Betty Sakamoto: Okay. I love Hawaii. I’m making that announcement right now as we start the show. I love Hawaii. There’s nothing any better. Nothing better.
Roy Sakamoto: Danny Couch
BS: Danny Couch and I love Hawaii. Couldn’t be better than that.
RS: No, absolutely.
BS: So here we are, we’ve got lots of little listings to talk and big ones and things that are happening.
RS: And since we just dodged a fairly good sized tropical storm.
BS: It was a hurricane.
RS: Well, it was a hurricane, but then downgraded to a tropical storm and it kind of bypassed us. But I wanted to give a big shout out to our Red Cross volunteers. Chris, from our office, his wife is very instrumental in the Red Cross and they were all geared up to man the shelters and so forth. An amazing job they do, the American Red Cross.
BS: They both are absolutely amazing and what they were set to do. He was in our office on floor time, one of the days and his wife was running around getting things together because all of a sudden you’ve got to have everything there, everything ready. You need enough water, enough this, enough that. And then for them it’s got to be the ultimate in phew. Now we’re just back putting stuff away again. It has to be hard.
RS: Right. Anyway, a big shout out to all the volunteers with the American Red Cross.
BS: What’s her name? I’m sorry.
RS: I can’t remember.
BS: Oh, so embarrassing.
RS: Yeah.
BS: We’re going to get knocked on the head for that one. So now we’re back onto real estate. The market is still kind of crazy in a way.
RS: Yeah. You know what’s interesting? We’re still very active. A lot of escrows, a lot of sales closing. In terms of number of sales, we’re down a little bit compared to previous years, but still very active. I think lack of inventory has more to do with lack of sales than anything else.
BS: I think you’re right. But I mean, I’d say there’s really way less sales because of the lack of inventory.
RS: Totally.
BS: Yeah. Okay. But people are still buying, still asking questions, still in there. The hardest people right now to buy, I would say, are local residents. But we have done a few sales in our office, definitely geared to the local resident who has figured out that renting is no way to go anymore.
RS: No, it isn’t. And it’s interesting. There’s a lot of ways to structure finance right now. Work with your realtor and as you’re making your offers on various properties, see if the seller will participate in buying down your loan. If the seller will take, contribute a point or two, lower your interest rate and by all means, start looking at adjustable rates. Everybody says, well, the fixed rates are up at six and a half, 7%. The adjustables are around five. If they’re fixed for five years, seven years, you can refinance anytime within that period. You may sell your property. I mean, there’s a lot of variables. So work with your realtor. Hopefully you’ll work with one of us at Coldwell Banker Island properties and you can always call myself Roy 8088707060 or Betty at 8088707062 and we’ll certainly work with you and or help you find the right realtor for whatever location you’re looking at.
BS: One of the things that hasn’t been done or I haven’t seen it done is seller financing. And for the right seller, it can make sense because let’s say, aging, anyone, even in our age group, people that are ready to sell, are just using the money for investments, etc.. Well, they can just use it as an investment, have a reasonable interest rate, interest only, which doesn’t pay anything back but it also makes your payment less. I think that that is going to be available again.
RS: There’s a variety of ways you can construct an offer and again, work with your realtor. There’s a lot of different ways to go about it.
BS: Sometimes everybody says, no the owner won’t do that, they won’t carry financing, but talk to your realtor and make an offer that has financing and see where it goes. They’ve got to present it and it’ll probably not work, but it could. And that’s how we bought the first place that we bought at Kapalua was with owner financing.
RS: Owner financing, absolutely.
BS: And at the time…
RS: Interest rates, mortgage rates were like 10%, 12%, maybe very high. And we got on our financing at 6%.
BS: It was a great loan at the time.
RS: Right.
BS: He was a foreign seller, really wanted the deal done, wanted to not own anything anymore out of his country. He held it for quite a few years.
RS: Yeah, we refinanced in three years or four years, something like that.
BS: Something like that.
RS: Yeah. But anyway, a lot of different ways to structure a purchase. So again, contact your realtor, we’ll work with you and and help you all the way through.
BS: And there’s so many, I mean again, there’s no inventory, but when you start looking, you find it. They’re coming on the market, they’re selling, you’ll figure it out. And again, Roy is so right. You’ve got to start. Find a realtor that you can talk to that will check in with you from time to time that will watch the price range that you’re interested in, and they’ll make it happen.
