Betty Sakamoto: Aloha and welcome to Betty’s Real Estate Corner brought to you by Sakamoto Properties, Coldwell Banker at Kapalua. Roy Sakamoto my husband is here and we’ve got a ton of different ideas, things we are going to talk about. We have Norm Estin calling in, to kind of give us an update again on what’s going on with covid, testing, and vaccinations. It’s time we all straighten up and fly right.
Roy Sakamoto: We have Chris Meyer from Meyer Computer here in the studio.
BS: Chris is fabulous. He does our website, let’s start with that and people seem to find us. Life is good as long as we hang in there with Chris at Meyer Computer.
RS: We’ve been with Chris for a lot of years and are very satisfied, very happy.
BS: Could it be 30 years, Chris? Do you have any idea? It’s a long time, 20 years easy.
RS: 25 years, wow.
BS: He’s saying 25 years I said 30. Roy, what do you think? Yeah, let’s stick with that. We will go 25 to 30 years but it’s been really great. We’ve grown a lot with it. We’ve never tried to out-trick ourselves or at least that’s how I feel about it sometimes. We like it to be. It’s a real estate website. We try to stick with that what we are doing. Sometimes, we get on restaurants and a whole bunch of different things like that but it’s a real estate company and we are having fun doing it. Roy, what are you thinking today? Should we get on?
RS: You know for the 1st time since this pandemic started we took a trip to Honolulu. BS: That was amazing. We were there for 2 nights. I feel like we were away a week. Didn’t it seem like?
RS: Yeah
BS: It was more than 2 nights. It really was great. We stayed at the Halekulani. They were reopening and it’s not a place we typically stay. We are more Ala Moana Hotel or the Hawaii Prince which we both love. For me, if I’m alone I like going there. They are my path of least resistance and I’m close to the Ala Moana Shopping Center but Halekulani was really spectacular.
RS: It was and what’s interesting is at a check-in they asked to see our vaccination cards which put a whole new light on staying at the Halekulani. They mentioned that all their employees were vaccinated and they are asking their guests to be all vaccinated. Walking into restaurants and so forth if you were staying at the Halekulani you realize that everybody in the restaurant was vaccinated. Pretty cool.
BS: They did everything though I think correctly. When you got on the elevator there was a direction there to not have more than 4 people on the elevator. Obviously, if it was a family it’s a different thing. Again, I just think it’s good for people right now that we don’t overdo anything I mean people are still catching the virus. Vaccinated people can still catch the virus but hopefully and everything that I’ve heard is that if they do they end up with a much lesser case. I mean to get on the elevator there I always felt very comfortable and people wear masked when they got on the elevator, everything. It was really great.
RS: It really was and it’s such a pretty setting. You are basically right next to the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, a lot of restaurants, a lot of shops there right next to the old Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
BS: Waikiki beach. We got out on Waikiki beach for a bit and that was really pretty spectacular.
RS: One thing I noticed though there’s a definite lack of visitors walking around compared to past visits when we’ve gone to Waikiki.
BS: Definitely. There is no question. There are fewer people which is nice I mean maybe a great time for all of us to take a trip to go over to the shopping center. Ala Moana is a little different than it used to be. I don’t think it’s as stocked as it was. I wasn’t finding I don’t know just because I don’t get shopping other places that much and I love getting over there. It wasn’t quite what it was used to but I just think it’s hard getting stuff, fewer people around, fewer people shopping. They just have less inventory.
RS: We are practicing for a trip next week.
BS: I know.
RS: Yeah
BS: Now, we are going to take a trip. We are going to a wedding.
RS: Yeah
BS: In New York City and I grew up in New York state so I have been there many times and I love it. I’ve got to say even this morning I woke up a little saying to Roy, what do you think? Should we really be doing this? It is a little scary the idea of the plane ride and so many people are a little scary. We are at that age where sure would not want to end up with the virus even though we are vaccinated. We’ve had the 2 Moderna and then we were able recently to get the 3rd shot which makes me feel even better especially traveling. We are watching out for what we are doing. We are being really cautious still. It’s hard and now to fly somewhere that far.
RS: Yeah, if you think it’s scary for you to go to New York, what about me? I’m going to wear a suit.
BS: Oh, no.
RS: And tie. That’s scary.
