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Your savings are woefully short to consider buying for quite awhile.
Unless you can save quite a bit more money, often a challenge on an expensive island, you'll probably afford at best a small condo someday in the future.
A $800,000 house with $160,000 down + closing costs will give you a mortgage payment of roughly $3,100/month to put things in perspective.
An $800k house is slightly above median.. Add $100k for repairs or to enlarge.
Out of curiosity, how are you qualified to use the commissary? Retired military?
I do think a darker complexion will be an advantage for your son - he won't stick out so much.
The shipyard is a GREAT job!
Is op african? Hawaiian or Samoan not the same as what you are implying.....................lol. Following this line of thinking op should send son to Radford High School. Great athletes went there. Ashlie Lelie?
All these people comming here with high paying jobs with no money saved up------whats up with that. If they couldnt save money whence they came from what makes them think they gonna buy a house in Hawaii?
For condos, you can find them at $500K - expect a monthly maintenance fee of at least $500/month
$500 is very low. A 1,000 SF condo (mid and high rise in town) averages $.80/SF for maintenance fee. So about $800/mo is a typical maintenance fee for a 1,000 SF space. If it's much lower than that you can expect to pay a hefty special assessment in the near future (i.e. reserves are woefully short). You might get lucky and find a 1,000 SF condo that is exceptionally well maintained, efficient with ZERO amenities for about $500. But nowadays that's pretty much nonexistent.
Appearance: Lol, no we are not of African, Hawaiian or Samoan heritage. I am 1/2 Hispanic and my son is 1/4 resulting in very dark features. I have no expectations of being welcomed into Hawaii by the locals.
Commissary: My husband is Army Reserve (going on 26 years) thinking about retiring after 30 years have been served. As a retired member, he would be allowed full access to all military facilitates.
Money down: We can liquidate our rental house, that would give us about 120-130k but was trying to hold onto that for tax purposes. Might have to do that though.
Renting: Thank you for reinforcing about renting for a few years first. I would feel more comfortable getting to know the areas before we just jump right into buying a place. Thank you for the suggestion of using Navy Federal Credit Union.
Summary: As I was saying, I'm more of the realist and while we are not looking for the status lifestyle (for lack of better wording) that we have now, I really do not want to be house poor. Hopefully today or tomorrow we will find out if he gets his promotion here or if we will be moving. I truly appreciate everyone's input and respect all answers. Thank you so much!!!
Out of curiosity, how are you qualified to use the commissary? Retired military?
I do think a darker complexion will be an advantage for your son - he won't stick out so much.
The shipyard is a GREAT job!
As a federal Employee you can use MWR for camping, the pool, flights and Vacations, car rentals, and more. You can stay at the Navy Lodge on Ford Island, and Your Federal ID Can get you Discount prices at some of the Pearl Harbor Historic attractions (IE; Arizone Memorial, the Flight museum, and more) Unless you are retired military you cannot use the commissary or the Exchange, when you work at the Ship yard.
Yup, rent for at least a year or two. It's almost impossible to find the proper spot until you've lived on the island for awhile.
Try to keep the daily commute as absolutely short as possible. In a perfect world, walking or biking to work would be lovely, but doubtful that it could happen. A lot of Oahu's woes is that it wasn't designed with walking neighborhoods.
With the skyrocketing real estate values, renting for a 6 months makes sense but renting for 2 years is just flushing money down the toilet. The only reason to rent is if you can't afford to buy.
With the skyrocketing real estate values, renting for a 6 months makes sense but renting for 2 years is just flushing money down the toilet. The only reason to rent is if you can't afford to buy.
That is quite shortsighted.
Renting for 6 months generally isn't feasible - landlords don't typically offer 6 month rentals.
First, most people can't handle Hawaii for more than 2 years as living the dream isn't quite what they thought it was. And unless you are part of the skyrocketing real estate windfall, you'd more than likely lose money buying real estate as a short term transaction. Real estate fees, closing costs, etc will be 7-8% of the sales transaction - so your real estate would need to noticeably appreciate to recover that.
People who bought in 2007 on Oahu only really recovered in 2012 or maybe even 2013 depending on the area. A person who bought in 2007 and had to sell in 2011 likely lost a lot of money.
With the skyrocketing real estate values, renting for a 6 months makes sense but renting for 2 years is just flushing money down the toilet. The only reason to rent is if you can't afford to buy.
I second this advice. Properties can DOUBLE in two years. Your jobs and the commute will limit your choice so it's not like to have the whole island to choose from. Now if you think your staying here is iffy AND you would not hold your property and rent if the market is down then you probably shouldn't buy ever but then you are at the mercy of ever increasing rents.
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