RS: Absolutely. No question. And have fun doing it, too.
BS: You may as well.
RS: Yes, absolutely.
BS: There’s no reason to not have fun doing it and to keep looking. Every time you see something, call your realtor and ask questions about it – there’ll be so many times. I think, most of us right now, you have somebody right now that you talk to a lot. I think it’s really a great time to be taking time with your realtor, who probably has a little more time than he did a year and a half ago, to assist you in trying to figure out something that will work and get you into the real estate market. So let’s try.
RS: Absolutely. Here’s a good one to look at, too. This is a listing in Lahaina at 1640 Kuuipo Street, listed by Mihaela Stoops from our office. This is a four bedroom, three bath, single family home, 2600 or just under 2700 square feet and listed at 1 million 495. It’s on about a quarter of an acre of land also, which is pretty cool. So four bedrooms, three baths, just under 2700 square feet, 1640 Kuuipo Street. Again, you can call myself Roy at 8088707060 or Betty at 8088707062. Check out our website SakamotoProperties.com and you can look at details of this listing.
BS: I’m just looking at another one here. We’re saying that there are these things available and when you take a good look, there are these things available. This is a one bedroom, one bath at Kahana Manor, listed at 559. Again, it’s livable. It’s right there. You can get places. You can get pizza right downstairs.
RS: Yeah.
BS: Very good pizza.
RS: Across the street from the ocean.
BS: Right across the street from the ocean. I think, we sold one a while ago to some people that I actually tried to talk out of it. I felt really bad afterwards because there was another agent who was involved in it. But it was our company and he had asked for our help. But the people were really sold on it. They fixed it up and have been there like for four or five years and are selling it now.
RS: And really happy.
BS: And they’re really happy. They were tickled to death. They could get food easily. They were probably in our age group. I don’t remember specifically, but they really fell in love with where they were. They could get everywhere and you could actually get busses from there.
RS: Yeah, right down stairs.
BS: Right down stairs. So I think that really made a huge difference. That’s listed by Ray Chen from our office. Ray’s cell phone is 8083442677. Ray Chen, give Ray a call and he will help you figure out if you can make this happen.
RS: And here’s another one listed by Ray, also. This is the single family home at 112 Oleander place. It’s in Kahana. Three bedrooms, three baths, little over 2400 square feet. It’s listed at 1 million 695 and three bedrooms, three baths. It’s a great location in the Kahana Ridge Subdivision, in Kahana in West Maui. So , Ray Chen and again you can to reach Ray or any one of our agents that we’re talking about the listing here, call myself Roy at 8088707060. Betty at 8707062.
BS: Okay. Check in with us. We’re expecting Dr. Estin to check in with us today. And he may be on the phone right now. I’m not sure about that, but I guess he is. So let’s get Dr. Estin on to fill us in on what’s going on medically. What’s going on? Are you there, Dr. Estin?
Norman Estin: I’m here. Good afternoon, Betty.
BS: Perfect.
NE: Aloha to everybody out there listening. This is kind of a medical update and state status report on what’s happening with the virus, the COVID virus that we’ve had for the last three years. And I’ve got nothing to report except good news. It’s not over, but even the most cautious of us are moving on. It’s still out there, but in smaller numbers, and people generally aren’t as sick. So that’s all good news.
BS: That’s perfect. And you were mentioning a little earlier something that I think you’re going to wait and really touch on in a couple of weeks. But we all started kind of chatting about it here. So do you want to give us any little hints on it?
NE: I’ll give you a little hint and then we’ll fill you in a lot in two weeks. It’s everything you’ve been reading about in the news. This new miracle weight loss drug that’s out there for people who picked up poundage over the last few years with the epidemic. And would like to get back to their healthiest weight and they’ve been doing everything right.
NE: They’ve been dieting, they’ve been exercising but somehow that’s still not where they want to be or should be. And all these new medicines, this whole new class of medicines called Semaglutides and the brand name that you’ve heard about is Ozempic. And it’s certainly been on TV a lot, really very effective, very safe, tremendous results. The pounds are melting off and so it’s got to be done under medical supervision, of course.