BS: That is definitely scary. Yeah, it is. Interesting for anyone that’s lived on Maui and Roy was born and raised here. I’ve been in here like 47 or 48 years but when you try to go to a city the one thing I know is I don’t have the right shoe period. I mean, I’m better in flats, or am I walking running type shoes, keds or whatever and flip-flops any sandal and I don’t think that’s going to work right now in New York in October. It will be cold.
RS: Otherwise I’d wear slippers with myself.
BS: I know, which you probably will still do. I hate to say that. You will do it, you’ve done it before.
RS: Go check it out.
BS: We have Dr. Estin calling in shortly. Why don’t we go ahead and think a little? Our office has a lot of you know we moved our office shortly after the pandemic started to Kapalua and we have a great office there right next to where the Florist is and Sansei and The Pour House restaurant.
RS: Right. We had Sakamoto Properties for 40 some odd years and merged back in February of last year with Coldwell Banker Island Properties.
BS: It’s been quite a year. It’s been an amazing run. It’s so spectacular we are right now redoing the whole upstairs so Coldwell Banker has been fabulous about seeing too that everything gets done great conference room. All of our agents are there now from about 7:30 in the morning till 7:30 at night. Many people are just stopping by to say “Hello”. A lot of the Kapalua owners are there and out walking around or somebody staying on the resort or just people that are coming up to play golf. One day there was a guy walking with his golf clubs and he didn’t bring a car. His wife dropped him off probably because she was shopping but I grabbed my car and I said just hop in I will take you back. He was staying in Napili and was trying to walk back. It’s fun the people that are coming around and talking and whatnot and vaccinated hopefully the majority and we are testing. It is pretty interesting but anyway back to a little bit of real estate. The real estate market as everybody knows has gone pretty crazy and the best news has been that the interest rates have stayed low. Anybody looking to make a purchase today, prices have gone up but the interest rates definitely counter that in an amazing way.
RS: Yeah, talk to your realtor. Give us a call. Roy at 870-7060, Betty at 870-7062 and if we can’t help you we will find somebody that will.
BS: The other thing is if you know a realtor already I mean a lot of people that end up calling have been live here, have been working here forever, or have a realtor that they’ve known. Call your realtor because there are some absolutely amazing realtors here in Maui. Sometimes you might meet the youngest newest realtor who actually will be as professional as anybody, very knowledgeable and so wanting to make it in the business. There’s a lot of we will call the old-timers like us that are still enjoying what we are doing, loving real estate, and loving helping people find homes. Call us. Again, Roy just said 870-7060 for him, 870-7062 for me. What properties did you think of for today?
RS: There are several we can start with condominiums. Rick Kepler from our Coldwell Banker office at Kapalua has a great listing at Kahana Manor. It’s unit number 313, it’s a 1 bedroom, 1 bath. It’s a great owner-occupant building and it’s listed at $539,000. Call Rick (808) 283-3729. Tell them you want to see Kahana Manor unit number 313.
BS: What’s the square footage for that?
RS: It’s about 630 square feet, very livable for 1 bedroom.
BS: Interesting though. There’s another listing at Kapalua. It’s going to be a little bit more expensive. Listed at $995,000 but it’s over 1,100 square feet, 1 bedroom, 2 baths. Great areas outside, it’s walk-in, no stairs walking in, no stairs walking out. You can see the ocean, the golf course is right there. You are going to find it right now. Everybody thinks the market is so out of control but if you look at that $600,000 would get you an oceanfront condominium, great property or you can come to Kapalua and end up with a place twice the size.
RS: That’s a great property. It’s 2312 at The Ridge and it’s a 1 bedroom, 2 baths. It’s well located right on the golf course. There’s a number 3 fairway is right in front of you, with great ocean views.
BS: Over 21 acres of land for The Ridge.
RS: At The Ridge.
BS: You’ve got walking 2 large pools. Pretty spectacular. You can walk to a number of beaches close by, you can walk to The Ritz Carlton, Montage, Napili Kai for great restaurants nearby.
RS: It’s very easy to see. This is one of our listings so call Roy at (808) 870-7060 or Betty at (808) 870-7062. We have to start using 808 now.
BS: I know I was thinking that a minute ago but going back to the one you said a minute ago Hale Ono Loa it’s an oceanfront property. You are right there on the water and again it’s 566 square feet of living area plus the Lanai and 1 bedroom, 1 bath, oceanfront that is pretty good and again same interest rates. You’ve got better interest rates than ever today really worth taking a look into it.
