Which Side? Which District?
At this point I am starting to learn a few things. First thing I learned is the cheaper the house the farther away from Kona or Hilo the house is. And it seems the cheaper houses are much closer to Hilo than the cheaper houses are close to Kona. I found that I can find inexpensive homes (relatively speaking) within 15 miles of Hilo. But to find a similarly priced home near Kona I had to look at least 45-50 miles away. Then it hit me, the island is divided in half by the volcanos. The Hilo (east) side of the island gets a lot of rain (~125 inches/year) and is green, lush and beautiful. The Kona (west) side is bleak, stark black lava fields with little growth and vegetation. The weather is sunny and warm and it rarely rains on that side. I really love Kona. It is the quintesential sleepy, laid back retirement community (except for all the tourists). At this time in my life I didn’t like or appreciate Hilo and that side of the island. Yes it is green and lush, but it can be dark a lot and it rains a lot. Plus Hilo Town looks quite old and run down. More on Hilo later. Being born and raised in SoCal I enjoyed the sun, warmth, lack of rain and the starkness of the deserts. Kona side it is.
Which districts do I look in? There are 5 districts that are considered on the dry side of the Big Island. They are North Kona, South Kona, North Kohala, South Kohala and Ka’u. Through my previous searches it looks like North Kona and South Kona is out of my price range. I started looking in North Kohala and South Kohala. At the time, even North Kohala, as far from Kona as it is, has higher priced real estate. There were a few properties available but they were all fixers and in bad shape. And to my surprise there was nothing available in South Kohala. This leaves only the Ka’u District.
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