NE: We get lab tests initially and then we follow things up but things are great in terms of the results so far. The medicine itself has been out since 2004, and so we’re looking at it, not providing access to it in our offices. And if there’s anybody that wants to find out some more information before I show you in a couple of weeks, just go to our website, which is Doc Maui D-O-C-M-A-U-I.com
NE: Call the office phone numbers and I’ll be happy to fill you in on it or schedule an evaluation for you. It’s expensive, sometimes it’s $1400 a month, but we’ve got a agreement with a state licensed compounding pharmacy here on the island that can prepare it for a lot less money, maybe $200 a month for people.
NE: The insurance doesn’t pay for it, but it’s fantastic. So more details in two weeks. Just go to our website to find out a little bit more and just schedule an appointment to come in for an evaluation which is covered by your insurance and we can give you more information there. Let me get back to where we are with COVID and give you some more good news on that.
NE: The last three years, of course, was the third leading cause of death in this country behind heart disease and cancer. We all know people who are affected by it this year. It’s dropping to number four, which is good. So it’s still significant. A lot of elderly people are affected, but we’ve had some pretty good response to the vaccinations. A lot of people have gotten the boosters, not as many as we’d like, but most of people have.
NE: And then we’ve gotten some immunity and protection from just being exposed to it. So a lot of people are positive, but they’re not real sick. The isolation guidelines are still, if you are positive, to stay by yourself at home for five days and then have a mask for another five days if you return to work. That’s probably going to be in place for the whole year.
NE: The tests are no longer free from the government, so you can purchase them at your own cost if you want, at a pharmacy or our doctor’s office or any doctor’s office, we’ll have them. And we’ve got the rapid tests so you can know right away what’s going on. You’ve heard about a lot of people catching COVID more than once, that’s normal.
NE: Most people will get it 3 to 5 times and it’ll get milder each time. Just like a cold. You get a different cold virus or different variations every time. Then of course, the question is, is this ever going to go away at all? And the answer is, unfortunately not. It’s still a new virus and it’s becoming what we call endemic, which means very widespread and accepted in the whole population.
NE: So it’s not going away at all. We still have to get vaccinated once a year to make sure we’re not at risk. We’re still going to have 40 or 50,000 people in this country this year die, unfortunately, from COVID. And that’s close to what we have from auto accidents, suicides or firearms. So it’s a significant number, but it’ll go down every year.
NE: Then of course, we have people who have so-called long COVID where they have the symptoms for years and years and years, and that has to be treated medically. Difficult to evaluate, difficult to treat, hard to tell who’s going to get it. But it’s certainly one of the reasons to get vaccinated if you haven’t yet. And this year, the new vaccination and the booster will be included with the flu shot in September and October.
NE: So wherever you get your flu shot, this at the pharmacy or your doctor, you can get the COVID booster right along with it, which is fantastic. The other good news is those pesky fiberglass shields that we had between us and the bank teller or us at a hotel desk or restaurant, those are all gone. They didn’t do that much anyway, but they got in the way.
NE
If you had a mask on and the person working there had a mask, nobody could figure out who was saying what, so you kind of got…
BS: It happens.
NE: Yeah, it happens, it’s good news that they’re gone.
BS: Perfect.
NS: The only thing we got to remember is just stay vigilant, use common sense around people who are sneezing and coughing. Wash your hands.
BS: Okay. Well, we will talk to you in the next couple of weeks to get us more of the information on the weight loss drug. Now we will get back to some real estate here.
NE: Fantastic.
BS: Sound good?
NE: Thanks, Aloha everybody.
BS: Thanks for calling so much, Norm.
RS: Thanks for calling.
BS: Thank you. Aloha.
RS: Aloha.
BS: Okay. You got another one there that we might want to talk about.
RS: Yeah, here’s one that’s a great listing. It’s Kristin Kingwell, from our office has a one bedroom, one bath at the Breakers. This is in the Honokowai area of West Maui. Fairly new listing, and it’s listed at less than 500,000 499. It’s a one bedroom, one bath at the Breakers, which has a good portion of owner occupants in the building.
RS: And if I remember, they don’t allow short term rentals, no vacation rentals at the Breakers, so you won’t be disturbed with the people leaving to go to Haleakala at 2:00 in the morning.
BS: Interesting.
RS: Yeah.
