The Willows Restaurant

The Willows is located on Hausten Street in Moiliili, a Honolulu neighborhood near the University of Hawaii.  The Willows originally opened its doors in 1944.  The restaurant featured a true Hawaiian ambiance, with open air seating and water features.  In the late 1990's the property was completely upgraded and still it retains that special local atmosphere.

What's cooking at The Willows

The Willows features a buffet.  We've all probably been to a buffet where you could eat all you want but the food wasn't that great.  On the other hand, EVERYTHING tastes great at the Willows!  They serve great salads, fish, crab, prime rib, dessert, you name it.

The food is local style and there's something here for every taste.  Seafood…

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Honolulu open house draws a crowd

Ever have an open house and nobody visited?  Or just a handful of visitors in three hours?  What a drag.  We recently listed a preforeclosure house in Honolulu.  This house appealing because it's duplex (two separate residences for one price) and its location near downtown.

The owners bought the house in January 2007 for $810,000.   We listed the house for $750,000 and after 10 days there were a few inquiries but no big charge of buyers.  The owners had waited awhile to list the property, now we were near the deadline for a foreclosure auction.  They made the bold decision to drop the price $200,000 and get some activity.  It worked!  Suddenly we had one of the lowest priced homes for sale in metropolitan Honolulu,…

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Maui Gas prices 11% higher than Oahu

With gas prices going up nationwide, perhaps we're all a little jaded by price increases these days.  There was a time when Hawaii had the highest gas prices in the nation.  That's no longer true, however our prices are still among the highest in the U.S.

This past week I journeyed to Maui for work - not play :-(   This time I visited Lahaina, where prices tend to be higher compared with Wailuku and Kahului.  The price for regular gas at Blackie's Shell in Lahaina was $4.35 on Thursday, 5/22/08.  Checkout the price of diesel - $5.10!

 

The price is about 11% higher than what gas costs in Honolulu.  Here's a photo (below) I took today at an Aloha Gas station, not far from my house in Honolulu.

Back in March I…

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The Sawzall is great for do it yourself work

 

 

Have you ever heard of a Sawzall?  I hadn't until some handymen did some work around my place recently.   I'm one of those old fashioned guys that would use a regular hand saw for cutting things up.  I have one saw for wood and another for metals.

We moved to our home in Palolo Valley last year and it was a fixer upper.  There was a lot of junk to be cleared from the yard too.  I talked with the handymen and found out all the great things a Sawzall can do.

Features of a Sawzall

As you can see from the photo above, a Sawzall is a "Variable Speed Reciprocating Saw."  It's almost like a chainsaw, but it's electrically powered and easier to maneuver.  The blade moves not only back and forth, but up and…

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Hawaii foreclosures increase a bit

Haven't they gone up everywhere?  Honolulu statistics for the first quarter show 155 foreclosure filings this year (January through March) versus 102 during the same period last year.  That's an increase of 52% - the increase percentage sounds ominous, however the number of forclosures versus households is still very small.  Honolulu has the second lowest foreclosure rate in the U.S!

Why aren't we getting hit?

What's so special about this place?  We got smoked back in the mid-1990's after the Japanese bubble burst.  Some people actually walked away from their houses and let the banks take them back.  Note that the people doing so were in neighborhoods away from downtown Honolulu.  Homes in Honolulu are just too…

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Misspelling and poor grammar are not good things

Hi Webmasters,

I see so many misspelled words and improper grammar on blogs that it sometimes gets to me.  If we don't watch our spelling and grammar, people that don't know any better will read what we write and think that's the right way to do it!

Here are some examples from the REW blogs:

- Tail of a happy homeseller...  (should be Tale)

- My families business...  (should be family's)

- For sales decline... (what for?  This doesn't make sense)

- Who need back links anyways!  (A question should end with a question mark)

Please don't take this the wrong way.  There is poor spelling and grammar all over the internet.  I think most of us realtors have college degrees and consider ourselves…

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Torito's Restaurant in Honolulu

Torito's restaurant is located at Market City in Kapahulu.  This restaurant is a local favorite and it's been around for quite awhile - I first ate there around 1998.  Torito's is a local favorite because of the great menu and reasonable prices. Two people can eat at Torito's for about $20 including tip.  Add in some margaritas and the price will go up!

My favorite dish at Torito's is the vegetarian quesadilla plate.  I order my plate with black beans (they normally serve pinto beans).  This will keep me satisfied for about $7.  The chicken enchilada plate is also delicious.  Once in awhile I'll have the huevos rancheros for something different.

Toritos is open for lunch and dinner.  The lunch plates are a little…

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Aloha Airlines closes

 

 

There was little notice on the closing of Aloha Airlines.  March 21, 2008 Aloha Airlines announced it had enough cash to operate for ten more days and it was filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.   The company was also looking for potential buyers.  For about a week there was nothing in the newspapers or on tv news about Aloha Airlines.  Suddenly on Sunday, March 30th Aloha announced that March 31st would be their final day of business.   How could this have happened?  We just didn't think the March 21st announcement was that serious.  After all, Aloha had… Read Full Post