On Top of the Aloha Beat BLOG

It's almost time to head out to the Performing Arts Center where the Honolulu Symphony will be performing two concerts this evening. Funded by a nice grant, this is the first time that the Honolulu Symphony has been to Kauai for 15 years. They spent most of the last two days traveling around to most every school on the island and performing in small groups: string quartets, string duo, brass ensembles, percussion trios, etc. Tonight the concerts are at 7 p.m. and 8:30.

Tis' exciting!

The recent NAR convention just completed in Orlando, Florida. Many of the leaders of Active Rain attended and they celebrated big time. Here are a couple of valuable thoughts and observation about what we fondly call, "The Rain", as shared by a conference attendee. Aloha from Kauai...

While many on the island were busy celebrating the Obama victory, the county of Kauai was morphing its personality by electing a new Mayor and new County Council. Former Dept. of Parks and Recreation head Bernard Carvalho defeated former Kauai mayor Joanne Yukimura by a pretty big margin. I heard one local fellow remark recently "Bernard - he got no knowledge", Joanne- "she got too much knowledge". At any rate, Joanne, a Stanford grad with a long history of serving Kauai, was defeated and now we'll see if the new, younger Mayor can make some inroads into Kauai's many issues including infrastructure development, waste management, affordable housing, drug treatment centers, and more.

Meanwhile, the face of the seven member County Council, the governing body over which the Mayor presides, was reshaped with the adding of three new youthful faces. Thirty-year old Derek Kawakami is a local business man and the youngest member. Lani Kawahara, a 42-year old Kapa`a Librarian is optimisitic about adding her fresh perspective and honesty to the mix. Dickie Chang, who can be seen on the Garden Island website and who produces and hosts Wala`au, a local-style TV show, is the third new member to join four incumbents with Jay Furfaro the lead vote getter. Furfaro is more than likely going to be the chair of the Council.

With tourism getting hammered from lost cruise ships and two airlines going out of business, plus the higher price of airfare and the global economic concerns, the county officials, like our new President Obama, will have their hands full. Let's hope they can put some ideas into action and not continue the County Council's reputation for procrastinating.

New Kauai County Council Members:
From top left: 4 incumbents - Bill “Kaipo” Asing, Jay Furfaro, Tim Bynum, Daryl Kaneshiro,
Bottom row, the rookies: Dickie Chang, Lani Kawahara and Derek Kawakami

Here's a reblog of a post written by my new broker, Matt Beall, which i think makes a good point about October Sales Results of the Kauai Real Estate market. Of course, just as I was taking a flight on Monday night i met a golfer who told me his buddy fell in love with a home in Hanalei Bay and sure enough, it went into escrow today. Listing price, 12.990 Million. That being said, Matt makes some good points in his POV below...

Hi everyone, here are the Kauai sales stats, October 2008. 

The first page (Number of Sales) has some dramatically low figures.  Let’s take the north shore for example, only THREE houses sold on Kauai’s north shore in October.  And, of the 186 condominiums for sale on the north shore (mostly Princeville) , only ONE sold in October.  Kauai’s east side hasn’t faired much better… with only 7 home sales in October and zero condo sales (despite 122 Active Condo listings on the east side). 

With so little volume, and especially for such a sustained period (most of 2008), the laws of supply and demand lead us to assume that prices must drop… but this is where the statistics start to fail us.  There are a lot of sellers in our market who simply can’t afford to sell their homes, but who are, nonetheless, trying their hand in the market.  The result is what looks like arbitrary pricing, a glut of inventory, and few sales.

Those who can afford to price their properties accurately, and who have enough information to reach accurate conclusions about the current market, are accounting for the little sales volume we have.

I can confidently say that we, at Hawaii Life, have our finger on the pulse of the market.   We continue to receive an enormous amount of inquiries from prospective buyers, whether from our website or from other media.  The great majority of these buyers are looking for a DEAL.  Short sales, REOs (Real Estate Owned, as in, by banks), and properties that are obviously priced ahead of the market dominate the attention of the buyers in the market.

And, perhaps ironically, it seems that we have a backlog of buyers (I know that sentance is going to generate a barrage of comments, but hear me out…).  The challenge we face is to sort throught the glut of inventory to find the few properties where the sellers have finally reached the conclusion to price their property accurately, IF they can afford to do so, AND they have access to enough accurate information about the reality of the market.  For these reasons, our jobs as Realtors have become much more involved, on both sides of the transaction.

And, unfortnately, the State of Hawaii isn’t helping much.  I’ll spare you the full diatribe here, and save it for another post… but the passage of Act 137 is going to wreak havoc for sellers of ‘Distressed Properties’ by making ‘Short Sales’ far more difficult (if even possible).

I’d love to say that the election will boost consumer confidence, and that credit will loosen up enough to add a wider variety of buyers to the pool (and perhaps help some of the existing distressed sellers get more affordable financing)… but I know better than to predict the future.

For now, we’re left sorting through the inventory for the ‘right-priced’ properties, and encouraging sellers to continue to lower their listing prices to stay ahead of the curve.

Happy Hunting,

Matt Beall, Principal Broker

If you've ever been to the Resortquest at Makaiwa Beach or eaten at the Hukilau Lanai, you are probably familiar with the large open lot between them that appears right for a hotel or resort. Well, you're right and the two developments that are earmarked for that land received another boost last week from the county.
Just to the right of this photo at Makaiwa Beach are raw acres along the ocean that are planned for the two resorts described. In this economy, if you build, it does not mean they will come.

The county Planning Commission last week voted in support of court-mandated amendments to the permits for a pair of planned Waipouli resorts, in the process reauthorizing the projects despite opposition from concerned community members and even some commissioners.

A September ruling by 5th Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe struck down three conditions that she deemed had been unconstitutionally imposed by county officials last year on the 20-acre Coconut Beach Resort and 12-acre Coconut Plantation Village.

Those conditions, among 19 that were tacked onto the projects’ applications, essentially required the developers to contribute millions of dollars toward infrastructure improvements such as upgrades to roads and water treatment facilities.

When completed, the Coconut Plantation Village will contain 192 multi-family units, six hotel rooms, associated amenities, a cultural preserve area, a relocated beach access and a minimum of 399 parking stalls. The Coconut Beach Resort will house 343 multi-family units, six hotel rooms, associated amenities, a restaurant, a cultural preserve area, two public beach access routes and 565 parking stalls.

Read Michael Levine's complete article in last week's Garden Island Newspaper