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I anticipate a move to Hawaii next year...I'm doing allot research of all the islands, job prospects, friendliness, property prices etc...There are some pretty reasonable condos in the Makaha Valley Plantation area on Oahu...why so cheap as compared to other places??? Can anyone help
Makaha is not really a good place for a malihini to start out in.
DO NOT BUY A HOUSE OR CONDO IN HAWAII WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT FIRST. And look at the neighborhood the house is in, too. Just don't, okay? It will save everyone a lot of grief.
Visit Hawaii first. Don't even sign a six month rental lease until you've seen the neighborhood first. Get a couple weeks of a vacation rental or a hotel room for at least a couple days first. Then look around and find a rental spot. Then after you've rented for at least six months in the area you want to buy, then think about buying.
This isn't the mainland, we don't have large homogenized areas where buying one house in the sub-division is very similar to buying one on the other side of the sub. There can be vast differences between one block to the next. From one apartment building to the one next door. There are a whole lot of new things to consider depending on the area you are looking at. Lease land is common in Hawaii which affects property values for condos.
Well, that's why I am asking questions...I'm not sure I would ever buy property over there I just started looking at the possibilties and wondered why the condos I mentioned specifically, Makaha Valley Plantation were so reasonable priced compared to elsewhere on the island...I Google Earthed the area and seemed nice enough...Likewise, up here in Maine you can have a $300,000 house on one corner and a trailer park on the other. I'll more than likely room/share with other women as it seems there are many opportunities for that. Just for giggles, why would that be a bad place to start. I'm also considering the Lahaina area on Maui...any advice? I looked up the word "malihini" and yes, I would be a stranger (try being a New Yorker living in Maine) ...talk about strange! I have heard of the racism of mainlanders there having spent 25 years breaking my fanny in Maine I feel the same about "flatlanders here" they come in, buy up the real estate and throw us all out (one of life's lessons I guess). Well it worked...I'm outta here! I'm a social, humble peron with a great respect for others and hope that will come across in the long run...can't be any worse than here. I really appreciate all this good info and have done allot of blogging on the subject...are there any little things that are commonly missed by others with the same intentions? Oh yeah, and just how common are bed bugs...the subject comes up often. Thanks again
That particular area of the island of Oahu (Waianae/Makaha) has had social difficulties involving altercations between folks that have been there since before forever and folks who have just arrived or even tourists. Generally tourists are kinda considered semi-sacred and are not supposed to be injured. Stealing stuff from them is frowned on but kinda looked away from when it happens but injuring one is really a heavy no-no and in that area of the island over the years there have been altercations to the point of the demise of the newbies and tourists. That has a tendency to keep the property values low as well as there is a possibility of the condos being on lease land with the lease coming up for renewal soon.
Some condos in Hawaii are on leased land. They run usually for fifty years. Once the lease runs out, if the land owner does not want to renew the lease, they don't have to. They can tell the folks to take their condominium and leave. Or the land lease can be renewed at a really increased price. If the condos are on leased land and the lease is due up soon, the condo values will be low until the lease is renegotiated.
Rooming with some other women sounds like a good way to start. They will already know where stuff is and how to go about doing various things. Things are done differently in Hawaii and there is a huge disinclination to change especially if folks from the mainland try to explain how it is done elsewhere. Just the way it is.
Yeah, insteada flatlanders we get mainlanders. A friend of mine told me about a fellow in Maine when she asked him if the kids of newbies in Maine if the kids were born in Maine if they were considered as being from Maine. Apparently he asked her if her cat had kittens in the oven would she call them biscuits. I found that amusing.
A year or two ago there was a big problem with some hotels finding bed bugs. Apparently, bed bugs are fairly easy to find if they are there. Some dark bugs about the size of a grain of rice in the seams of the mattress.
I'm sure if we had trailer parks in Hawaii the trailers would be $300,000 each. We don't have any trailer parks, though so we don't have to worry about overpriced trailers.
Yeah the "ill will" thing amongst the natives is unfortunate considering tourism is the core of the economy there...I wonder tho...what would they say if given the opportunity to turn the clock back say...a couple hundred years?
Anyway, why are you a "super authority" on Hawaii...is that where you make your home?
Hmm, two hundred years ago would have been 1808 in Hawaii? The islands would have been consolidated into one kingdom for twenty five years. Kamehameha the First would have been king. He was kinda pro-foreigners since he had gotten cannon from them which helped him consolidate his kingdom. Prior to that he hadn't been winning all that consistently. Cows would have been here for twenty years and horses would have just been introduced, I think. Hawaii would not have had that much interaction with other nations (sailing ship days) but they would have been treated as a sovereign nation. Nobody would have really needed anything from anywhere else (they didn't even know it existed, actually) and they would have everything they needed right here. Not even too many missionaries yet, those folks didn't get too much of a toehold until after Kamehameha's death.
Tourism wasn't always the core of the economy and as it falls, we will all end up doing other things. I'm hoping our economy can diversify and we can make and produce products for ourselves to make our state self-sustainable. We had a big economic drop when sugar went down (that was '95 for my area) and we are just now kinda beginning to get diversified agriculture to start to fill in and almost start to work. The displaced sugar workers were hard workers but they weren't farmers. They were kinda like factory workers working outside. There was a complete lack of farming knowledge, infrastructure, processing, shipping, marketing, etc. We are beginning to see it start to work so hopefully when the tourist jobs go away, the folks will turn to producing food.
