Reasonable or irrational appproach? Can we make it? (apartment, rentals)

[ley34]

I'm a 27 year old white male planning on moving to Oahu with my girlfriend of 3 years. We have been to Oahu and Maui several times and have decided to try our luck living life on the islands. We are laid back don't drink or party and live a simple life. We love to surf and spend time outdoors. We'll be going with the mindset "If things don't work out, we'll come back". I have no debt, 17000 in savings and a couple thousand in my 401K. My girlfriend is 30 years old and will try to find work bartending as she has an extensive background in the industry, plus no college. I have two years restaurant management experience also having worked, warehouse, forklift, and several restaurant jobs, only having a two year college degree. As of now we will both be looking for work when we arrive. If you got through this read let me know what you think. Could we make a living in Oahu?

[alex7777]

Having no actual knowledge of the Islands yet, I would simply note that if you have return tickets, almost $20K in savings, and a mindset of returning if things don't work out, it hardly seems irrational or unreasonable to try it out and see what happens. Doing this with kids, etc. might be more questionable, but you have no real responsibilities yet besides yourselves. Might as well try it now, while you can with little risk.

It also seems like your job skills would be somewhat marketable in the tourist economy which is dominant in Hawaii. As long as you're willing to adapt to a somewhat reduced standard of living in material terms (with everything more expensive), you'd seem to have a decent shot at making it.

I would only suggest looking into ways of possibly leveraging your savings, vs. simply spending it all. For example, maybe you could rent out a small house for a year, get a better deal by paying cash up front, and rent out one of the rooms to someone else, maybe a female student. This could both improve your living space situation while reducing the amount you have to spend on housing, and having your housing costs covered for a year would make everything else easier to manage.

(E.g.: If you could work out a deal where you paid $15K up-front to rent a small house for the year, you could probably survive on less than $500/monthly income after that. You could probably rent out a room to someone else for $500 - $1000 a month, which would more than cover your basic living expenses, so that anything else you guys earned would be gravy (with a good amount saved for the next year's rent, and/or a purchase down-payment). $15K might be optimistic, but I have to suspect there are people looking to rent out their house who would be very happy to get cash up front, and would be willing to offer a significant discount for that.)

[KonaKat]

In Hawaii, it is not allowed to demand that rent be paid more than 1 month at a time unless it's a vacation rental booking (whole different animal). If people want to pay in advance that's fine, perhaps they'll be traveling and want to pay 3 months in advance. However at any time they can demand the advance rent be returned to them so, offering to pay in advance has no real negotiating power.

to the OP, how about securing housing for 3 months such as a vacation rental in our low season (may - nov roughly) to see how things go? Many vacation rental owners are happy to heavily discount the rent if someone wants it for a few months during a time when the high dollar bookings are scarce. That you can pay up front and then you would have ample time to see if you can find employment and affordable housing for the long term.

[FallenIntoGreatness]

Is summer really the low time in Hawaii? May to November, as mentioned above? I've been meaning to ask when the ideal time to look for housing is; so just clarifying.

[KonaKat]

Our high season is when it's cold on the mainland and Canada. Summers rates are lower. Obviously we still get visitors although they tend to be families on a budget that spend less than the "snowbird" type of visitor. In Kona, Nov - March/April plus about 2 weeks around Ironman is our high season. There are also more cruise ships stopping by in the winter than summer (I think right now we get 1 per week) whereas in the winter we might get 2 to 4 per week.

[ley34]

Great suggestion Konakat, we have actually considered going that route. Can we use the address of our vacation rental while applying for jobs in Oahu?

[alex7777]

I can understand the law saying that you can't demand a full year up front. However, I'm not sure why people would be able to demand a refund of up-front rent if they've already negotiated that -- seems kind of bizarre, unless the apartment ends up being uninhabitable for some reason. As noted, this would only impair the negotiating power of some renters, without really helping anyone.

Anyway, it would still seem to be preferable to landlords, and I would still explore that. (If nothing else, they could invest the money as long as they had it, and likely earn interest on it.) Regarding vacation rentals, how much more expensive are they then standard rentals?

I guess it comes down to how committed you are to trying to make things work over a year or so -- you'd probably spend a lot more on the vacation rental, unless you get a really good deal. But that would probably make more sense for someone who's not sure if they want to be there or not

[ley34]

We are considering the vacation rental first because it will be easier to find a more permanent living situation while living on the island. We are still open minded to finding the best way to get our foot in the door. I know it is important to have a legitimate address while applying for work. If we rent a vacation home first we aren't sure if that address will be accepted by employers during our search for more permanent housing. Thanks for all of the suggestions! All input is greatly appreciated!

[Joliefille]

Unless you told them it was a temporary address, how would they know? Then, if after you are hired, just do a change of address with HR and the postal service. People move all the time, for all kinds of reasons. I wouldn't even bring it up in an interview.

[KonaKat]

Originally Posted by ley34

Great suggestion Konakat, we have actually considered going that route. Can we use the address of our vacation rental while applying for jobs in Oahu?

I suggest that you get a PO Box instead. It's my experience here on the Big Island that postal service is not the greatest when it comes to forwarding orders and when you move, you could easily lose a lot of mail.