Kailua real estate

On the Windward Coast of Oahu is a great little beach town called Kailua, a favorite place for tourists and locals. The wide white sand beaches are great for laying out or swimming, with beachfront estates lining the beach from Lanikai to the end of Kalama beach.

There is a great little shopping are in Kailua town which has been renovated in the last few years. Later this year the opening of Whole foods will be a nice addition too.

Kailua real estate has just about everything that is available in Hawaii. There are of course the homes down on the beach, which run between $5million to $20million. These homes are often the nicest on the island, with custom everything and materials that you rarely see in the average home.

Go back one block or even one house from the beach, and you spend about $3-5million less on the same house. Just one house back from the sand and you have a nice house within walking distance to the best beach in America.

Just a few blocks from the beach you have neighborhoods like Enchanted Lake, Kalama, Kailua Estates, and Aikahi park, all great neighborhoods with homes built in the 70's mostly. These are the neighborhoods where you find the average Kailua resident, complete with kayaks and surfboards hanging in the carports. The average 3bed 2bath single family home in Kailua will run about $750k-$800k.

Up the hill on Kailua road a bit and you come to hilly neighborhoods like Olomana, Maunawili, and Kailua bluffs. These areas can sometimes offer a nice view, and usually get more rain, which means more trees and other foliage. The hilly neighborhoods of Kailua feel like a real tropical getaway, but the downside is there is more mold, more wet rot, and everything that comes with more rain.

Homes in Kailua are typically 30-40yrs old, which means a lot of them are single wall. Why? Cheaper, easier, and in Kailua it's warm all year so you don't really need insulation. New homes are built only where old ones have been torn down, because there isn't much land to build on these days without tearing an old house down. There are however a few vacant lots on the beach in Kailua, surprisingly.

Kailua is also great for another reason - traffic. The Pali highway and H3 are easy to get to and have less than half the traffic going into town compared to the west side of the island. Sure homes are nearly twice as much as the west side, but for those who can afford at least $700k, Kailua is a wonderful place to live.

There are great breakfast and lunch places, but nothing real great for dinner. Buzz's is the best restaurant Kailua has for dinner, and it's ok, but not on the same level as Roy's or Nobu. It's more like a non chain Outback.