Betty Sakamoto: Aloha, and welcome to Betty’s Real Estate Corner, brought to you by Coldwell Banker, Roy and Betty Sakamoto. Today in the studio is Elizabeth Quayle, who’s got lots of thoughts. She’s been one of the busiest realtors around, knocking it out of the park. It’s really great. Recently, she’s done a number of deals for people who lost their homes.
And that’s really starting to change lives. I think it helps a lot. Today, we’re going to talk a little about something we weren’t planning to discuss—Lahaina—because I feel like it’s all we talk about. But as we sit down here, we realize that it’s still the most important thing to all of us. Whether you lost a home, are about to lose a home, or have been dealing with whatever else has been happening, it affects everyone. What are your thoughts right now? We just started this conversation as we walked in, but…
Elizabeth Quayle: I think, as we said, everybody loves to be treated with respect and kindness and to have a good neighbor.
BS: Absolutely.
EQ: For me, I’ve been doing real estate for 44 years, and this has been the most impactful event in my entire life. Losing the home was just… you don’t get over it. You really don’t.
BS: No.
EQ: So, the fact that I’ve been able to help people who lost their homes find new ones. Those people who sold their homes to those who lost theirs have also experienced a real sense of fulfillment from being able to help.
BS: Yes, I agree with you. One of the things we’ve also seen as realtors, or that’s been happening, is properties coming onto the market at kind of exorbitant prices. Some of that just doesn’t make sense to anyone. Sometimes someone may have what seems like unlimited funds, or at least it appears that way, but again, you just want to be fair.
I think that’s been hard for all of our agents at Coldwell Banker. We all want to do our best to find properties, and I know you’ve worked really hard at that, trying to come up with places you can feel proud of for someone to buy and move into. It’s a job, for sure. It’s not like it used to be.
EQ: Well, you know, our options are very limited.
BS: Absolutely. Yes.
EQ: That being said, the last couple of places that I sold, the folks had been displaced and moved to Makawao, so the kids couldn’t come to karate and West Maui, just a sense of normalcy. They used to be Lahaina people who loved Lahaina, but they were so grateful to be in Napili just because they’re back in West Maui.
BS: And that matters.
EQ: Those are the miracles that can happen from this. God pays attention to everything. You just have to show up. If you’re lucky enough to help somebody, it will help you because we all, again, are suffering mentally and emotionally from the loss. It’s our job as a community to build each other up and care about each other because that’s going to go a lot further than anger and miscommunication.
BS: Well, there’s no question. I know that everybody is trying—or I hope so—that everybody’s really trying to find homes, to do things, but it really couldn’t be any more difficult than it is today because there are so few homes available. The whole argument about visitor accommodations, again, I think that we also need to have people back working.
So, to do that, we need to have our visitors. We need them here, being able to find the homes and things that they like to rent when they’re here. It’s not just about the hotels. The hotels have also been full of fire victims.
EQ: Yeah.
BS: So the properties that are ready right now at Kapalua are starting to get occupied. I think there’s a limited number—maybe 19 out of 50 are actually occupied, and it could be less than that. But, again, it’s difficult. They’re completely furnished; they have everything. We’re learning that more and more people are still in accommodations that are being paid for, so they’re not ready to pay any rent.
So, it’s difficult right now. It is really, really difficult. And I’m hoping that will change quickly as more properties are ready for someone just to step in and live.
EQ: Right.
BS: That’s pretty close now, so we’ll see how that goes. We’ve had people who could have rented one, but for the moment, the homes there are set aside for people who lost their homes—people who work at the golf course, for example, who lost a home because of the fires.
It could be burned, it could be all sorts of things. But still, I think it would be nice to get people situated. It’s hard. It’s just so hard. No matter what anybody does, it feels sometimes like it’s just not right. It’s not, because nothing’s right for everybody.
EQ: We can’t fix it immediately. We’re so accustomed to instant gratification and things, and that’s just not going to be the case. This is going to be a work in progress. Again, I think that if we become well-versed and educate ourselves in this situation, engage with kindness and diplomacy, and be generous, we have all this extra time now to be extra kind.
BS: Absolutely. So you’re right on that. You know, you’ve made a number of recent sales.
