Oh no, not again [Jobs]

[Jane M]

OP: I was just joking about the coffee farm.

[LovingMaui16]

"where any deal that has hit the sites like Zillow or Realtor.com is already too late because by the time you call your agent there are already 5 offers on it."

This statement seems like such a fundamental misunderstanding about how property is bought/sold. It's what a poor person thinks is the reason they can't get ahead. Suppose what you're saying is true. Do you think if you got the first (presumably lower) offer in that the buyer would be so enchanted with it that he/she would accept it before any others came in? Maybe it would work on a beat up FSBO house, but then you wouldn't need MLS access, anyway...

Your problem is you're trying to do two things.
1) Have enough money to retire in Hawaii and 2) Maintain your current lifestyle. I suspect you're not as close as you think you are to being able to do both. Anyone can afford to retire in Vietnam. If the cost difference between the Big Island and Maui is too great for you, you can't afford the Big Island.

[ayce]

@LovingMaui16: I would beg to differ and most of the real estate investors I know would as well. And who said that I said I can't get ahead? In a competitive real estate market (like the one where I currently live) I take every edge I can get and having MLS access and not needing to coordinate with an agent offers some advantages. I still find deals without MLS access but considering the information on Zillow and similar sites can range being from 24 - 48 hours old (and by the time you schedule a walk thru with an agent, you're looking at maybe 3 - 5 days old now), I would put having my own MLS access as an advantage over finding stuff online and going through an agent.

But like I said, it's something I've considered doing. I have never said that my success is dependent on it or that there's no way to find deals without the MLS. Other than the initial educational requirement and overhead of hanging one's license with a broker, it's not really that much more of a hassle than a lot of other methods one might go about trying to find deals. So why not add it to the toolbox?

You are correct that I am trying to do two things (though I don't see them as problems), have enough money to retire in Hawaii and maintain my current lifestyle. Not sure why you think you know anything about my financial situation though. In fact, not really sure why you feel the need to speculate about anything. You've made two rather off-base assumptions to arrive at an entirely erroneous conclusion.

I do find it funny that you made one of your first posts on CD about a year ago and you were greeted by someone who questioned everything that you said and made several unsubstantiated assumptions about you. Glad to see that now that you've been on Maui a year, you're carrying on the tradition of laying out the welcome mat for newcomers.

[LovingMaui16]

I am flattered that you thought enough of my advice to go back and read my old posts. The advice remains the same: Bring some money, knock on doors. I guess I should have also said: Be realistic. Nobody is going to give you a VP level job. Consider working on a golf course. 19 hours a week and you'l get health benefits. Not to mention free golfing.

RE Lock boxes: I can't speak for the Big Island, but most occupied homes don't even have them on Maui. The norm is for both agents to show up for a showing. Not a huge time savings in bypassing your own agent...

[ayce]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

If you like writing apps, then why not write apps? Now that everything is so much more connected than it used to be and especially if you're working in a digital field, you should be able to write apps from just about anywhere?

Yep, true. Will be looking into that once I feel a little more confident in my app writing skills. Still in learning mode. Though if you're comfortable programming in general, learning a new language is often like trying to cook a recipe and all of the instructions are in metric. You get the logic behind what needs to happen you just have to get used to doing the conversions :-)

[ayce]

@LovingMaui16: Well, I was trying to figure out if you spoke like that to everyone or I was a special case.

Not looking for a VP level job. In fact, I probably don't even want a VP level job (I would never say never, but it's not what I'm envisioning). I was just trying to get a feel at what might exist between caddying and what I used to do or if there were any ideas people might have on how I can translate skills that I already have into something that might be valuable to the local economy in Hawaii.

I'm a big believer that there is no such thing as a job. There is only an exchange of value. I have certain skills and experience and I am looking for something where I can exchange those for, essentially, money. The value I offer has to be greater than what someone else thinks they can benefit otherwise it's not a good deal.

Anybody who has seen me play golf can attest that I would be a horrible caddy and not even worth minimum wage :-) On the other hand, I know a lot about technology and marketing and general business analysis that could be valuable to a company. Obviously if that means $100K a year in opportunity for the company, they have to pay less than $100K. Given the types of markets available to companies in Hawaii, obviously their upside is limited so that caps out what they can offer in exchange as there's only so much value to be created. I'm fully aware of that fact.

I don't care if I make $30K as long as it's something I find interesting and I'm adding value for someone. It's $30K that I can sock away as a cushion or blow on travel or whatever. I've never been comfortable with the idea of retirement though I'm very fond of the idea of not *having* to work. I would just be too restless doing absolutely nothing. That's true if I retire early or retire when I'm 80.

In terms of lock boxes, here's how it normally goes.

Me: Hey, I was driving some neighborhoods this weekend and saw a four-plex over on XXXXXXX. Looks like it's listed on Zillow at around $XXX,XXX. I want to take a look at it. Can you set that up?

Agent: Sure. No problem. I have some other showings but I can do this morning or tomorrow after 5pm. I'll call the seller's agent and confirm it's still available.

Me: Already booked for this morning but let's do after 5 tomorrow.

<<<<An Hour Later>>>>

Agent: Spoke with the seller's agent. They already received 3 offers first thing Monday morning and have gone in contract on one.

Me: Okay, thanks. :-(

Obviously, had I been able to get my agent on the weekend to get me into that four-plex, mine could have been one of the offers they had on Monday morning. So I think I'm missing out on a few deals here and there.

Again, not my intention on "investing" in HI real estate other than buying a primary home. The comment about a RE license was more in the sense that I saw that jobs in RE paid better than average but there was very low demand. Given that property managers tend to have RE licenses and there's a lot of rentals in HI, I was just trying to figure out why that gap existed.