Getting re-assigned to Schofield Barracks, Hickam Air Force Base, Tripler Army Medical Center, Ft. Shafter, Pearl Harbor or Marine Corps Base Kaneohe?  Are you considering purchasing Hawaii Real Estate?  If you do buy, how soon until you are going to become a SELLER?  Besides trying to get a bargain of a price,  getting the seller to pay some or all of your closing costs for you and having a comfortable mortgage payment with a great interest rate, you must think “outside the box”.

Where is outside the box?  That would be YOU placing yourself in the shoes of the SELLER.  Your real estate agent that works as a “buyers agent” doesn’t cost you anything with most companies when they are representing you.  Team Kucic of RE/MAX Honolulu is one of those companies.  How was your buyers agent going to get paid if it didn’t come from you?

The Buyers Brokerage Company gets paid by the SELLER.  In most cases, the cost to the SELLER is 5-6% of the purchase price IN REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE  FEES ALONE.  Add another approximately 2% on top of that for ESCROW FEES and the SELLERS portion of the CLOSING COSTS.

Where are we now?  You are now a SELLER and you should know that it will take you approximately 7-8% of the purchase price for you to sell your home.  As an example, lets say you purchased a home and took out a mortgage for $520,000.  You keep the home for 3 years and then it is time to move or PCS (for my Hawaii military buyers).  Assuming that you used your VA loan entitlement to purchase the property with a 100% financed, 30 year fixed rate mortgage, your loan balance on that 520k may be around 500k for example.  These are rough examples but should be effective to put it in perspective for you.

•·         You bought home for 520k in 2007 which included your VA Funding Fee

•·         3 years later in 2010 it is time to sell

•·         Your loan balance is now 500k because you paid down some of the principal on the loan

•·         It will cost you approximately 7-8% to sell your home

•·         At 7%, your fees to sell your home will be approximately $35,000.  At 8% it will be $40,000.

•·         Your house must be worth AT LEAST $535,000 to $540,000 in order for you to just BREAK EVEN!

Are you still ready to buy?  Make sure you have professional real estate representation when you seek purchasing a piece of Hawaii Real Estate.  Get good counsel and do a good analysis of what you are getting into when you make the decision to buy.  For more information, visit me on the web, send me a personal email with your questions or call me.

Hawaii VA Home Buyer Information

Are you still “sitting on the fence” and waiting to buy your piece of Hawaii Real Estate?  Are you waiting for the prices to drop further?  As a Real Estate agent in Hawaii working with Military Relocations to Hawaii and specializing in VA Home Loan purchases, I run across Hawaii military very often that fit into this category.

I never push anyone into buying a piece of real estate in Hawaii.  That is your decision to make.  However, if you know that you want to buy a home in Hawaii but are waiting on the market to “bottom out”, please consider this information below.

I put these charts together to illustrate what could happen if you wait on the prices to decrease 10% but at the same time, interest rates increase 1%.

The first chart depicts purchasing a home now at an interest rate of 5% with 100% financing. 

The second chart shows what will happen if you wait on prices to drop 10% from the current price and the interest rate to go up to 6%.

Don’t forget that the longer you wait to buy, you continue to pay rent which is money that is disappearing and will not find its way back into your wallet.

 Purchase Price                                                       Monthly Payment (principal and interest only)

Purchase Price (down 10%/interest rate up 1%)             Monthly Payment (principal and interest only)

Fact #1:  Interest rates for 30 year VA home loans in Hawaii are currently hovering around 5% to 5.5%.

Fact #2:  There is a large inventory of homes for sale right now. 

Fact #3:  Many Sellers are motivated to sell you their house and may be willing to negotiate.

Unknown #1:  House prices.  Are they going higher or lower?

Unknown #2:  Interest rates.  Are they going higher or lower?

David Kucic, RE/MAX Honolulu located in Kapolei, Hawaii

VA Home Sales Expert in Hawaii

www.davidkucic.com

Phone: (808) 218-9338

Email: david@davidkucic.com

Hawaii Property Taxes for Oahu (Honolulu County) 

Hawaii Property taxes are increasing for the island of Oahu, Hawaii.  Our previous rate was $3.29 per $1,000 of assessed value.  The new rate will be $3.42 per $1,000 of assessed value.