EQ: Good little feel-good story. And I love it. I have two wonderful clients who bought a property from me down by Safeway, back Lahaina, a little 600-square-foot cottage. They bought it so they could put tenants in there who could walk to town and Mala and all those great places. Well, their insurance only gave them $97,000 as a replacement for the home because it was an old kane house.
So, they wanted to find something where they could maybe do a vacation rental and stay there while supervising, and rebuilding the place. Consequently, a really dear friend and client of mine, Eric Ramon, had bought a condo from me probably in 2015—a little Napili Ridge studio floating above the valley with unobstructed views of Molokai.
BS: That’s amazing, isn’t it?
EQ: So, I found this place. Poor Eric passed away at 56. He got ill and died very quickly. His mom and his sisters are just angels. At any rate, I found this. They bought it sight unseen, but then all of a sudden, the mayor said, “No, you may not be able to vacation rent this.” So they backed out of the deal because the interest rate was seven and a half.
I woke up in the middle of the night remembering that Eric bought this as a veteran, and you can assume a veteran loan. Once his loan was at 3%, the buyers came back. Even if you can’t vacation rent it, and you lock it up part of the year, it’s never going to change the location or the opportunity.
So, God gave me these wonderful clients who lost something. They gave me Eric, whom we lost. But from those two things, this marriage of the perfect storm. My client called a couple of days before closing and said, “I’m not closing. I hate the view. I hate the wonderful manager. I hate walking two blocks to Napili Bay. We’re done.” So God bless. Those little deals—they’re not gigantic, big deals, but they are gigantic big deals.
BS: When you think of those places, you’re right. I mean, you can walk to Kapalua, you can walk to Napili, you can walk to the beach, you can walk to tennis, you can walk almost anywhere.
EQ: To my house.
BS: And you walk to your house. Okay. They can walk to our house. So, it really is something that makes a big difference to people. But it’s Napili Ridge. It was originally Napili Sands—the original name of that. It’s always been a sweet little place.
EQ: It’s always been affordable housing.
BS: It’s always been affordable housing.
EQ: Until, you know, the peak of the market, when the one-bedrooms were selling for $700,000, those sold for $75,000, a few years back.
BS: It has been a really interesting market.
EQ: Those little nooks and places in West Maui, because there really is no such thing as something affordable. There are people in Wahikuli who lost their homes that had illegal additions, “no’hanas.” And so when the insurance company paid, they couldn’t pay them for something that wasn’t permitted. So, a lot of these people have limited funds. Well, you have this limited inventory. Unless you go to Kahului or Wailuku or someplace over here, there’s actually inventory. It’s very difficult to replace that.
BS: Well, it is. But now they’re also saying that you’re going to be able to rebuild an ohana on almost any size lot. I don’t know if that’s really going to happen, but I think it is an interesting statement that you could do that.
EQ: I think what they’re talking about is two 600-square-foot ohanas for lots of 10,000 square feet and building on lots through 6,500 square feet as long as you’re allowed to do it. That’s awesome. That’s exactly what we need.
BS: It is, for now.
EQ: A lot of people have multiple families. So those are good things.
BS: Those are mostly good things. And it should be for a long time. Yeah, I think it’s still going to be interesting to see what happens for families, what happens for people who just want to move here. I still think we have a lot of open space, and there should be more low-income housing built, you know, smaller places for people who are moving here temporarily.
Because that has been some of the first people I met when moving here were people who had just graduated from school somewhere—college, it could be. We met someone who had just finished medical school that I don’t think ever practiced medicine.
That was really quite a story. But he came here, he had a great job, he was making a ton of money at the time. He was making $200 or $300 a night in tips which I’m talking about almost 50 years ago, and you couldn’t make that much money anywhere. And they were doing that.
So, I still think that’ll help. It’s just a matter of housing. But people will still come here, and then they’ll go back, eventually. In a lot of cases, they will go back to a different life. Maybe 20% stay forever, maybe 50%, I don’t know anymore. But it really is different for people.
EQ: Well, we’re the furthest place on earth from any other land, so it takes a particular person to live somewhere this remote. Thank you, God.
BS: I’m one of them.
EQ: But it is a transition because not everybody can live here. We’ve always lived with that. The visitor industry really works well with a transient population because, you can replace a waiter, landscaper, or whatever. The most important thing is, we have what makes people want to come here.