Yuppers, I live in Hawaii. Somebody's gotta do it. Mostly I do drafting and draw blueprints for folks to build houses with here. At the moment, I'm drawing up a small dairy barn since the construction industry has pretty much ground to a halt and not that many houses are being built. It does this sort of thing periodically. Last time it got real slow I took up driving a tour bus for awhile. That was fun, but now tourism is down at the same time as construction. The time before when construction slowed way down I did upholstery. This time I'm doing clock repair and I still have a bit of drafting trickling in. Most of the drafting lately has been folks building additions onto their house so their family can move in. That's kinda a comment on the local economy as well.
Actually, I'd like to draft up a couple of small self contained sustainable communities. At the moment our zoning laws don't allow for folks to live and work in small communities, the laws almost enforce bedroom communities. The folks have to drive everywhere and it is harder for folks to actually have "community". It would be nice to have some small communities where everyone can walk to the shops, schools and services, have community areas and have houses with nice friendly front porches within talking distance of the folks walking by on the wide shady sidewalks. Small slow narrow roads (no zooming along on those!) with all garages and carports tucked away out of sight. Lots of benches to sit and overlook statues, viewing spots or just the local park. A community "green" where folks can gather for various events. A "town square" as it were. I'd love to design a couple of small villages like this, mostly so I could live there, too, but, that's just me maybe nobody else sees the lack of this sort of thing.
The first half is about a small island in Denmark that has become almost energy self-sufficient without making tremendous lifestyle and cultural concessions. Of course, they're agrarian and not in the tropics -- and don't "have to" cool already-built high-rises for tourists. But they have done some common-sense things that have really made a difference, and are making the most of what's already there.
It frustrates me that that the state of Hawaii -- or some portion of it -- can't see it's way through to becoming a model for what can be done sensibly with nature and technology.
I'm beginning to see folks do green things. There was a free seminar last weekend of some folks getting together to compare how they've been doing on trying to get their cars to run on hydrogen. They all had mason jars of water with electrical anodes in them making hydrogen to feed to the engine. They weren't selling anything, just getting together to compare notes. We accidentally ran across the seminar while we were out yard saling. It was interesting.
Last week was a demonstration of static hydroponic growing of lettuce in used gallon sized plastic milk jugs. It was an impromptu demonstration put on by a general civilian. Not anything state or county sponsored at all. If it would have had any dirt involved I guess I could have said it was a grass roots effort, but perhaps a lettuce roots effort would be more precise.
There have been several large investigations into alternative energy and diversified agriculture which have been done on this island, however they have all been privately funded. The Rocky Mountain Institute was paid to do a survey of what Hawaii needs to kick start it's diversified agriculture and that can be found online. Fascinating document. There was a big solar gathering done several weeks ago over at Pu'u Wa'a ranch, I think it was. That was filmed for a PBS documentary so maybe we will see that coming up sometime. So things are being done, but they aren't being done by the government. We also have Richard Ha of Hamakua Springs doing a lot of agricultural research as well as the new owners of the Ookala Dairy are doing a lot of new agricultural methods. So, agriculture is starting to become significant, hopefully we will be able to feed all of our islands by the time fuel gets too expensive to run all the barges all the time.
Makaha is pretty much far from everything - look at it on the map
It's cheaper because it's farther away from everything, and it's on the more "local" territory - it's less 'developed' than say, Kapolei or Ewa. Just driving towards Makaha on Farrington Highway, you'll get that feeling by seeing all the tents pitched up along the beach. If you're not used to being around people who are considered to be more "local" you might feel out of place. THe "local" people I've met are pretty much nice people, though the guide books do tell of people throwing rocks or some such. I'm not caucasian, though, so I might be having a different experience than others.
Actually, I'd like to draft up a couple of small self contained sustainable communities. At the moment our zoning laws don't allow for folks to live and work in small communities, the laws almost enforce bedroom communities. The folks have to drive everywhere and it is harder for folks to actually have "community". It would be nice to have some small communities where everyone can walk to the shops, schools and services, have community areas and have houses with nice friendly front porches within talking distance of the folks walking by on the wide shady sidewalks. Small slow narrow roads (no zooming along on those!) with all garages and carports tucked away out of sight. Lots of benches to sit and overlook statues, viewing spots or just the local park. A community "green" where folks can gather for various events. A "town square" as it were. I'd love to design a couple of small villages like this, mostly so I could live there, too, but, that's just me maybe nobody else sees the lack of this sort of thing.
You know I've always thought we could solve the homeless problem if you could change the zoning laws. If you could build really small living spaces with community kitchens and dining/living areas, I think landlords could make a buck renting them at rates that might get the homeless off the street. I lived in "barracks" when I first joined the Navy, and there wasn't much room, but we were fine. Even the military has done away with them. Enlisted now live in "BEQs" (Bachelor Elisted Quarters) with private rooms.
Hank
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Thanks " Hot Cat "
I found that amusing.