RS: Here’s a great listing in Kahana at Hololani. Hololani is an oceanfront development right in Kahana. It’s a 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, unit number is B302 about 947 square feet of living area and listed at $730,000 which is fantastic for 2 bedrooms, 2 baths. It is listed by Evan Harlow. Evan is at (808) 214-4799. Call Evan and tell him that you’d like to see B302 at Hololani.
BS: Now, we have Dr. Norm Estin on the phone to give us the current update, coronavirus, and everything. I hope he’s got information for us on testing, should someone need it, everything we need to know about vaccines. I know that Norm knows the reason why whoever is listening right now trying to not get vaccinated. Norm, do you have anything that you could tell them? Please.
Dr. Norman Estin: Hey, aloha. Good afternoon Betty and Roy.
BS: Aloha
RS: Aloha
NE: I am here in our Times urgent care center on the Westside with our new TA Kate Scott. Say “Hi” Kate.
BS: Hi Kate.
Kate Scott: Aloha
BS: Nice to meet you on the phone.
Kate Scott: Nice to meet you as well.
NE: We’ve been busy today, less busy with real sick people with coronavirus because fortunately, the numbers are going down. We are increasing the number of vaccinations, we are still doing a lot of testing not as much as a few weeks ago because there are not as many cases out there. We are on the decline but we are far from out of the woods yet both with the whole coronavirus and the delta variant. Now, there’s a reason to believe that we are going to make it through this okay. We’ve got control on the numbers coming in the hospital is not overwhelmed yet but we are certainly not going to come out of this unless more people get vaccinated. We can keep observing all the mitigation like wearing the masks and social distance when we are out in groups or indoors. It is very important. We are far from out of the woods on this. There are new cases. Hundreds of new cases every day and it’s still the lean cause of death for this year all over the United States. We want to do what we can and again the only way to make sure that you are not going to get real sick or wind up in the hospital is to get the vaccination. We’ve got lots of supplies. We’ve got a meeting this afternoon with the Department of Health. We have all the Pfizer, all the Moderna, some Johnson & Johnson so there’s no question about availability. We’ve guaranteed that it is free for anybody if they have any kind of insurance they can go to any doctor’s office, they can go to any pharmacy Longs and CVS are doing a great job as well as Walgreens on the private pharmacies now. We are getting the numbers in as you know the vaccine for kids from 12 to 17 has been approved the Pfizer so all those can get them and it’s very safe, effective, easy, painless. The good news is also this week as everybody knows Pfizer has applied for approval for the younger group from age 5 to 11. A lower dose but they’ve gone through it. Very safe for kids so it’s going to stem the next spread which is going to be among school kids. I can guarantee you we have the last few weeks been seeing most of the cases the kids coming into the hospital because they are vulnerable. They haven’t been vaccinated and they’ve been around people who have been carriers. It’s going to be great to have that vaccine out here and I don’t think it’s going to be very long until we have it. In the meantime, all the 11, all the 12 to 17-year-olds should be coming by their local doctor’s office, us, doctors on call, the hospital, the pharmacies wherever they can to get it.
BS: Hey Norm in a quick break, can you come up with one thing that you can tell any listener and that we can all repeat all day today? When we talk to someone who is unvaccinated and has some sort of a stupid story about why they are unvaccinated. Is there any, one thing that we could say that might change their mind? If so, maybe you or Katie have a possible answer.
NE: Well, you know it’s hard. There’s so much misinformation out there on Facebook and on Youtube. It gets disseminated very quickly and it’s a real problem. There’s a lot of fear. All I can say is we don’t have anybody getting sick or dying from the vaccine. We’ve got millions around the world dying from the covid and the coronavirus. Somebody has to do is go on youtube and see all those videos of people in the hospital with covid, in the intensive care unit saying “Oh My God” I wish I had taken the vaccine. That’s just it. We are not all safe, okay? No one of us is safe until everyone is safe. We are going to be relatively safer here in a few months to the rest of the world but we are not going to be real safe because we are dependent on people coming in by airplane and there’s going to be people carrying it in. It’s going to take a couple of years to get this whole planet vaccinated and protected and even so some of it will go into the background and become a minor illness like the bad flu. Hopefully, we won’t have the bad you know hospital complications that we have now but that’s the way off. The mantra is no one of us is safe until all of us are safe.
