Steps to world famous Keawakapu Beach! Don’t miss this completely remodeled and exquisitely furnished spacious 2 bedroom 2 bath condo with ocean view at popular Hale Hui Kai. Some of the upgrades include granite counter tops, ceramic tile floors, custom maple cabinets, two A/C units, and a washer/dryer. Terrific vacation rental program and fantastic beachfront location next door to Sorento’s and at the doorstep of Wailea are just two of the reasons why this condo has such a loyal clientele that come back year after year.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Gregory P. and Melissa Smith R(B)
Ken and Jeremy Smith R(S)
Coldwell Banker Island Properties
Shops at Wailea
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Aloha,
Please check out the following article from today’s Maui News written by Harry Eagar.
Mahalo,
Gregory P. Smith R(B)
Ken and Jeremy Smith R(S)
Jesse Spencer, who is just finishing up his 412-lot Waikapu Gardens affordable housing project, wants to repeat that success - but more than twice as big - at the project district called Maalaea Mauka.
Other developers may be pulling back, but Spencer said, “I can do this with conditions as they are now.”
Mike Atherton, who is selling Maalaea Mauka to Spencer, thinks so, too.
“Jesse’s unique. He builds true affordable housing,” Atherton said Monday.
Buyer and seller are in a 45-day due diligence period, but Spencer hopes to close in September and break ground within a year after that.
He is sure he will be opposed but hopes to find a sympathetic forum in the County Council, which would have to approve the use of 260 acres of former sugar cane fields above Honoapiilani Highway and mauka of the Maalaea Harbor Village complex.
“I’m going to try for a pricing structure for 60 to 70 percent affordable,” under Hawaii Revised Statues 201H, Spencer said.
The newest version of the state’s affordable housing law allows the Housing Finance and Development Corp. to exempt an affordable housing project from most state and county land-use requirements, although both the County Council and the Land Use Commission would have to review the application.
Waikapu Gardens, approved in 2004 under the previous version of HRS 201G, was planned to be 50 percent affordable, although Spencer Homes sold several designated as market units at affordable prices.
Even if it were to go through the normal rezoning process, Maalaea Mauka would be required to comply with the county’s Residential Workforce Housing Policy, mandating a minimum of 40 percent of new units in a residential project to be affordably priced. The policy applied to the Honua’ula/Wailea 670 project district, which was designated in the community plan and was granted zoning approvals by the council.
“I don’t see how they can not approve it after they approved 670,” Spencer said.
The Maalaea Mauka project district has been in the community plan since 1998, although Planning Director Jeff Hunt has told the General Plan Advisory Committee he wants it removed in the next version of the county’s land-use ordinances. A proposed Maui land-use map excludes Maalaea Mauka from lands within the urban district.
Hunt said Tuesday that he did not know any details of Spencer’s changes in the original project design, but that his advice was based on concerns about Maalaea Mauka’s location, impact on infrastructure and a desire to maintain a green, open-space belt between Maalaea and Waikapu.
“Ideally, I would hope that all development within (proposed) urban-growth boundaries would be affordable,” Hunt said.
He said Spencer’s proposal raises “an important challenge for our community”: whether it will be willing to bend on concepts such as anti-sprawl policies when a project promises some other desirable payoff, like housing.
Spencer faced, but overcame, Planning Department objections to Waikapu Gardens based on its location between Waikapu and Wailuku, erasing the obvious boundary between the communities.
By taking over a project on which a lot of work, both on paper and on the ground, has been done, Spencer hopes to move quickly. His main reason, he said, is that he has had to lay off 50 workers as Waikapu Gardens nears completion and will run out of work for 100 more around September. He wants to keep them working.
He said he also wants to build more affordable housing.
“I’ve never had as much satisfaction on any project as this last one moving people in,” he said.
Atherton endorses the view, noting the hugs Spencer got from local families who were able to buy homes at Waikapu Gardens.
“He would. . . . He wants me to buy his land,” said Spencer.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Atherton said he, his father and grandfather also built affordable housing (in California), and his grandfather, Warren Atherton, was the author of the G.I. Bill of Rights.
Spencer, who is an Air Force veteran, had a job teaching and coaching tennis at a college in Oklahoma, where he bought a lot - with sewer and water - for $200, courtesy of the G.I. Bill of Rights. (Spencer also got bachelor’s and master’s college degrees with a boost from his veterans benefits and his wife, “who wrote my term papers.”)
