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One aspect of expensive Hawaii living I haven't seen mentioned here is that it isn't just starry-eyed Americans wanting to live in Paradise; the market for everything there is global. Wealthy people from other countries buy up properties as a place to park wealth and to guarantee a vacation spot on a regular basis. Wealthy people from Europe, Japan, Australia, parts of Asia, etc. contribute to the high cost of housing which has a domino effect elsewhere.
The problem with the government is, it is and has been, all one party, and that is never good. I don't think it would be any better if it had been all Republican. We need a government of give and take, two parties to debate and come to a consensus.
I believe the Jones Act is a problem, but that is Federal.
Oahu is expensive, Maui is expensive, the other two islands are more affordable.
People leave for a variety of reasons, they go to school on the mainland and stay, and cost of living is certainly a factor. We left because we can travel more in retirement if we are on the mainland and that is a priority.
It IS hard to be a small business in Hawaii, and many fail due to over regulation and high personnel costs.
Hawaii is unique, and as such, has unique problems. To try to turn it strictly into a political issue is way to simplistic.
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One aspect of expensive Hawaii living I haven't seen mentioned here is that it isn't just starry-eyed Americans wanting to live in Paradise; the market for everything there is global. Wealthy people from other countries buy up properties as a place to park wealth and to guarantee a vacation spot on a regular basis. Wealthy people from Europe, Japan, Australia, parts of Asia, etc. contribute to the high cost of housing which has a domino effect elsewhere.
Hawaii is being loved to death.
and hawaii's politicians are all bought, so refuse to do anything about the out of state investors, and even go as far as giving them preferable hawaii tax treatment over local investors and residents. So they own property in hawaii, hawaii residents need to pay to maintain infrastructure for their property and their rentors/vacant owners, but the foreign investors dont. Crazy.
hawaii competing in technology is a pipedream. Hawaii can't even build a high speed internet pipeline from here to the mainland, yet such things already exist and bypass hawaii going from west coast to asia. Who would purposefully set-up a technology company in hawaii when average speed and infrastructure on the mainland is 100x faster and can be done from locations with extremely low COL? Hawaii is driven by incompetence and status quo. The various islands can't even cooperate enough to agree to connect their power grids, resulting in lower energy prices for everyone and a more stable grid with less power outages. Everyone acts like they're in their own fiefdom and love backwards thinking.
Hawaii's main industries will always be tourism and the military, with agriculture a distant 3rd place for niche items like kona coffee. There's no leaders forward thinking enough to push for anything other than the status quo. I aint complaining, just stating what is.
and hawaii's politicians are all bought, so refuse to do anything about the out of state investors, and even go as far as giving them preferable hawaii tax treatment over local investors and residents. So they own property in hawaii, hawaii residents need to pay to maintain infrastructure for their property and their rentors/vacant owners, but the foreign investors dont.
I don't understand this post at all.
First, out of state buyers are taxed at a higher rate.
Second, out of state buyers and especially foreign buyers are a small fraction of the Hawaii real estate market (and the ones they do buy are usually not affordable to local residents anyway) - specifically, 87.5% of all residential property in Hawaii is owned by residents of Hawaii. 10.8% are owned by mainland residents. A whopping 1.1% are owned by foreign residents. And 0.6% owned jointly between Hawaii/mainland residents. Those are small numbers compared to California, Arizona, Florida, etc.
And Third, AirBnb investing has ground to a halt on Oahu - while there are a few holdouts, who I believe are seriously playing with fire, the party is over. Rent is down 10% in Honolulu - and the practically ever dedicated AirBnb homes/units that don't have a legal permit either have been rented to long term renters or put on the market to be sold.
Hawaii can't even build a high speed internet pipeline from here to the mainland, yet such things already exist and bypass hawaii going from west coast to asia.
And I definitely don't understand this post at all -
There are 20 Terabit per second lines connecting Hawaii to the Mainland and Asia. To put that in perspective, that is 4,000 DVD's per second and the entire Library of Congress in a half a second.