When you look on line at Hawaii Property For Sale, you may see something like this or similar to this:

A very simple way to figure out the taxes is to look at the “Assd Val Total”….in this case above, it is $700,300.  Drop the last two zeros and replace the comma with a decimal point so that your new number is 700.3.  Now multiply that by $3.42 which will give you an annual Oahu Property Tax of $2,395.  Divide that by 12 and you get $199.59 which would be your monthly tax payment.  Easy huh?

With the example above, you will notice that the item titled “Home Exemp” is 0.   If you are an owner occupant of your home, you should be entitled to a tax exemption of either $80,000 (up to age 65) or $120,000 (for age 65 and older).  To see eligibility requirements, check out the criteria at the Honolulu Property Tax website.  Don’t forget to file your exemption if you are eligible!  The deadline for applications is September 30^th, 2009.

If you are quailed for the exemption, you can deduct the appropriate amount from the Assd Val Total. 

Let’s say you are under age 65 and are qualified for an 80k exemption.  Subtract 80k from $700,300 and you get $620,300.   Using the simple formula I described above, your multiplier is 620.3.  Multiply by $3.42 and your Oahu annual property tax would be $2,121, a savings of approximately $274 per year.

For more information on purchasing Hawaii real estate, contact David and Tonya Kucic of RE/MAX Honolulu.

Phone: (808) 218-9338

Email: david@davidkucic.com

Regardless of the fact that the listing is a short sale, the Sellers deserve to have pictures of their property on the internet.  You, as the Buyer, deserve to see pictures of the property.

Real estate  in Hawaii without photos don’t get much attention when viewed on the internet, so then why would a Hawaii short sale listing be any different?

It drives me nuts when I see non-Hawaii Short Sale listings on my Honolulu Board of Realtors MLS that don’t have any pictures and I just wonder each time I see it if the Seller is aware that their listing is lacking photos.  I understand that it may take a few days to take the pictures, have them photoshopped and get them published on the internet, but there is no excuse after that to not have pictures unless the Seller specifically directs that no pictures be taken.  

Some listings have comments like:  ”280 Days on Market”, ” Seller Motivated”,  ” This is a must see property”  etc……. Come on now!  If this piece of Hawaii real estate is such a great bargain then get some pictures posted!

Short sales in Hawaii are not any different.  Short sales take a long time, are a lot of hard work, require numerous hours on the phone but those are not excuses to not have pictures.  I certainly wouldn’t recommend paying hundreds of dollars to have a professional photographer take pictures  but a digital camera is cheap and loading photos is easy!  

At the top of my website, I have a scrolling list of homes for sale FROM ALL AGENTS IN MY COMPANY.  I assure you that the ones with no pictures are definitely not mine!

For more information on Hawaii real estate, Hawaii Short Sales and purchasing Hawaii homes with a VA Loan, visit us on the web at www.davidkucic.com.

Want to learn the basics of purchasing Hawaii real estate using your VA Loan Eligibility without having to sit in a boring seminar? This short video gives you the basics and is presented by 1SG (Ret) David Kucic, VA Home Buying Specialist in Hawaii with RE/MAX Honolulu.

VA Home Buying Hawaii on YouTube

VA Loans in Hawaii do not come from the VA. They come from banks and other financial institutions. Be aware when you are shopping around for a VA Loan in Hawaii because what you find on line might really not be what you think it is. For example, you will find many mortgage brokers that have websites with the term “VA Loans Oahu“, “VA Loans Hawaii“, “Hawaii Military VA Loans” etc…. NONE of these companies work for or are associated with the VA! For more information about Hawaii VA Loans and Hawaii Real Estate, contact the Hawaii real estate agent you can trust: your Hawaii Military Expert and Retired Military Veteran, David Kucic, 1SG, USA (Ret)

Look no further than this townhome if you want a highly sought after, executive neighborhood located in Central Oahu. This 2 br, 2 full bathroom, ground floor townhome also has a garage, driveway parking and an additional assigned parking stall.
Enjoy your private, fenced in back yard and covered lanai with a view of the greenbelt and trees rather than staring in your neighbors house.
Homes similar to this one do not come along very often. The last property similar to this one came on the market in Dec 2007.
For more information and to schedule a private showing, contact David Kucic, RE/MAX Honolulu at (808) 218-9338 or email to davidkucic@remax.net
See below for a few photos of this property.