Working at night under lights, Spencer built his own house for another $10,000.
He sold it for $14,000, and the profit equaled his annual pay (for a 9-month school year), so he bought another $200 lot and so it goes. Other teachers were out looking for summer jobs, Spencer says, but he looked forward to school breaks as the time to build another house.
He has built hundreds and has enough money in the bank to buy Maalaea Mauka for cash. That’s an advantage in this time of reluctant lenders. If he can get permits, he can start site work without looking for a lender, and he won’t have to go to a bank until he is ready to put up buildings.
He never borrows against his buildings, only against the land, he said. So he is somewhat insulated from slow markets. Spencer says he’s made his best profits by taking over projects where someone had already done a lot of work.
Atherton has drilled three wells, with a capacity of about 2 million gallons a day, which will solve Spencer’s need for water - an infrastructure issue that stalled Waikapu Gardens after it was granted its 201G exemptions.
Atherton’s development firm also has largely completed an environmental impact statement. That will have to start over, Spencer said, but it should go quickly.
Spencer has been looking for land for a project for months. He solicited Maui’s big landowners without success before he matched up with Atherton. Atherton said he asked Spencer, “How do you do it, Jesse?
“And he said, ‘I don’t need to make big money.’ “
However, he did pretty well at Waikapu Gardens, selling into a rising market. Although he sold houses to qualified buyers for as little at $230,000, they were getting appraisals as high as $600,000.
Prices for units sold on market were well above what he had projected when he penciled out that project.
Even though he will not likely be selling into a market rising at 25 percent per year this time, Spencer says he can still swing the deal, because he will own the land clear.
His proposal, now being turned into a master plan, calls for “about a thousand” houses and a central, 10-acre commercial center, for businesses directed at the subdivision residents only - barbershops, doctors’ offices, a food store. He is considering apartments over retail space.
A project that size needs an elementary school, he says, and he would like to build it for the Department of Eduction as part of the project, in the way Everett Dowling pioneered at Kamalii Elementary School in Kihei. Developers say they can build schools much cheaper as part of an overall project.
That might shave a few bucks off the as-developed per lot price, because exactions for schools, parks, highway impacts, water meters and so on add tens of thousands of dollars per lot to costs.
Spencer says the water meters at Waikapu Gardens cost him more than the raw land.
But Spencer Homes cuts much of its land development costs by doing its own work in site preparation. Spencer is a qualified heavy equipment operator.
He’s willing to try lots of things to keep the overall cost of the housing down. He always puts in solar hot water, and he’s exploring putting photovoltaic cells on the roofs. (So far, that looks too expensive for an affordable project.)
If it works out, he said he will employ 200 people for the next seven years. By that time, he will be 85 and prepared to think about retirement.
* Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.
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Just Redudced $600K to $1.9M
The BEST view and location at The RIDGE at Kapalua Resort. This is definitely a WOW property! Spectacular 180 degree ocean view with Molokai and Lanai in the background greets you as you enter the dramatic, stylish living room. Nearby you will find a high-end gourmet kitchen with granite counters, tile floor, custom cabinetry, stainless steel appliances and a large welcoming breakfast bar. The spacious Master suite is located upstairs and features a private lanai overlooking the sweeping ocean views. The large master bath amenities include huge walk in closet, roman style tub, two sink vanity, and separate water closet. In the second bedroom you will find a private bath with walk in closet, roman style tub, two sinks as well as a large linen closet. A bonus guest bath is conveniently located just off the living area. The villa also includes a covered parking stall with spacious outside owners’ locker. Kapalua Resort amenities include two championship golf courses, 10 tennis courts, restaurants, shops, free resort wide shuttle service, 3 white sand beaches including the Best Beach in the world, the Kapalua Bay Beach Truly luxurious ocean view living!