BS: I think we do.
EQ: It’s clean, safe, it’s warm, and the most important thing about Hawaii is, it’s America.
BS: Yes, there’s no question.
EQ: I’m from Buenos Aires. I’ve lived in Mexico City. This is America. It’s safe.
BS: And you are a citizen of the United States now.
EQ: Yes. I got my citizenship, so I can vote this year.
BS: You can say that. Yes, that’ll be great. Speaking of voting, there’s another thing we were going to chat about a little bit, and it’s a hard one this year. We aren’t going to say who we’re voting for or talk about candidates or anything, but I sure think that everybody this year has to vote.
And you’ve got to remember, just get out and vote. Whoever it is that you believe should be the next president, that’s who you vote for. You know, listen to people that you feel know more than you do about it. Think about it. If you can take time to read, even pull out some of the last newspapers and read what’s going on. Turn the television on and listen.
We’ll all see different things, because I know there’s a difference of opinion in most families. Our family definitely has some differences of opinion, although Roy and I happen to be on the same page this year, which is good.
EQ: I love you husband. We are not.
BS: You are not. Okay, that’s…
EQ: But you know what? I actually got my ballot in the mail yesterday. I filled it out, I made sure there were no wrinkles on it, and you can hand-deliver it here.
BS: Did you deliver it?
EQ: I’m going to.
BS: See, I want to do that too.
EQ: I’m going to hand-deliver it. I need to make sure my vote counts, and there are no ifs, ands, or bent envelopes. Make your vote count.
BS: Make your vote count. Whatever it is, whoever you vote for, just do it, because it’s never going to help if you later say, “I wanted to vote for so-and-so, and it was so close.” If only X number of us had gotten out that day. But let’s not let that happen to us. We’ve got to vote.
Don’t be the person sitting there thinking, “Oh, if I had just voted that day if I had just gotten out, I had my ballot in my hands, they had sent it to me, it was the easiest thing for me to do, but I didn’t get out.” Don’t let that happen.
EQ: Well, I always told myself, you have no right to gripe because you’re not voting. Now I can legally gripe.
BS: That’s right. Up until now, you couldn’t vote. No, I forgot about that. Because I’ve known you so long and thought of you as a U.S. citizen, and now you are. So it’s really great. Good for you.
EQ: I’m just normal now.
BS: You’re just normal now. She’s just a normal US girl.
EQ: I’ll never be normal. Don’t quote “normal” on me ever.
BS: Yes, that’s really funny. Going back a little, though, let’s say real estate-wise. I’ve usually been involved in Kapalua, although it’s pretty much serviced all of West Maui.
EQ: Yes.
BS: To a certain extent. We’ve done some huge deals, small deals, whatever. But I think, again, right now, people are looking and thinking about it. I think the market is going to continue to be a little bit slow.
EQ: Yes.
BS: So, if somebody is really interested and wants to start looking, give us a call, and we’ll either be able to help you ourselves. Elizabeth can be reached at 808-276-6061.
EQ: 808-276-6061.
BS: Okay. And I think that’s a good direction to go in. You can stop by the Kapalua office anytime. We have an agent sitting there seven days a week who will be able to help you, or we’ll get you someone who can help, if it’s outside of her actual sphere of influence. It’ll be worth your time to talk to someone.
There might be someone else in the office if the person you’re speaking to isn’t familiar with what you’d like to discuss, you know. But again, you could call Roy Sakamoto at 808-870-7060, or I could be reached at 808-870-7062. Elizabeth, again, 808-276-6061. That’s three different people. We might all give you different opinions, but that’s okay too.
EQ: I’ll be right.
BS: Yeah, she’ll be right there. No question about it. But call any of us, and we’ll talk about it. We may not agree with what you want to do, but if it’s what you want to do, we’re going to help you try to figure it out.
I primarily work West Maui, so I’m not going to go to Wailuku or Wailea or anywhere else. But there are a lot of people in our office who are totally into the rest of the island. We are probably the largest company on Maui right now, and we’ve got a lot of agents who live everywhere, and we can help you. So give us a call, we’ll direct you to the right person, give you website information, etc., or have you come by and just sit and chat with us.
