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Hi Lonamaka,
I have been a Realtor for over 3 years, but I had no experience in real estate whatsoever when I got my license. Experience is NOT necessary in order to start. Of course, you get better as you experience what goes during the course of a property search or a listing, but that's the same with everything, right? A college degree is definitely not necessary to be a highly successful agent, no matter where you live. It takes drive, passion for serving your clients, and constantly generating leads to turn into clients. When you're truly "in real estate" you're really in the lead-generating business, i.e. always keeping the "pipeline" full to eventually turn those leads into clients. It becomes a way of life. Everywhere you go in your daily life you should strike up a conversation with someone, whether it's in line at the grocery store, hanging out with friends at the bar, etc. and then you will probably hear that someone in the group is either interested in buying or selling or knows someone who is. I believe it's important that, when you are looking for a broker to work for, you find one that has a culture that supports its agents, rather than just bringing you on saying "welcome. Now, go sell." It should be such that the other agents in the office would be willing to help answer your questions as they were once in the same position themselves. I am fortunate to work for a large nationally-recognized broker who thrives on this family culture. There's always a full calendar of training and clases which are mostly led by fellow agents and other times by title company representatives, and lenders. These classes help you quickly learn the ins and outs of any real estate market. I am happy to talk to you extensively about becoming an agent, no matter where you go. Just send me a private message and I'll tell you my experience. I get chills thinking about it!
Like others here, I'd encourage you to go to college, it will always benefit you, whether you stay in real estate or not.
A couple of things, because properties are so expensive here, a 500K house practically IS the bottom and people buying a property of that expense (and more) will want to work with someone who knows the area and the complicated ins and outs of Hawaii real estate. Further, most people (especially here) do business with people they already know, so I imagine moving here and getting into real estate would be quite difficult.
You could move here, work, go to school, meet some people and start your life. I recommend you come out here and live for a couple of months to see if you like island living.
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