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Gregory P. Smith R(B)
Ken and Jeremy Smith R(S)
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- May
- 15
Kihei Surfside
Just Listed. Rarely available Kihei Surfside 1 bedroom 1.5 bath upgraded condo in a very popular oceanfront complex. From your lanai you see the beautifully manicured lawn with the Pacific Ocean beyond. You can see West Maui Mountains, the Island of Lanai and fantastic sunsets from your lanai. In the winter season the whale watching is phenomenal.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Gregory P. Smith R(B), Ken and Jeremy Smith R(S)
Colwell Banker Island Properties
The Shops at Wailea
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- Apr
- 17
Molokai Oceanfront
775′ OCEANFRONT!! This fabulous 2-lot estate in West Molokai’s Papohaku Ranchlands at Kaluakoi Resort is the ultimate private getaway, with beautiful views of year-round sunsets, Diamond Head (and the evening glow of Honolulu city lights), and breaching whales in season. Close to Dixie’s Beach, 3-mi. long Papohaku Beach, miles of deserted coastline and trails–a step back in time with no traffic and few tourists, yet only 15 min. from the airport and 25 min. from Kaunakakai town & harbor. Features paved streets, underground utilities and water to each lot. Covenants allow two main homes and two cottages.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Ken and Jeremy Smith R(S)
Gregory P. Smith R(B)
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Gorgeous straight on ocean view looking out to Molokini. Luxuriously furnished. Also has state of the art electronics systems including wired and wireless internet, 4 plasma TV’s, 8 foot projection screen, and surround sound. Never in a rental program so it is in pristine condition. Less than 100 yards to the beachfront pool and just 50 yards further to Wailea Beach. Stroll to the shops of Wailea without ever getting into your car. Watch the fireworks and the whales from your lanai. Great location and priced for immediate sale.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
GregoryP., Ken, and Jeremy R(s)
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Just reduce to $697K.
Majestic Haiku Retreat must be seen to be appreciated. Classic plantation 3 bd.1 bath home was a labor of love and hard work with over 25 years of landscaping and an incredible 1 bd. 1 bath addition with outrageous charm. The addition has beautiful screened in decks, stained glass windows and Partial Ocean & Mountain views. It also has custom Koa and Mango woodwork from one of Maui’s finest craftsman, and tons of storage with very little wasted space. Behind the property, you will find 2 acres of leased land including a perfectly landscaped plateau that drops off into an amazing valley filled with tropical fruit and avocados. The lease is transferable and adds incredible privacy and usable land to this perfect location off a quiet dead end cul-de-sac in the dry part of Haiku just minutes from Maui’s North shore beaches, stores, and restaurants. This property also has beautiful lava rock pillars, walls and walkways complete with a water feature. Behind the house, there is a bonus storage completely done up for Yoga, Meditation, Art Studio or Office with a fabulous ocean view. Take a walk down your own private trail leading into the valley full of fruit with an awesome grove of delectable Apple Bananas.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Ken, Gregory, and Jeremy Smith R(S)
Coldwell Banker Island Properties
Shops at Wailea
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- Jan
- 22
Ocean View Estates Gem
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Aloha,
Please check out our newest listing at 1406 Hiahia Street.
Large custom home in Ocean View Estates with stunning 180 degree panoramic views of the ocean along with fabulous sunrises over Haleakala. When you enter this home you will be immediately impressed by the grandeur of the spiral staircase leading to the second floor with a large skylight overhead. There is a wrap around lanai from which you can enjoy watching the whales or surfers. The gourmet kitchen features a commercial Wolf Range and stainless steel appliances. The attached 1 bedroom ohana can be used as a mother-in-law’s quarters or integrated in to the home. Ocean View Estates is conveniently located just minutes from the heart of Wailuku, the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, and the Waiehu Public Golf Course. The interior square footage of 2770 sq. ft. includes approximately 700 sq. ft. that can used either as mother-in-laws quarters or as a non-conforming Ohana.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Ken, Gregory, Jeremy Smith R(S)
Coldwell Banker Island Properties
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Aloha,
Please check the Maui News arcticle below written by HARRY EAGAR.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Ken, Gregory, and Jeremy Smith R(S)
Coldwell Banker Island Properties
KAHULUI – Unlike a lot of places on the Mainland, Maui’s real estate market finished 2007 just about even.
Average condominium prices rose 4 percent to $817,000, while average single-family home prices fell 1 percent to $921,000.
The number of condo sales was down 5 percent to 1,179, but the number of single-family home sales was up 5 percent to 1,138.
Terry Tolman, the executive director of the Realtors Association of Maui, says: “Prices are moving down a little bit.”
The total amount of money moving through the Maui real estate market grew a little, from $1,986,000,000 to $2,010,000,000.