I certainly have no problems running 4K TV streaming content on my base Spectrum internet - and one can certainly buy up to 1+ Gig internet. Over WiFi, which is much slower than a direct cable, I never get under 100 Mbs
I'm also fairly sure the US Pacific Command isn't dealing with slow internet.
And I definitely don't understand this post at all -
There are 20 Terabit per second lines connecting Hawaii to the Mainland and Asia. To put that in perspective, that is 4,000 DVD's per second and the entire Library of Congress in a half a second.
I certainly have no problems running 4K TV streaming content on my base Spectrum internet - and one can certainly buy up to 1+ Gig internet. Over WiFi, which is much slower than a direct cable, I never get under 100 Mbs
I'm also fairly sure the US Pacific Command isn't dealing with slow internet.
You would be surprised
Its actually shameful how slow military internet connections can be, though a lot of this is probably due to internal checks/firewalls/controls.
First, out of state buyers are taxed at a higher rate.
Second, out of state buyers and especially foreign buyers are a small fraction of the Hawaii real estate market (and the ones they do buy are usually not affordable to local residents anyway) - specifically, 87.5% of all residential property in Hawaii is owned by residents of Hawaii. 10.8% are owned by mainland residents. A whopping 1.1% are owned by foreign residents. And 0.6% owned jointly between Hawaii/mainland residents. Those are small numbers compared to California, Arizona, Florida, etc.
And Third, AirBnb investing has ground to a halt on Oahu - while there are a few holdouts, who I believe are seriously playing with fire, the party is over. Rent is down 10% in Honolulu - and the practically ever dedicated AirBnb homes/units that don't have a legal permit either have been rented to long term renters or put on the market to be sold.
They're taxed at a slightly higher rate. Nothing like the hotel or commercial rate. 12.5% owned by foreign, non native hawaii residents is a lot. Just my opinion.
And I definitely don't understand this post at all -
There are 20 Terabit per second lines connecting Hawaii to the Mainland and Asia. To put that in perspective, that is 4,000 DVD's per second and the entire Library of Congress in a half a second.
I certainly have no problems running 4K TV streaming content on my base Spectrum internet - and one can certainly buy up to 1+ Gig internet. Over WiFi, which is much slower than a direct cable, I never get under 100 Mbs
I'm also fairly sure the US Pacific Command isn't dealing with slow internet.
The military obviously uses their own data network. And no, it's not always the fastest. I'd imagine security is more important than raw speed.
There are aging fiber cables connecting hawaii to the outside world. Yes, they have a theoretical high speed, but that doesn't translate into real high speed for almost all of hawaii.
High tech is best with very fast internet speeds, whether small startup tech company or large. That is definitely NOT the norm in hawaii. High speed internet is not an option for much of oahu, let alone the rest of the islands. The speeds we have are good for surfing the internet and watching youporn after a short buffering interlude.
Quote:
The state of Hawaii has a total of 4 internet providers available. It is the 6th most connected state, with 98% of the population having access to broadband speeds of 25 Mbps or more. The largest metro, Honolulu, sees average speeds of 14 Mbps, followed by Pearl City with speeds of 15 Mbps.
Hawaii is so backwards, the residents dont even realize how far behind we've fallen to the mainland and asia. The state is seeking 1gbps possibly 7 years into the future, when faster speeds is already readily available on the mainland and asia. And yet hawaii people think they're competitive with the rest of the country? I ran a quick search of some addresses, and many of them the below internet connection is the best offered. 50D/3U is pathetic.
50 Mbps Internet
$44.99
/mo
for 1 year
Internet up to 50 Mbps download & 3 Mbps upload
The State, as inefficient and bureaucratic as it is, does realize it, and does understand that it's one of the sticking points making their goal of turning hawaii into a technology hub much much more difficult.
It's the reason why they're commissioning studies to look into ways to develop the infrastructure and get better internet speeds for the islands, hence the hawaii broadband initiative.
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