What is the best to acquire property in Waikiki or Honolulu?|143938

I_ve been researching properties for leasehold and fee simple. I do not have much money, but want to find a small condo or studio in the West Waikiki or Honolulu. Possibly a fixer-upper as inexpensively as possible. Want to use it as a personal vacation space and hopefully a _turn-key_ place when not in use by me. Any sound advice as to how to go about this? Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

Century 21 is a good co. for reasonably priced real estate. They have a good reputation in Hawaii.
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GOOD LUCK! I highly doubt that you will find anything reasonble priced, for the price you would pay, you could buy yourself a mansion. I would stick to time shares. there are waiting lists for people just wanting to buy. and be willing to pay the price even though they know that they cant afford it.. instead of waikiki or even oahu period, I would look to a different island, like the Big Island.. Im from Oahu and I know that if i was still living there, owning a home would be impossible, but I moved to the Big Island and was able to afford a nice house. Like i said try time share. go online to ebay, type in timeshares, this is the best way, you can find really good deals

Work with an agent experienced in just what you are looking for. They have all the inside information on fees you will have to pay to have your _vacation condo_ managed and their success rate (occupancy rate). Since you are being careful with your money be careful about the agent you choose.

Having just been through the experience of buying a place in Hawaii as a vacation home/vacation rental, let me offer the following.
1) If you intend to use it as a vacation rental you have to be concerned with location and if vacationers will want to rent it. Waikiki and the North Shore are popular for these reasons but the price reflects this. A 2 bedroom _fixer upper_ in Waikiki costs about $400k when I was there earlier this year. Plan on putting a lot more into it to make it acceptable to people who are paying good money to rent it. They don_t want to hear about your financial difficulties when the stove doesn_t work.
2) Property managers will take anywhere from 20% to 50% of the rental income depending on what servcies they provide. Figure that into the general operating costs as simply gone.
3) Don_t forget taxes, insurance, condo fees, down payment in addition to the actual mortgage for the condo.
4) I wouldn_t believe the occupancy rates that the property managers claim.
5) The state of Hawaii has stopped issuing non-conforming use certificates for condos to be rented on a short term basis. The ones that are operating now are either grandfathered in as mine is at $200 per year, or they are operating without a license. If caught, the one_s without a license can be fined thousands per day.

It_s not for the faint of heart or someone who is cutting the budget closely. Some months are harder to rent than others so you have to be able to absorb the expenses during the lean times.

Good luck

Aloha,

If you are looking for a place to rent out ? Or have a property manager run for you_

Then I would only recommend Waikiki.

Most people do not realize a couple of things about Oahu. It is all Honolulu. Like many other large cities, it has cities within itself. (Like Los Angeles or New York)
The main city of Honolulu, is about 6 miles from Waikiki. but any small homes and Condos of all types surround Honolulu, where as Waikiki is a 2 miles by about 6 blocks of very Denise built up area, almost 75% is Hotels, Resorts, Condos and a few private homes.
Waikiki has many places where you can buy a Condo even with in the big Resorts who now sales many of their rooms as condos and still operate them as hotel rooms