A new home...

Well, it's happened. I talked about buying a new place here last August, and here I sit, almost a year later, moved into my new home. I LOVE it. Interesting enough, I was looking at buying a foreclosed home, and actually started looking pretty hard back in January. Well, as it turns out, short-sales take a REALLY long time, and I didn't really have the patience to go to a Foreclosure auction, and well, there were just never any deals that struck me as something I wanted to buy. Keep in mind, I was considering some Real Estate Investment properties, but in all honesty, I really wanted to own my own house and have a place to call my own... so, back in February, I was out in an area called Makikilo Heights out here in Southwest Oahu, looking at a place that was a short sale (for those that don't know what a short sale is, it's when a mortgage company takes ownership of a house and sells it for less than what the owner owes on it... i.e. short of the full value or price... it's happening alot in this market these days) Anyway- well, I was literally in the driveway of this place that I was thinking about buying on the phone with the realtor when he got news that a contract had been accepted on it. Literally within the hour. Soo... back on the hunt I was going, but as I was going back down the hill from Makikilo, I remembered this one community that had really intrigued me when I first started my hunt for a house in Hawaii while I was looking on the Internet in Japan. It was called 'Nanala at Mehena'. The concept was building on the 'planned community' that the city of Kapolei, HI has been focusing on for about 20 years now. Except Nanala was going to be what was termed a 'Live, Work, Play' community. In that it is zoned as a mixed-use community. Well, it intrigued me when I first read about it, because the whole idea of working for myself and from home has been a long term goal of mine, and these units (some of them) have integrated retail/office space on the lower level. They are also completely energy efficient, have fiber-optic data lines all the way to the premise of each unit, have top of the line appliances, etc., etc., not to mention they are all new. So there I was that day, coming down the hill from Makikilo Heights, when I saw the sign for this community that had so intrigued me a year before. They hadn't started building yet, when I first got to Hawaii, and now, they'd built the first unit and, wouldn't you know, they had a model to show. Well, I stopped in, met the realtor that was showing them, and she took me for a look. Well, after she offered me 16K in sellers credit and knowing I would get another 6K in credit from my buyers agent, I found it hard to resist when I knew I could have a say in all the details of the asthetics of the place, it would be new, and it would be something that I could call my own. I signed a contract on the place two days later. Being that I used a VA loan, it took some time for the appaisal to get finished after the construction was complete (due to the economic environment everyone is using their gov't loans these days and the appraisers are having a hard time keeping up with the demand), but I finally closed on it on the 30th of June. I'm pretty happy with it to say the least. I managed to sell all my old furniture to the tenants that were moving into my old place, for a good price, mind you, and as I write this I'm waiting for the new furniture that I ordered to arrive next week. It is a bit out of the way of things as to where I lived before. It's kind of hard to beat the convenience of living in Waikiki... I really don't think it gets much better than that. But it's actually much more quiet out here, not nearly as many sirens or buzzing scooters going by at all hours of the night, and really, Target, Costco and Home Depot and all the other random little retail stores are all about a 5 minute drive (literally- maybe 6- I've timed it) from my driveway, so I can't really complain. And do you need any other stores than those three? Murphy also digs it because he gets to run off the leash every morning and evening because there is tons of undeveloped land out here that we walk each day. Even the commute to work isn't as bad as I thought it may be. Although I've been told that because school is out for the summer it's not nearly as bad as what is usually is. At any rate, life is good. I'm pretty happy with my new place. I've also got a lot more room now than I did in Waikiki. So if you find yourself in Hawaii, you are welcome to stay. I call my place 'Hal's Hawaiian Ha'ole Hostel' I've got a bed with your name on it if you are heading to the islands. Check my FaceBook page to see some sunset pictures from my Lanai too. I really couldn't be happier about my new place.

Well, thanks for reading my blog... it's been a while since I've updated it, but thanks for stopping by! Cheers and Aloha!!