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I am considering moving to Maui, and I'm thinking about renting a vacation rental as accomodations for when I first arrive. vrbo.com is a good place to start. I am on Maui for an exploratory visit right now, and I'm hearing a lot of vacation home owners are concerned because their vacancies are too high. Vacation Home owners may consider negotiating their rental rates, just to get some income.
Housing is really expensive here. However, I did find 2 bedroom apartments (some are even furnished) at Southpointe or Kihei Villages rent for $1200-$1400 per month (look on Craigslist). I could move in today if I was ready. Many of the condo owners in these complexes allow pets, and if you find a downstairs unit, they even have little yards. I was there on Saturday, and it's not a super luxurious place to live, but it seemed like it would be alright.
From an economic standpoint, in addition to expensive housing, another noticeable difference between Hawaii and where I live on the mainland is food is a bit more expensive. What I did is I went to safeway.com and did a 'weekly special' price comparison; I used my zip code on the mainland and then used the Kihei zip code. Many of the weekly specials were exactly the SAME PRICE as on the mainland. There were a few items that were more expensive, but the price differences with Safeway between my zip code on the mainland (96150) and Kihei (96753) were approximately 10% more in Kihei. The Lahaina Safeway is more expensive than Kihei Safeway.
Gas prices today are $4.63 per gallon. For current prices, go to GasBuddy.com.
A lot of locals do the bulk of their shopping at Costco. There is also a Walmart and a 'Big' KMart on Maui. This helps keep costs down.
This whole week that I've been here, I've been really concerned about the economy not only here, but all over the U.S. right now. I think it's really important for me to remember that times are tough everywhere right now, even on the mainland. So, if I continue living on the mainland, times will remain tough there too.
The most important thing for me to do is to go into this with my eyes wide open. There is always the fear of the unknown, but isn't every major move that way? Change is always hard. I look around me and there are 'hales' everywhere I look, who have made the leap to Hawaii and survived it quite well. And if they can do it, I can do it! And, I haven't seen any homeless people (this is a good sign!).
Last edited by sierrahh; 08-06-2008 at 02:32 PM..
Reason: adding more information and text corrections.
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