Real Estate Investment

Sticker Shock

When we seriously started to decide to move here (it was a half-year process, and we still weren't convinced when we got here - we spent 2.5 months in a 1bedroom, 1 bathroom suite in the Navy Lodge with 2 small children - not conducive to happy thoughts), EVERYONE including the Oahu residents told us it is too expensive, more expensive than anywhere on the mainland.  Not true if you are moving here from the DMV (District of Columbia-Maryland-Virginia megalopolis).  We predominantly shop at Costco and Sam's Club and everything including gas at Costco is comparable to or cheaper than the DMV.  And I mean everything: surf boards, poke, ukeleles - oh wait, you don't get those at Costco on the mainland....

Side story: we go to Costco and outfit ourselves for the beach the second weekend we are here.  We get Tommy Bahama chairs (only 2 will fit in the trunk of our rental car), a Tommy Bahama umbrella, a set of sand toys in which everything is packaged in the bucket and easy for one of the kids to carry, a big insulated ziptop shopping bag with surfers and hula dancers on the side, and some other Hawaii printed shopping bags to carry towels because we can't believe we live here and feel like perpetual tourists.  We get to the beach, and we are part of a line of folks with the same umbrellas and chairs and tote bags and sand toys as far as the eye can see.  Everyone shops at Costco and Sam's!

Except Homes.  Actually Costco and Sam's sell practically everything to go in, on, over, and around your home, but not the actual structure.  Homes on Oahu are much smaller than comparably priced homes in DMV.  Lots are non-existent.  We came from a 3 bedroom rancher with a full size basement on 0.6 acres.  We will be lucky if we get 2000 square feet (yeah I might be understating, a bit).  Our mainland home sold for $450K.  A smaller house here is $1.5 million.  Sticker shock.  So we are renting, eating ramen (yes, it is from Costco), and saving.

But I keep mentally making over our rental.  Rentals don't tend to have solar panels - tenants pay the electric bill so it is not financially beneficial to the owner.  The yard is minimally landscaped - the least I could find and least likely to be repurposed by the toddler and preschooler.  But it is extensively drained AND has an irrigation system!  WHY?!  There is no mulch - granted there are a series of crop destroying non-native invasive insects that love to reproduce in mulch and then there is the whole rat lungworm carrying slug and snail drama.

The land is expensive here, that is a good $500K of the house price.  But the house is expensive too and with all of the imminent disasters here, how do you make sure you have actually made a lasting investment?  Well, I can provide some pointers at least for Oahu.

(1) LOCATION
USA.gov is now an (almost) one-stop shop for ALL government data on the internet, federal, state, and local.  Data.gov is not easily locatable through USA.gov, but it is the federal data clearinghouse.

So, go there, type Hawaii in the search bar and you get 6,246 datasets, including state and local government datasets.  You have probably only searched the list of datasets, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you can choose to search the entire data.gov site.  This will counter-intuitively give you only 2991 items, but these are individual data points labelled Hawaii.  Search for Oahu and you get 996 data sets, and you will notice a trend in spacial data concerning risks and resource supplies.

Considerations for location:

Flood Zones

 including tsunami, stormsurge, and sea level rise.  These are 3 different mapping products and make sure you are looking at the most recent by checking the date of the source data, not the publication date.  It is also good to look upslope - where are the reservoirs and the few streams on the island and the floodplain for those?  Shoreline change affects where flooding will occur as well, so keep up to date on those studies.

Soils 

and geological hazards such as rift zones and landslides, and soils that are not good for engineering

Infrastructure

Preferably the house would be on public sanitary sewer and public water supply.  It can be harder to identify areas with good electrical infrastructure to support selling surplus solar energy to the grid.  Infrastructure GIS layers are available for the state.

On Oahu you can search the City and County of Honolulu Public GIS Click SEARCH, enter the house number in the top line and the street name without suffix in the bottom line.  The Tax Parcel information will show up in another tab, but the original tab will give you an aerial view of the property parcel and surrounding parcels.  You can display Utilities>Sewer Manhole/Mains/Laterals and then highlight INFO and click on a part of the sewer to display the owner and year built.  If it says PRIVATE, avoid purchasing property there.  You will be fully responsible for sewer maintenance and repairs and if CCH has not claimed responsibility for it, it probably does not meet their standards.

You can also display FEMA flood & Hydrography on the map. 

This information is also available on the Property Sheet in the bottom right section Zoning and Flood Information and clicking more public safety info>> give an additional page of information including whether the property is in a tsunami evacuation zone, and potential hurricane shelters.  The link to crime reports is a dead end, try CCH Crime Map and the sex offender map.

The tax and purchase history for TMKs has migrated to https://qpublic.schneidercorp.com/ for all of the Countys.  
The ownership for Oahu TMKs is more up-to-date in this database, but it can be difficult to find mailing addresses for property owners, which are a dead giveaway for rentals when the owners address is not the same.  In CCH if taxes haven't been paid for 3 years, the property may go up for auction.

(d) site history from google earth for desktop.  the historical imagery is no longer included in the Chrome version of google earth.  you have to download the desktop version.

(e) environmental health data

Once you find a house, there are the repairs to consider.  Appliances are often maintained well beyond their functional lifespan, at least in the properties we have viewed.  Hawaii Energy is a clearinghouse of rebates, credits, and potential costs for most things energy related.  Many homes here are older with fun little details like asbestos in the ceiling, the cost of removal can be calculated based on information found here: https://www.theasbestosinstitute.com/2019/10/24/popcorn-ceiling-removal-cost/

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