At this time I have refinanced my house in California and I now have the down payment for a house on the Big island of Hawaii. It won’t be in Kona as I my dream started out. But I’ll be able to visit Kona anytime I want. I have narrowed down my choice of subdivisions to the ones in the Ocean View area. I checked out Discovery Harbour, Green Sands, Mark Twain, etc. Ocean View has a couple of grocery stores, a couple of gas stations, a couple of restaurants, an ACE Hardware store and numerous other necessities. Ocean View appears to be where I want to retire and live a quiet, simple life. I can find homes far from neighbors and close to town, perfect!

Now I need to find a real estate agent to help me. I ran a search in the MLS listings and I chose 4 or 5 houses that look interesting to me. I took the next big step. I attempt to make contact via e-mail. I e-mailed the 4 or 5 listing agents of the homes I want to know more about. I waited for replies. And I waited. And I waited. A week goes by and no replies. I figure either my e-mails were not delivered or these people are REALLY busy. I decide to call them and I left a message for each of them. And guess what? Not one returned my call. Now what do I do? I want to buy a house and no one wants to help me. I started calling the larger real estate companies and I got a hold of 2 agents that were willing to help me. I explained to them that I am ready to buy and that I need someone to help me by checking out 3 or 4 houses and letting me know if they are worth buying. I told them if I could find one or two excellent houses I will fly out and make an offer on one if I like it. They both agree to help me. Also, they both ask me if I want them to send me daily listings of the available houses according to my criteria. I agree and I start getting listings but they were not the same even though they both used the same criteria. I called both back and asked them to look at the 4 or 5 homes I was interested in. The first agent balked and said he was busy and would get to it if he could. The second agent I called agreed to look at the homes and said he would call back in two days. Two days go by and I am as anxious as a kid on Christmas morning before opening presents. Then 3 days go by. then 4 days. I called him on the 5th day and left him a message. I never heard back from him. But he keeps sending me daily listings. Now what do I do? I have contacted 7 different agents and none of them will return my calls and e-mails. Did I say or do something wrong?

As it turns out I found out from my friend that it is common for mainlanders to contact real estate agents in Hawaii. And more often than not the agent runs around looking at houses for them and then the mainlanders either lose interest or find they can’t make their dream come true. So it is common for agents to not return calls no matter how convincing you might be. They are likely to deal with you if you already have purchased a plane ticket or if you are already there. But even if you are planning to fly over they won’t waste much time with you until you arrive. They need to see you are serious about buying a house. So how can I show them I am serious? I do not want to make several trips to the Big Island to look at homes just to determine if the houses I see in the listings fit my criteria. I really thought a good real estate agent would be willing to do this for me because I am serious about buying a house there. My real estate agent in Arizona was more than happy to do this for me. And I bought two houses out there and he benefited from our arrangement. All I need is for someone who is honest to go to the house(s) that look good in the listings and in photos and check to see if there is structural damage, look at the roof to see if it looks decent and see if the place is turnkey ready. And if it is not turnkey ready then what work does it need to get that way. I guess that is too much to ask.

But in my mind it was NOT too much to ask. In the meantime the houses I was interested in were either no longer on the market or already had an offer in place. One night while doing some research on the web I found an advertisement for a home in the Hawaiian Ocean View Estates (HOVE) that was in my price range. But the ad was over 2 years old. I figure, what the hell, I have nothing to lose. I e-mailed the agent in the listing. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that he replied quickly and seemed eager to help me find a house. His name is Tom Edwards and I found him to be down to earth and honest. Which is why I am giving him a plug here. His website is http://www.kauhomes.com. If you are interested in the Ka’u and Kona areas please don’t hesitate to contact him. He is the best! Anyway, he explained to me that the house I saw advertised was no longer available and then asked me what I was looking for. I wrote him back and detailed what I was looking for and asked him if he was willing to do the footwork for me that I need. I sent him 3 listings I was interested in. One of which was his listing for a blue house in the Hawaiian Ocean View Ranchos (HOVR). He wrote back and explained that two of the houses were in poor shape and that the blue house was in excellent shape. I have to say the blue house was NICE! Now I had a house I was interested in and was in good shape and worth a trip out to look at and make an offer on.

That is when my luck (what little I have ever had) struck. The very next day a cedar house was listed in the MLS and it looked BEAUTIFUL!!! It was in HOVR which was another plus for me since it is on 3 acres. I wrote Tom and he wrote back and said this house was one of the nicest houses in the Ranchos and was turnkey ready.

I immediately made my plans to fly out and look at the house.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 11th, 2010 at 2:43 pm and is filed under DreamKona. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.