it was a goat shed that Tomas Belsky, a local artist, had turned into an art "studio", which was kismet, as I'm an artist. The skeeters would eat you alive as soon as you walked out the door, and Kea'au back then was not much for stimulating conversation or anything else (probably still isn't), but it worked, and although we left Hawaii 11 years ago (met my wife there in fact), Tomas and I are still great friends. If you are motivated and able to think on your feet, you can move anywhere, anytime. Just what the quality of life may be initially, that may be a little hair raising, but it is definitely doable.
Hawaii is a funny place. There is a certain sort of energy there, for lack of a better word for it. Or, maybe it's because the housing and job things are so very difficult to put together that it encourages creative thinking and action. In any case, that energy can go either way, so you have to stay on top of it to know which way it may be going. We think of going back now and again, and make all these plans and do all this thinking, which is absolutely the wrong way to go about I've come to believe, because if you do that, the negatives, of which there are many, will set you right back on your heels. But maybe we should just go and "show up". It sounds crazy, as we're seniors now, have health issues like anyone our age, a cat w/ cancer, not so much money, etc. but maybe that's the way to do it. One thing I will insist on w/ the ol lady is that we HAVE to have "escape to the mainland" money, just in case. It's a lot more expensive to live on the BI than when we were there before, and there are a lot more problems. It may not work. Sometimes things don't. So it would be good to be able to get back to cheap Flori-DUH which we both don't much care for, but we KNOW we can make it here. So I say, go for it.
I'm planning a big move, off island unfortunately, and reading your post added to the wind beneath my sail so to speak. Thanks for the words of wisdom.
There is amazing advice you can gain from people on this forum and one thing you read over and over again is not to move to Hawaii without a plan or a job... or at least visit the island you want to move to first for fact-finding.
Well, you can move here without a plan or a job, but keep enough in reserve to get back to where you started from with enough to get started again just in case. Being stuck in a high rent district is not optimal for getting back on your feet again.
Also, if you do want to just move to Hawaii with no plan, no job, etc., don't plan on living like you do on the mainland. Even if you have a plan and a job, living like you do on the mainland probably won't work. There's just too many differences although most of them are from higher living expenses and lower income brackets.
I am in Oahu Hawaii right now. I sold everything I had and moved here from Colorado 30 days ago. There is NO work here. I don't have an (808) number either.
No one is hiring here. And they only hire locals on the island. I'm pretty much broke at this point. Looks like I will be moving back to the mainland.
Oh well. It's been an exprience. That's what life is about. I'm just waiting on my tax returns now. So I can get out before I'm homeless in Hawaii.
Oh!!! Worth mentioning, the ONLY job I got offered was a bl*w "job" from some street hooker at a bus stop today. Other than that Labor Ready offered me $8 an hr to get inside a septic tank. And scrap the dried human feces off the wall. True story! Both of them.
Hope this helps
I am in Oahu Hawaii right now. I sold everything I had and moved here from Colorado 30 days ago. There is NO work here. I don't have an (808) number either.
No one is hiring here. And they only hire locals on the island. I'm pretty much broke at this point. Looks like I will be moving back to the mainland.
Bummer -
Hawaii has the 7th lowest unemployment rate in the nation. Good news, it is cheaper to ship things back to the mainland than from the mainland to Hawaii.
st. germain, that sucks. i do see a lot of job openings but, just because it's open doesn't mean it's for you. also, it takes some time to get a job. i've had interview processes drag on for two months and end in an offer.
good luck in your future endeavours. on or off island.
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