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Rainbow Drive In This restaurant has been around since 1961 and it's a favorite in Honolulu. Rainbow Drive In serves "local kine" food, such as boneless chicken with gravy, beef stew, chili hot dog, hamburgers and french fries. My favorite meal at Rainbow Drive In is breakfast. After a morning of running, swimming or surfing, this is a great place to stop by and get some pancakes and eggs, french toast, corned beef hash or fried rice. This restaurant also has reasonable prices. Expect to pay ... Read Full Post

For Sale By Owner Scam in Hawaii real estate A customer contacted me today and asked if I could represent him in a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) purchase. I said that would be fine. He forwarded an e-mail with a link to a website listing. See the photo below. I did not intentionally blur it, apparently that's what happens when a webpage is copied and pasted into another webpage. Message from a person claiming to be the owner The customer also included correspondence between himself and the "owner.... Read Full Post

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... Read Full Post

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 awhil... Read Full Post

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 Laha... Read Full Post

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 d... Read Full Post

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 b... Read Full Post

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) -... Read Full Post

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 normall... Read Full Post

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'... Read Full Post