Living on the Marina vs. living on the Ocean

Since I love the marina at Hawaii Kai so much, I'm sometimes amazed at how much cheaper it is to get a marina front home in Hawaii Kai than an ocean front home almost anywhere in Oahu.

In order to figure out how much the cost of living on the marina is, I take an average marina front home and comp it to something similar in a neighborhood that isn't on the marina. In this case, I can comp homes in Anchorage on the water to homes in Anchorage that are not on the water.

What I find is that it costs about an extra $500,000 to live on the marina. But what about ocean front? You're going to be shocked.

If you take a home in Portlock that is accross the street from the ocean and comp it to a house on the ocean, you find that it costs somewhere around $2-$3million more to live on the ocean. And the nicer the house, the bigger the difference.

Why? I'm not too sure.

Living on the marina gives you the nice water view, the boat dock, the peaceful everything that the ocean gives you, but costs a fraction of the oceanfront homes. It's silly. The highest oceanfront home sale is somewhere around $18 million, but the highest marina front home sale is about $3million.

HELLO? There is a huge difference, and I have no idea why. Sure I love the ocean, but I love the marina too and I don't think the ocean is worth 4-6 times more. But guess what, it doesn't matter what I think, because there are buyers out there who think it's worth it, and that's who determines the price. Whoever is willing to pay for the difference are the ones that are making it so expensive to live on the ocean.