EQ: You know what? I want to give a quick shout out to my grandson and partner in crime, Jacob Pike. He was displaced by the fire. He’s still living in North Kihei and trekking to West Maui six days a week. We just co-listed a beautiful little studio up in Napili Shores. So if you want any information on property anywhere in West Maui, feel free to reach out to Jake, me, the King and Queen, Roy and Betty Sakamoto.
BS: No, but what’s Jake’s number?
EQ: 808-498-3300.
BS: Okay.
EQ: Yeah.
BS: He is someone who’s been in real estate now for a few years.
EQ: He got his license when he was 19. He’s about to turn 26.
BS: Yeah, so he’s been doing it for a while.
EQ: Roy and Betty have been a very good influence on him, and we’ve just seen him back on West Maui.
BS: It is so hard right now to find anything to rent in West Maui. The houses at Kapalua—the small, tiny homes—are done, and hopefully they’ll be totally rented soon. But again, it’s all really hard because a lot of people are still tied into FEMA properties, which is great, but it’s slowing things down a bit.
The Kapalua properties are a little bit slower than we thought they would be, but they’re still coming up with the furnishings for them. They have everything, which is probably not great news for some people, but they’ve got a washer, dryer, and every appliance you want.
For a lot of people, that’s going to be ideal. Most West Maui people working at Kapalua are going to love them, so we should talk about that later and see where we’re going with it. That’s 12:25, so we’re coming to the end of this pretty quickly. Is there any other property you can think of that we ought to be talking about?
EQ: There’s something important—our karate dojo in the Veterans Hale at the top of Fleming’s Road. We’ve had to train in Kapalua since the fire. We just rebuilt and moved back into the hale. So if you have kids, or you’re an adult and want to start training in martial arts, the kids’ classes are from 4 to 5, and the adults are from 5 to 6. It’s $30 a month for three times a week. It’s just a great thing for families.
Walter Chihara is the head sensei, and Dave Barca, my husband, and Mr. Delatori are the other sensei. Gina Parola, my stepdaughter, and my son-in-law Clint Parola are all black belts, along with my son Eddie Pike, have all been involved. You have people there who have lived here forever and want to help you help the community. We’re so blessed to have that option.
BS: Absolutely. And again, right now, I think we all need something to punch.
EQ: Yeah
BS: That couldn’t hurt any! That might feel good. One of the things we were saying when we first got here—because we didn’t drive together—is that all of a sudden, in Lahaina, it feels like it should be different. It’s been over a year, and things haven’t moved forward.
Honu has opened for food, and Mala is open, right behind Safeway. Those are the first two Lahaina restaurants to reopen. But when you get past there, there’s nothing.
EQ: Yeah.
BS: Basically, there’s nothing. When you drive in different directions, there is nothing. You feel like it’s okay, but it’s not okay. It’s not okay. I said the other day, and I almost took these words back, but I think it’s true—I said that I probably won’t live to see Lahaina rebuilt. That really troubles me a lot. I mean, I’ve been here for nearly a lifetime.
EQ: You better not plan on croaking anytime soon.
BS: Well, you know what I’m saying.
EQ: Please!
BS: It’s almost 50 years that I’ve lived here, and I want to be here. So we need to make it happen. We need to all work together. Everybody’s got to stop arguing. Front Street should be rebuilt. It’s not like we can keep doing this forever because people need jobs anyway. We’ve all got to think about the bigger picture and think about everyone’s outlook. It’s not just about you; it’s about the whole community.
EQ: It’s a community.
BS: Right. Then express your needs and your wants and what you believe in, because it’s important. It’s important to all of us. But then we’ve got to settle for what’s right, what’s good, and what will take care of our community. We’re now at 12:28 and 14 seconds. Something like that. Any other thoughts you’ve got?
We kind of rambled on. We weren’t sure where we were going with this today. We knew it was going to be not quite a real estate day. And we hit the one-minute warning!
EQ: Oh!
BS: So, I guess let’s talk about something we don’t usually talk about. Let’s talk about…
EQ: The surf has been great.
BS: The surf has been great.
EQ: Oh, my gosh.
BS: Let’s talk about Danny Couch, who loves Hawaii. Yes, Hawaii. I love Hawaii.