Developer Henry Spencer, who finished 16 lots in Spreckelsville last year, has not sold all of them. He is not worried, though.
Maui developers must deal with a new work force housing imposition, shortages of water in some areas, a proposal for a moratorium on the west side and an announcement from the Planning Department that it will not support community plan amendments until the General Plan revision process is completed.
“People who already have product to sell will have that much less competition,” says Spencer.
The total real estate turnover number excludes sales of undeveloped land and includes only sales tracked through the association’s Multiple Listing Service.
The association also lumps together new construction and resales.
Darryl Betsill of Betsill Brothers Construction, one of the island’s most active builders, says his firm is not contemplating slowing down, even if the national residential market is contracting and expected to keep doing so.
“We’re going pretty well,” Betsill said last week.
Betsill Brothers is doing a mix of work on its own account and site preparation for other developers. The weight is moving somewhat more toward commercial work, Betsill says.
For example, in a joint venture with Goodfellow Bros., Betsill is building a 36,000-square-foot office building on Lipoa Street in Kihei.
Each partner will take 10,000 square feet for itself, and the rest will be offered to tenants.
But Betsill is about to “go vertical” at the 90-unit Kaiana Village condominium in Kihei, and it is well along at the 90-unit Maui Breakers at Honokowai, which is being developed by a Colorado firm.
Other Betsill ventures later this year will include 32 housing units near Cove Beach and 32 units in the second phase of Kamalii Alana, both in Kihei.
That plus a couple of custom-built homes in Wailuku means Betsill will deliver close to 250 dwellings in 2008, if all goes as planned.
Tolman always cautions against overanalyzing the MLS numbers, because the Maui real estate market “is such a small pool.”
One or two projects can inflate or deflate the totals considerably.
One number that hasn’t changed is the number of members in the Realtors Association, 1,623.
Tolman thinks buyers who can afford superprices ($5 million to $10 million) may start holding back a little, waiting to see what other investment areas are going to do.
“People are much more aware” of instability, he says, because of big movements in stock indexes.
There were 45 houses listed at $5 million and up on the MLS Friday, topping out at $23.8 million for a beachfront home at Kaanapali.
At the other end of the scale, the average single-family price in Central Maui last year was $538,000, a drop of 9 percent, or $54,000, from 2006 prices.
The median price in Central Maui was down somewhat less, 6 percent, or $39,000, to $559,000.
Median prices, which mark the point at while half of sales were for more, half for less, fell $60,000 in 2007, or 9 percent.
Central Maui with 512 closings accounted for close to half of single-family sales.
Kihei, with 182 sales, was next. Average prices fell 10 percent to $808,000, and and medians dropped 4 percent to $730,000.
Average prices, which briefly exceeded $1 million in the middle of 2006, are now down to $921,000.
Condo prices, which used to be significantly lower than single-family prices, are now closing the gap. This is due primarily to a hot market in Wailea-Makena.
There were 233 transactions there last year, at average prices of more than $1.7 million. Prices were about as high on Lanai, where there were nine closings, and Kapalua, where there were 34.
More significant for first-time condominium shoppers were the prices in Central Maui, where there were 85 closings at an average price of $301,000, an increase of $6,000, or 2 percent.
The most active area was Kihei, where there were 485 condo transactions for an average of $470,000. That was an increase of $22,000, or 5 percent.
The number of days on market is another indicator of softening demand. In December, that number was right around six months, which is around 40 days longer than in the middle of 2006.
Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.
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Aloha,
Please check out the Maui News Arcticle below.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Ken, Gregory, and Jeremy Smith R(S)
Coldwell Banker Island Propeties
’Proper management,’ not banishment urged
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer
WAILUKU – Maui Vacation Rental Association President David Dantes said Tuesday that he hoped the Maui community would support a kinder, gentler transition to a new way of managing the transient vacation rental sector than Mayor Charmaine Tavares is pursuing.
MVRA called a news conference at noon on the lawn in front of Kalana O Maui in response to Tavares’ news conference last week, at which she showed no inclination to continue the old compromise of allowing unpermitted TVRs to operate while a new ordinance is being worked out.
