Nanwale Estates (Hilo: ski resorts, real estate, rentals)

[colojd]

Aloha;
We own two lots in Nanwale and plan to build in about 3 - 5 years. Does anyone else live in this area? We visited our lots about 10 years ago and get a newsletter from the association a couple of times a year, but if any of you live here, or nearby, we would love to know more about life there.

Since we plan to build, any tips or leads on good builders would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Joyce

[colojd]

Sorry, I did a typo. It is Nanawale estates. It is on the big Island in the Hilo area.

Thanks

[leilaniguy]

Aloha Joyce, I lived in Nanawale several years ago, now live about 3 miles away, have friends there. There is quite a bit of new construction in the sub. especially near Nanawale Blvd. where there is piped water. Most of it is still forest. It is better than it used to be, houses that were rentals are now mostly owner-occupied. Septic systems are now required. I can't recommend a particular builder at this time, but if you're not building for a few years they probably wouldn't still be in business anyway.

[colojd]

Thanks for your information. I appreciate getting any and all information now.

Was there a particular reason why you moved from Nanawale?

Our son is 16 and will be out of high school in two years, and this is when we will probably be looking at building - so we will not have school aged children but we are looking for a nice community.

My husband and I are in our mid-50's and would like to have at least part time work while we are there. We are not the type that want to retire and just sit around! My husband is a mechanical contractor (new construction - plumbing, heating, HVAC, etc). I have a degree in chemistry, owned and operated my own fabric and quilt shop for six years and most recently I have been a Human Resources Manager. So we do have quite a few skills we can apply to a job, as well as doing volunteer work. If you have any input on that, we would like to hear it as well.

Thanks again.
Joyce

[viking2001]

Joyce,
Try; http://www.vhpbuilders.com/Home_Page.php (broken link) . & floorplans at; http://www.hpmhawaii.com/index.html (broken link)

VHP works closely with HPM & builds quite a few homes in the Puna area

Originally Posted by colojd

Aloha;
We own two lots in Nanwale and plan to build in about 3 - 5 years. Does anyone else live in this area? We visited our lots about 10 years ago and get a newsletter from the association a couple of times a year, but if any of you live here, or nearby, we would love to know more about life there.

Since we plan to build, any tips or leads on good builders would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Joyce

[marvin l moore]

as leilaniguy posted Nanawale has a lot more houses the when you visied last! I bought a lot a couple years ago without reading the CCR'S and found out I had a year to build and the house had to have a 800+ SQ FT and so on also camping was not looked upon in a favorable light !

[colojd]

Very interesting. We did buy our lots in the early 1980's, so we probably did not have to abide by the rules you mention (being forced to build a house within a yr of purchase). We do get the newsletter and pay our dues to the homeowner's association but I know one of these days we are going to have to make some decisions regarding if and when to build.

How has been economy in the Nanwale area and for Hawaii in general? I am sure any state that relies on tourism is having a hard time. We are in Colorado and even though we got some great snowfall for the mountain ski resorts, they did say that tourism was down so far this year.

[hotzcatz]

That's a year to build the house from the time you start, not from when you buy the lot. I built a house in Nanawale back in the 90's. Nice flat lot, very rocky, was pretty remote at the time, but since that house was built there are three more on the same short road.

It is a bit of a hike to Hilo town where you will have to go for a lot of different reasons. Jobs for you would probably be in Hilo town if there were jobs at all. Your husband's contractor's license would not automatically transfer to this state, so he will have to go take tests over again and perhaps apprentice to someone for awhile if he was going to continue in contracting. At the moment most construction is dead but that happens at least once a decade.

Dunno if a chemistry degree is hireable anywhere but fabric and quilting might work somewhere.

Since your husband was a contractor, perhaps you could pull an owner-builder permit and oversee the workers. Then you won't have to rely on someone else's workers.

[colojd]

I did read a while back that quite a few of the lots were so rocky and uneven that it costs a bundle just to get them on even grade.

It is common that the plumbing and contractor's licenses do not transfer from state to state. We have the same thing here in Colorado. We probably would hire a local contractor, after doing a lot of research here on this site to find out recommended companies. But as I said, that is several years down the road.

Now with the economy so bad everywhere, we are holding tight and just keeping the Nanawale building plans in our "future plans" box!

When you said that construction dies out at least once a decade, can you explain that - what normally causes it, how long does it last, etc. I know this is all dependent on how the economy is going overall anyway.

I remember back in the 1980's when we got our lot, that there were a lot of Japanese investors buying all over the Hawaiian islands, so much so that people said there were more foreign owners of Hawaiian properties than Americans. I wonder if that is still the case. We just heard this week that due to the bad economy in places like Detroit, Michigan that Chinese investors were seeing it as a rare opportunity to buy up land and real estate in the American market and it reminded us of what we had heard about back in the 80's regarding Hawaii.

[hotzcatz]

Let's see, sometimes it is the general economy that tanks and then construction flatlines. I think that was the time around the early eighties, or was that the late seventies? Then we had the Japanese come over and buy everything in sight with the associated building boom, so things got overpriced, then they left and it went bust so prices fell and construction slumped for awhile. Then we had the dot com folks come over and did the same buy/build/boom/bust. Then sugar went down and that was a local to the Big Island bust which was the mid-90's. Now we have the worldwide housing market boom which has flat lined construction.

These things seem to run on a seven year cycle more or less. You can research the historical prices and chart them to see where we are on the curve. This particular curve may last longer because it is more worldwide than most of them. Generally the prices do a steep rise, then fall to just about but not quite where they were before. Then another boom comes along and the prices go back up to a bit more than they were before and then fall again to just about but not quite where they were to start with. Overall, the prices rise but they go up and down while doing it. This has been for the past three decades, it might change depending how much the worldwide economy has changed. When the prices are doing a steep rise, then construction and building is thriving. When the prices turn downwards, I don't do a lot of drafting. At the moment, along with drafting, I'm repairing key wound clocks and hatching out chicken eggs for chicks to sell. Last time construction was flat I was driving a tour bus for awhile, the time before that when construction was slow, I was doing upholstery.

There was just a huge tax auction late last year where a lot of the Nanawale lots that had been sold to Japanese investors were sold off for non-payment of back taxes. About a hundred and fifty lots were auctioned off, but I didn't get to that particular auction so I don't know the details.

For building in Nanawale, the lots are so small that you just mark any significant trees you want to keep (usually the big ohias if you have any) remove any significant tree ferns or other plants you want to keep and then hire a bulldozer to flatten the rest. That is, if you have a lot that is generally a'a lava without any interesting topological features. I purposely bought a lot covered with albizia since I was planning on hiring a dozer. There were three ohias and some tree ferns which were saved the rest was albizia which is a species of tree folks try to remove whenever possible so dozing it wasn't a sacrilege. The dozer dug the septic hole at the same time as clearing the lot so that saved a lot of $$ when it came time to put in the plumbing. When I built in Nanawale, it was the early 90's and it was $1,200 to have the lot "tabletopped" with a pit for the septic system dug. I had several loads of cinder delivered and the dozer pushed that around, too. Next time I'll remember to not let them spread cinder where the house will go. It took awhile to remove the cinders out of the house area since by that time the dozer had gone away.