Neighborhood Profile
Most weekday mornings I can be found at my desk in the beautiful Mauna Kea Resort working away. When hotel guests stop by to say hello and talk real estate, they are typically surprised to find two bedroom condos, some on the fairway, all with ocean views, well under $1M. Today the asking prices for those Kumulani condos start at $550,000. Located within Mauna Kea Resort, Kumulani is an amazing value for tennis, golf and beach buffs.
Before heading up to the Keck Observatory telescopes, visitors are required to spend an hour at the 9,000 foot level. This helps identify folks who are going to have trouble at almost 14,000 feet, and it allows the rest of us time to acclimatize to less oxygen. After arriving at the Keck staff facility a few miles above the Big Island’s saddle road, we drank liquids, wandered around, visited with each other, and then we settled in for the telescope open house introduction and safety talk.
Today I visited the summit of Mauna Kea courtesy of the Keck Observatory. It was the 2011 Keck Open House and I was fortunate enough to be invited by friend and Keck astronomer Julien Woillez. Julien is an interferometer scientist working on a project coordinating both Keck I and Keck II telescopes to create a virtual 85 millimeter telescope. Wow!
Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtor’s Chief Economist, said last month that homes sales will rise this year. Well, those of us familiar with Kona and Kohala Coast real estate here on the Big Island took this as old news. Real estate isn’t just local, these days it is hyper-local. What’s happening in Puna is completely different than what’s happening in South Kohala. When I talk to mainland residents looking to buy a vacation home, they often incorrectly assume what’s happening in their local market is what’s happening in our market.
Through 2010 I felt like West Hawaii condo sales were bumping along the bottom here on the Big Island. Once we got through December, I predicted a faily flat trend line once I fed all the quarterly data into Excel. It turns out the South Kohala condo unit sales were trending slightly upward, and the North Kona condo sales were trending slightly downward.
This morning I was looking for a condo for sale in Mauna Lani Resort. I stumbled upon something very interesting in the beautiful Ka Milo neighborhood: a one quarter share ownership opportunity for only $175,000 plus one quarter of the monthly dues. Increasingly popular on the mainland, fractional ownership listings began to appear on the Big Island when the prices were going through the roof in 2006.
Part 4 of 4
Investors are entering deeply discounted real estate markets. According to Dr Yun, Las Vegas is experiencing an influx of investors. Since Las Vegas is the nadir of the US housing market drop, this is good news. Refreshingly deep pink firewood blosooms are first to return to a blackened northern forest after a devastating fire. While investors better resemble civil war carpet baggers more than fireweed, their effect is the same. They are the first to venture in, and they provide foundation for future growth.