Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hello!
Looking for some advice about moving to Hawaii from Chicago area
Briefly about us:
Nurse and tradesman, both willing to take on whatever job necessary to make paradise wok
What we think we want:
We think we would not want to live in downtown or high rise, we have that here if we want that.
We want to live somewhere with that Hawaiian feel.
Ideally, single family home around 500k, town home would be fine, apartment not ideal, but it is what it is
We don't care about the size of the home so much, there's only two of us (for now)
Questions:
At one point, we thought we wanted to live on Maui, so I know all about the different cities on Maui and the where's and where not to-s, but we decided we would probably have a better shot at Oahu being that it's more trafficked. So where do we live? Which city's or coasts have what feel? Would it be hard for us to find a job in our current fields?
What's the median now for a house on Oahu? $800K or so? It keeps making the news as being expensive.
If you have $500K to spend on buying a house, Azalesiak, you could buy two of them for that amount on Hawaii island and have one as a rental to generate income.
- I don't believe $500k would even cover the cost of a small dirt lot here. If you rent a townhouse, think in the range of $2600-$3000 per month. Also, moving here is NOT CHEAP!
- Prepare for a culture shock. Prepare for the "paradise" feeling to wear off quickly as you share this small island with a million people, plus millions of tourists, all wanting to drive on the roads and shop in the stores. Watch as the highways clog during rush hours. YES...HOURS.
- I know a little bit about nursing here, and my advice is: unless you are specialized, with a lot of experience in a specific position needed, with a BSN, plus certifications, don't expect the red carpet rolled out for you like in many other states.
- Seriously, research the education system in Hawaii if you think you'll ever be having a family.
Well, $500K isn't far off on the cost of a small lot on Oahu.
One needs to budget at least $400K for small lots (6,000 sq ft or less) in central and west Oahu.
Then budget at least $300K to build your house and wait a year (and you are building at Oahu median)
It should be noted that once you factor in architect/permitting/sewer/engineering fees and site work, you will only get a very small house for $300K. Probably around 1,500 SF or so of interior and that is with very modest finishes and a flat and level accessible lot. And that doesn't even take into consideration financing and carrying costs (which can easily be as long as 18 months).
The average new mainland home is 2,600 SF so people moving here need to understand that their home will likely be MUCH smaller than what they were accustomed to. Or they'll probably be looking at $1M+ for their home.
Okay hiiii, not looking to build a home, not sure where everyone got that from. I've seen fee simple homes all over the island for 550 and less, but I'm more concerned with where should we live. We'd rent first obviously to get a feel, perhaps we'll have to move every year until we find the right fit. And once again, size of home isn't very important, our current house is only 1100sqf and we don't even use half the house. Any nurses or hospital employees reading care to comment? Where's the best place to work? And where do YOU live?
I've seen fee simple homes all over the island for 550 and less, but I'm more concerned with where should we live.
I see your price is already starting to go up from $500K
Using the original $500K as a guideline, there are roughly 135 single family home listings as of the time of this post.
Roughly half of those are in Waianae and if you can handle a commute from that area, then that is certainly an option.
Of the remaining half - almost all of the remaining aren't catagorized correctly and aren't really single family homes or most people would really consider to be a teardown and you are really just buying the land.
I've got a couple of friends whose 2-story home was built from several shipping containers. It's really impressive, attractive and was fairly inexpensive (under $50K for the house itself: 4 bedrooms, fully furnished, with washer, dryer, hot tub, projection TV room, 20-amp sockets throughout, etc). They did the work over a few weekends, then had them trailered to the pre-prepped site -- as containers, with the furniture and appliances strapped down -- and lifted in place by a crane. Assembly started in the morning, and it was in place, connected to power, water and septic by that afternoon, with the Certificate of Occupancy in hand before time to start cooking dinner.
While we were celebrating their new home -- and view -- we noticed neighbors coming home from work, stopping in the middle of the street and staring at this big house which hadn't been there when they had left that morning! Needless to say, the party got bigger and they got to meet the whole neighborhood.
I wonder if you could get approved for this in Hawai'i? If so, you could do the work on the mainland (where costs are far lower), ship it as (nearly empty) containers, assemble the modules and plug in the pipes and power.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