BS: Interesting. I’m just kind of glancing through a couple of these properties that are for sale right now. One of them that’s happens to be ours, 62 at the Ironwood’s has to be the greatest Ironwood listed for sale right now. It doesn’t have a huge view which has been a little bit of a down side, with some of the people that have looked at it.
BS: But when you’re in there and you’re looking at the property, when they redid it, they took it down to the studs.
RS: Absolutely.
BS: Absolutely. Could not be a better property.
RS: Including the floor where they actually leveled the floor.
BS: It really is. It’s one of the greatest Ironwood units that I’ve seen. And if somebody is really looking for a place to live, it’s listed at 4 million 350. Again, everything has been done. It’s listed furnished. It doesn’t have everything in there. There’s a lot of artwork that isn’t going to stay. But I think for somebody really looking for a home and being at Kapalua, there’s a huge grassy area out in front of it.
RS: Very private.
BS: Very, very private. It’s really worth looking at. So I think if you’re looking for something, give us a call, Roy and I have it listed. You can reach Roy at 8088707060 and he will see to it that one of us gets you in quickly and the owners are set and waiting and ready to have it shown, so we’ve got them all ready. It’s really spectacular.
RS: It really is. It can be shown pretty much with very little notice. The owners are in residence but they are immaculate and pretty much showable any time.
BS: I think we should have them come and stay at our house when we’re showing it. Yeah, see if they could make that work, look the same way. Anyway, there’s is spectacular. It is. I could say that a hundred times. Every time I walk in again, I think, oh, come on, let’s get this sold. The price was adjusted recently and that has given us I think, a lot of additional phone calls.
BS: So keep that one in mind and call us, because I think, or call your agent and tell them you’d really like to see this property.
RS: That’s the Iron Woods number 62 at Kapalua.
BS: Give us a call. Really, really nice.
RS: Here’s another great buy for an owner occupant or for an investor. It’s at Pohailani. It’s a two bedroom, one bath at Pohailani Maui. It’s listed at 635,000. Great price, two bedrooms, one bath listed with Diana Mullan from our office. But again, call myself Roy or Betty at 8088707060, 8088707062. Or easiest is to look up the listing at SakamotoProperties.com.
BS: We haven’t been mentioning that but if you go to SakamotoProperties.com you can see everything that we have on the market right now. You can also get into the MLS and look at any property anywhere on the island and give us a call and any of those also. But it really is a great way to find properties and look at them.
RS: And if you’re interested also in upcountry or central Maui, Kihei, Wailea, we’ve got offices in all of these areas. Let us know what you’re interested in. If you’re interested in upcountry, Wailea, give us a call, we can help you.
BS: We do have some amazing agents on our staff, and they are spectacular.
RS: Fantastic. Plus, with our expansion now we’ve got offices on the Big island. So if you are looking for Big Island property, property on Kauai or Oah. We’ve got great contacts and we can certainly help you.
BS: And really wonderful people. I think that’s one of the best things at Coldwell Banker. They really take care in who they’re hiring and who is going to be on the staff. In our office, there’s somebody there pretty much all day, every day from, let’s say, 8:00 to 4:00 and usually six or seven, right?
RS: and later actually…
BS: Right, exactly. But, if somebody walks in our office at Kapalua, you’re going to find someone you can sit and chat with them for a while, and learn a lot about real estate.
RS: Or if you’re looking to sell, also, because we haven’t talked much about selling, but if you’re out there interested in selling your property, let us help you.
BS: Absolutely. Let us help you. And I think that really does make a huge difference, especially at Kapalua or West Side property. Come in to our office. Roy and I are there often, and we’re not there all day, every day, but we can be reached. We live nearby so that we’ll be down there and get together with you.
BS: But let’s introduce you to someone if it’s something that we don’t specialize in.
RS: Yeah, absolutely.
BS: Well, it looks like we’ve got like the one minute warning, and it’s been kind of a funny time over the last couple of days with the whole hurricane coming. Not coming. I got on the road once yesterday and it was empty. I had to go down to Lahaina for something and that was something. Anyway, Danny Couch coming back up with I love Hawaii.
RS: We love Hawaii.
BS: And thank you all for listening. In two weeks will be on here.
RS: Aloha.
BS: Aloha.
