They say "Never count your chickens before the hatch". The house hunting experience in Hawaii has been interesting and challenging. Perfect plans are always in flux, by that I mean, selling our house in Maryland was a roller coaster ride; one day sold, the next week pre-approved financing fell through. What is that all about? The housing market is bad in MD. The value of our house kept falling weekly...still is falling. Another offer came in ridiculously LOW, I mean, come on, our house was priced to sell quickly. All the others on our street were $300, we ask $269. Anyway we did sell it for $265 with many concessions.
#1 houses in Hawaii are about twice/three times the price compared to MD. (STICKER SHOCK even in a so called bad market here) #2 Termites are a really bad problem here. (Inspection Reports reveal them even when you do not see them) Anyway; We put a bid on a house (not near a beach or anything), $750... absolute top of our range. The inspection report had too many issues to list (at least $50,000 to fix) seller would not agree to fix anything and still wanted full price...WHAT!!! We said forget it. #3 Good houses sell in 1 or 2 days here; so you have to be quick if you like a house. Not a slow market here unless it's a Klunker (fixer upper). They say the prices are down here. ( I guess in a good market they are 5X's the price)
Well, if at first you don't succeed try, try again. We put another bid on a house last week $705 (3/2...Living:1,652 Land: 7,500) We got the Inspection Report back...75 pages; mostly little things but a few things I think should be addressed; Glass broken in half on shower door, Dishwasher leaking, Solar panel corosion and electrical box corosion/deteriorated and a soft roof issue (spots). We are getting the roof and solar checked by professionals today. Our realtor said they might refuse to fix anything. What do you think? If this all falls through again...We are getting really frustrated and can't afford to pay over our budget. Another option: Renting a nice house cost a little less than buying; without headaches and repairs. Should we keep looking for a house or just rent a house and make it someone else's problem???
We could always just pitch a tent on the beach! That would give us about 30 sf of living space! But the price of housing here is really high for what you get (although those of you living in the SF Bay Area might not blink at these prices!).
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