BS: That sounds good. No one of us will ever be safe unless all of us are safe. All of us are vaccinated. Okay.
NE: Now, people will say, Hey I got vaccinated I still got sick anyway then that’s true because you can still get but you are going to get a minor sickness. Remember, vaccines are not designed to protect you a hundred percent okay to give you in the medical term is sterilizing immunity that means you are invulnerable. You’ve got a giant lead shield around you. You can go anywhere in the universe. That’s not what a vaccine is designed to do. Vaccines are produced to protect people from getting very sick and dying or being in the hospital. They may get a minor illness sort of like the flu vaccine sometimes people get the vaccine and they still feel a little fluish. It would be a lot worse if they hadn’t gotten the vaccine so that’s what the secret and the gift that vaccines are. In the course of history, vaccines have probably saved more lives all over the entire world than anything else. The only thing that can come close is clean water. So, clean water and vaccines ever since the end of the 19th century are what’s made us have a population boom and survive. They are a gift from science to all of us.
BS: Well, I think that really says a lot Norm. We are kind of winding down now I think we are down to about 4 minutes. I feel like we’ve got a great message out and thank goodness we’ve got you on the phone with us again. We sure hope that you’d come over and join us and just have that moment here. Just having you on the phone is such a great message out there for everybody on Maui and to travel home with that. I think it is vitally important. We’ve got to figure it out.
RS: Totally.
BS: I’ve heard a few people say that you shouldn’t be allowed in the hospital unless you are vaccinated. Now, I think that could be viewed pretty poorly by a lot of people but to a certain extent, it seems like it could be true. I mean, why is it someone who goes around with all sorts of stories about why they are not going to get vaccinated then get the virus then end up in the hospital and just carrying it a step further in a way that could make other people so sick at the hospital. Did that make sense?
NE: Makes total sense. The reality is of it is if you don’t feel you want to protect yourself if you don’t feel you want to protect your family if you don’t feel you want to protect your whole neighborhood if you don’t feel you want to protect your island, and your workplace you are not going to be able to do squat. You are not going to be able to go into a hospital. You are not going to be able to get on a plane, you are certainly not going to go into a restaurant for indoor dining. You are not going to be able to get on a bus, you are not going to be able to get on a movie. You can’t do squats so if you want to stay in your home and not go out and not do anything for the rest of your life okay then maybe you don’t absolutely have to get the vaccine but if you wanted to live any kind of life at all in public you’ve got to get this vaccine. Everybody out there has already had 10 or 12 vaccines over the course of their life and none of them have been as safe as this one. This is the safest one ever made I mean we had all the scientists in the world come together over a year after years and years of pre-research and working on these things. They were already prepared for this. this isn’t come out of the blue we knew there was going to be a pandemic we had the preparation. It’s like when you cook a gourmet meal you’ve got food prep already done and then you don’t really have it ready until the meal is served. You decide what spices, what sauces, and you put it all together that’s the way this vaccine came together. They had all the prep done for a couple of years and they blasted this thing out in a year. It’s amazing. That we’ve been able to do this normally it would take 10 years to get this. There was a lot of preparation that went into this. It’s very safe, very well thought out and I tell you I feel like a gift for me to be able to be part of helping to share both the testing and the prevention and the mitigation and the vaccination for our communities here our West Maui community that you and Roy are part of in our entire island.
BS: Thank you, Norm. Thank you doctors on call. We are down to less than 2 minutes so I think we are going to use it up with a little bit of real estate and hope everyone has gotten the Norm Estin doctor-on-call message.
RS: Yeah, thanks for all you do, Norm.
BS: Thank you.
RS: Really appreciate it.
BS: For the whole community.
RS: And welcome on board Kate.
BS: Aloha
NE: Okay, thanks.
BS: You know Roy, you want to try we’ve got a couple of house listings. Elizabeth Quayle has a great listing on Kolepa Place in the heart of Kaanapali. It is one of the best streets ever there, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths and we are back with Danny Couch.
RS: Danny Couch
BS: He is the best part. He is the star of the show.
RS: Absolutely
BS: Love to hear him and he is the person I play in my car every day.
RS: Check us out sakamotoproperties.com.
BS: Aloha
RS: Aloha