In the meantime, the would-be rental operators picked up some support from an economic impact study commissioned by the Realtors Association of Maui. The study estimates that shutting down 99 percent of TVRs and bed-and-breakfasts will cost Maui County $319 million in business, more than 3,000 full-time jobs and cost $100,000 to $200,000 in transient accommodations tax that the state returns to the county.
Dantes recalled that the mayor had recommended that more accurate information be used in the dispute, and he said MVRA agreed and wanted to supply some.
The conclusion he draws is that TVRs “can integrate seamlessly into most neighborhoods with proper management.”
TVRs and B&Bs present “no real commercial activities” in residential areas beyond what people do there anyway, he said, so “there should be no impact . . . that is any different from an ordinary household.”
He reviewed the history of short-term rentals in homes, and repeated the assertion that the county had not only allowed unpermitted businesses to operate, but had spent public money promoting them through its Office of Economic Development and, indirectly, through the Maui Visitors Bureau.
The expectation, he said, was that the council would create a zoning ordinance to manage this novel component of the lodging business.
When the County Council scrapped the bill last year, the administration announced it was abandoning the policies of the previous two administrations to allow the vacation rentals to continue without permits.
It also presented a package of five bills intended to establish county policies on permitting short-term rentals outside of hotel districts.
However, Dantes said, the bills would apply to only a small proportion of the estimated 1,000 existing vacation rentals.
He said the gaps between the proposed bills and an ordinance that would suit the operators are small. Perhaps half a dozen changes would do the trick.
For example, he said, the minimum $35,000 annual farm receipts for a TVR in the ag zone is unrealistic for most lots and could be lowered.
“Enforcement is the greatest immediate challenge,” he said, while crafting a workable ordinance is the long-range goal.
The Realtors association study confirmed that very few complaints (under a dozen) have been filed against existing operations. Dantes said that he hoped the community would support the idea that a transition from unpermitted to regulated business could be treated as something less than an emergency that requires almost all existing operations to be shut down.
MVRA, which represents only a fraction of the existing operations, sought relief in U.S. District Court last year. It lost but continues to plan to appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
However, even if that were eventually successful, it failed to rein in county suppression of businesses as of Jan. 1.
Now, Dantes said, operators are told to shut down and invited to apply for a permit – if ever the county makes that possible.
In the meantime, he said some owners have had to sell their houses, workers are being laid off and other businesses are feeling the fallout.
The Realtors association study quantifies those assertions. It was done by Thomas Loudat, president of TAL Associates in Honolulu, and professor Prahlad Kasturi, an economist at Radford University in Virginia.
It updates and expands a study that the Realtors had earlier commissioned from the Kauaian Institute.
“Elimination of the TVR industry could result in the full loss of the TVR industry’s economic value,” the report says.
“The extent of the loss of the TVR industry due to government regulations depends to what extent TVR visitors substitute an alternative Maui County accommodation type to TVRs if they are not available or not sufficiently available.”
Dantes noted that recently TVRs have been the only sector of the lodging business that is expanding. The MVRA contends this is because of a demand from visitors for that sort of lower key (and often but not always lower cost) room.
He noted that at the MVRA Web site, www.mvra.com, more than 3,000 off-island visitors have signed a petition asking for clemency for the operators.
Many add comments, he said, and some say they won’t visit Maui if TVRs are not an option.
The Realtors’ study acknowledges that there can be negative effects of transient rentals, but says regulations can address those impacts.
“There exist policy means whereby the negative perceptions of TVRs leading to their current regulatory scrutiny can be addressed such that the negative economic consequences can be mitigated,” it said.
For example, TVR businesses could pay real property tax at a high rate.
At public hearings at the Maui Planning Commission on the package of bills, several operators volunteered that they were ready to pay a higher tax.
The study also says TVRs have positive “externalities” beyond economic factors.
“They are generally associated with ADUs (accessory dwelling units) . . . (that) could also be used for housing local residents if need be. The character of ohanas and local lifestyles need to be preserved as learning local customs and being exposed to native culture is one of the reasons why visitors choose to come to Hawaii.”
The study disputes the argument that conversions to TVRs eliminate long-term rentals for residents.
Even after a decade of explosive expansion, the study says TVRs account for only 1.7 percent of all county dwellings and 2.28 percent of all occupied dwellings.
The study warns, “Since TVRs are essentially small businesses, it is important to recognize the potential adverse effects and unintended consequences of regulation.”
Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.
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