- 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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- Dec
- 17
Perfect Storm Hits Maui
Aloha,
Please check out the picture Ken took at Maui Sunset during the peak of storm while showing some buyer’s around. For more details on the storm please read the complete Maui Weekly article below writen by Sarah Ruppenthal
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Ken, Gregory P., and Jeremy Smith R(S)
Rain, wind, surf wreak havoc on beaches, homes, roadways, patience. “It was the worst I’ve seen.”<
What began as an inconspicuously cloudy morning Wednesday, Dec. 5, quickly spiraled into pandemonium as a massive storm system ravaged the island. Within hours, relentless rain and wind flooded roadways, downed power lines and destroyed several island homes. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), the northbound storm system pushed a heavy cold front across the state, sending an onslaught of severe southwest winds. The NWS Forecast reported winds blowing up to 60 miles per hour in some areas of the island, prompting a flurry of public safety warnings from the Office of the Mayor and the Maui County Civil Defense Agency. While residents stocked up on water and batteries, a domino effect of power outages swept through South Maui, Upcountry and pockets of Central and West Maui. A string of storm-related incidents, including road closures, flooded homes and power outages, progressed through the day, and the once innocuous sounding storm system evolved into something more than a colorful blob on the evening news weather report—and for many island residents, the reality has been devastating.
Early Wednesday morning, the Honolulu NWS issued a statewide flash flood watch after weather radar spotted a line of heavy showers and thunderstorms with rainfall rates of two to four inches per hour approaching Moloka‘i from the northwest. A few hours later, the soaking rainfall reached West Maui, blanketing the island in a few short hours. As violent gusts merged with seasonal Kona winds, county officials issued a high wind warning, predicting widespread property damage, fallen trees and power outages. And as poor visibility, piles of debris and localized flooding plagued island roadways, road closures sprung up across the island, including the heavily traveled routes of Haleakala and Kula Highways.
As the storm pummeled the island, life came to an eerie standstill: Schools sent students home for the day, county departments halted operations, meetings and events were postponed, and county landfills, recycling centers, parks and recreational facilities were closed due to flooding and unsafe conditions. At Kahului Harbor, Matson Shipping Company ceased yard and container operations for the day and the much anticipated re-launch of the Hawai‘i Superferry Alakai was postponed for another week. Across the island, ocean safety officials reported beaches and shoreline waters choked with mud and heavy debris, and the state Department of Health (DOH) warned of waters contaminated from overflowing cesspools and septic tanks.
But for those who saw the worst of the storm, the results were exceedingly tragic. Several residents of Kula, Polipoli and Waiohuli Hawaiian Homestead were transported to safety as their homes were engulfed by floodwaters, and two young boys were rescued from the rooftop of their flooded home by helicopter, moments before it washed away.
John Guard, owner of The Pet Shop at Maui Mall, described the devastating scene at his sister-in-law’s flooded home in Polipoli. “It was mind-boggling,” he said. “There is a gaping hole in the back of her house… the water just gushed down the hill and blew right through the back wall.” Guard’s sister-in-law learned of her home’s destruction when her neighbor called her at work and said, “I just saw a wall of water go through your house.”
Yet in the midst of the chaos, goodwill and compassion prevailed. On Maui for a scheduled anti-terrorism training exercise, National Guardsmen provided assistance to emergency workers, firefighters and the Maui Police Department. Red Cross volunteers activated three shelters at the Eddie Tam Gym in Makawao, Kula Community Center and the Kihei Community Center, handing out refreshments donated by Pizza Hut, Serpico’s in Pukalani, Foodland, Minute Stop and Starbucks Coffee.
“I cannot say enough about the coordinated work that our different agencies are doing to ensure the safety of our people,” said Mayor Charmaine Tavares in a press release on Wednesday. “There is a fair amount of damage across our county and the protection of life and property has been our focus. The worst may not be over yet, so we appreciate the efforts of everyone.”
As for the cleanup effort, county Department of Public Works crews began clearing debris, trees and branches from roads in Kula, Olinda and Pi‘iholo early Thursday morning, working around the clock to repair potholes and dam the mouths of streams and gulches to prevent any further flooding of roads and homes. MECO crews rushed to repair power lines for South Maui homes and businesses as early as Wednesday evening, but Upcountry repairs took much longer due to a barrage of downed trees, shredded electric lines and poles snapped in two. Hundreds of Upcountry residents experienced water shortages as late as Friday evening, as floodwaters ruptured several waterlines and power outages hindered the repair of treatment facilities, pumps and wells.
Officials say it may take several weeks to assess the extent of damage to island homes. As tranquil blue skies began to reappear Friday morning, piles of severed branches, toppled street signs and filmy roadways served as reminders that the storm was not just a bad dream.
“It was the worst I’ve seen in a long time,” said Pa‘ia resident James Campbell. “I’m just glad it’s over.”
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- Dec
- 17
Kula Executive Home
Newly built 6 bedroom 3 bath executive home with over 4600 sq. ft. of living area on private acre ocean view lot across the street from the Kula Lodge. Unique floor plan may accommodate 2 family living or simply enjoy the spaciousness of this Wailea quality home all for yourself. Partially covered wrap around lanai to enjoy magnificent sunsets that Kula is so famous for. Beautiful formal entry with Travertine tile. Every room comes alive with bright designer colors. Large dining area and gourmet kitchen with S/S appliances and travertine flooring. Elegant grand staircase with gently rising stair adds to the opulence of this magnificent home. A few of the other outstanding features are as follows: granite counters in kitchen and bathrooms, chandeliers in dining and living room, recessed lighting, ceiling fans, thermostatically controlled gas burning pot belly stoves, coffered ceilings in dining and kitchen areas, double oven and built-in microwave, appliance garage, his and her spacious walk-in closets, custom wood plantation style shutters throughout, Central Vac System, and much more.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Ken, Gregory P., Jeremy Smith R(S)
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- Nov
- 27
Makena Place #10
A rare breathtaking beauty awaits you in an exclusive community of only 10 homes on 5 acres in Makena. This spacious home, designed by renowned Maui architect Hugh Farrington, offers the full benefits of a residential condominium community, while at the same time providing the owners with the privacy of a detached single family home. Makena Place is gated with a full time resident manager. There is a community tennis court. House #10 is just steps away from a sandy crescent shaped beach for year round swimming and play. True Hawaiian design with attention to detail encompasses 4,000 plus sq. ft. of interior living, 4 bedrooms 4.5 baths. An expansive great room flows outdoors to an oversized lanai with spa and pool making this an unbeatable setting for entertaining or if you wish privacy. From the pool terrace, you take in an endless sweep of the blue Pacific, 5 outer island vistas and guaranteed sunsets year round. An opportunity like this comes only once in a lifetime.
Click Here For More Infomation
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Just listed. Excellent quiet North Kihei location. Large ocean view ohana eligible home. By far the lowest priced home in Kihei per sq. ft. at time of listing. Good home to fix up and build some sweet equity.
Mahalo,
The Smith Team
Ken, Gregory P. and Jeremy Smith (R)S
Coldwell Banker Island Properties
Shops at Wailea
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