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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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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Hawaii Tourism Authority Steps Up

On March 31 2008, Aloha Airlines flew its last passenger flight and laid off 1,900 workers.  Customers with flights booked on Aloha Airlines were stuck if they were not completing their roundtrips by that day.  Then on Wednesday April 2nd 2008, ATA Airlines shut down operations, stranding more passengers.

Tens of thousands of people were affected by the shutdowns and there were not enough flights on other carriers to get people where they needed to go.   Aloha Airlines and ATA handled 15 percent of the air traffic between the West Coast and Hawaii prior to their shutdowns.

Pat the Hawaii Tourism Authority and Hawaiian Airlines on the back and say "Nice Job!" 

The Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) put up $5 million in…

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Hawaii Foreclosures rising

This morning's newspaper has an article titled "Isle foreclosures slowly building."  The article intrigued me as a Palolo Valley resident and realtor in Hawaii.

House for sale in Palolo Valley

I live just around the corner from the house pictured in the newspaper article (and pictured above).  This house is located in Palolo Valley, a Honolulu neighborhood.   Several months ago the house had a garage sale and we stopped by to check it out.  The owner told us his story about moving and claimed that he had sold the house.

Later the house came on the market at a high price with a low commission.  That's a deadly combination for a home seller.   I imagine the realtor recommended a lower price with a higher commission but he or…

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Assessed value and appraised value

Today I was corresponding with a customer about a condo he's planning to purchase.  We've looked at a few condos in this particular building and the unit in question has an assessed value that's lower than the others.  His thinking is that the property is worth less than the others because of the assessed value.

That's a common belief and sometimes it's true.  Other times it's definitely not true.  Assessed value and appraised value are determined by different parties for different purposes.

Assessed value is determined by the Real Property Tax assessor

County tax assessors determine a property's value based on its size, location, view, age and amenities, among other things.  In the case of this condo, the assessed…

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Maui Gas prices are the highest

 

Hawaii generally has the highest gas prices in the United States.  Maui, Kauai and the Big Island gas prices are normally higher than prices on Oahu.  In past weeks Maui's price went up to $3.95 per gallon for regular and $4+ for the premium fuels.    People on the outer islands (the islands other than Oahu) sometimes feel that they're getting ripped off.  The truth is, nearly everything shipped to Hawaii arrives on Oahu first.  From Oahu, freight is reloaded onto ships and sent to other islands.  The same is true with fuels.  Crude oil arriving from Alaska and Indonesia is refined on Oahu and then shipped to the Kauai, Maui and the Big Island.  And to be fair, let's not forget Molokai and Lanai.  The extra shipping… Read Full Post

Be careful about MLS violations

Last week I received an e-mail from the local Board of Realtors, informing me that I had committed an MLS violation.  That caught me completely by surprise.

The infraction: Posting a link in Tempo to my video of a listing.  That in itself wasn't an infraction, but including my contact information in the video made it a violation.

Wow!  Were you aware of this? I remember our Board having informed members about putting contact information in the remarks section of a listing.  That info was distributed about two years ago.  From that point on, we were subject to penalties if we included our name, phone and/or e-mail address in the information viewable by the public.

The purpose was to even the playing field, so that…

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Tax information for Hawaii homeowners

Selling your principal residence

A single homeowner can claim up to $250,000 from the sale of a principal residence as a tax-free profit. A qualified married couple filing jointly in the year of a home sale can claim up to $500,000 tax-free profits.

To qualify, Internal Revenue Code 121 requires owning and occupying your principal residence at least two of the last five years before its sale. However, if you acquired your home in an Internal Revenue Code 1031 tax-deferred exchange and later converted it into your principal residence, for sales after Oct. 22, 2004, you must have owned it at least five years (but only two years of occupancy is required).

Buying your principal residence during the year

This is the…

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