Kona Kohala Blog

For a long time, Waikoloa Village has been a popular home for retirees to the Big Island.  Not only is it a self contained community but it has the Robert Trent Jones designed Waikoloa Village Association golf course, a very challenging 18 hole course.  There is also the requisite community swimming pool and tennis courts to keep people busy and active.

Now as we approach the bottom of the real estate market there are some tremendous buys in the village for both condos and Single Family Residences (SFR's).  The hottest condo market is currently in the $100,000 to $149,000 price range.  Anything below that price is sold almost as quickly as it comes on the market and demand drops off sharply above that point.

There is still a good selection of properties available so if you're interested in relaxing in the sunshine and fresh air in Waikoloa village, give me a call, 808-896-0661 or email, Robert@FerrariPacificRealty.com.

Looking ahead, we will probably see the inventory hold it's own even thought they are selling quickly.  The "shadow inventory", the millions of homes and condos held in abeyance by the various lenders afraid to dump them all on the market at once, is daily adding to the properties for sale and should continue for the next couple of years, at least.

The next big wave of properties coming in on the shadow inventory express will be the Option-ARMs, those nasty little loans where you don't even have to pay the interest.  While the owners of these loans felt good about having payments they could make, their balance continued to climb and climb.  Now that they are resetting, their monthly payments are tripling and these people are in trouble.  Because of restrictive fees placed on them by the lenders, these poor people can't even refinance or modify their loan without huge penalties.  We don't need more rules in the finance community we need rules that are enforced.  Let's hope for less government control and more government oversight, work with what you have Mr. O, it can be done.