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        <title>Aloha Tony's Oahu Real Estate Blog</title>
        <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/buy-a-home-in-hawaii/</link>
        <description>Honolulu Hawaii real estate updates and information for both buyers and sellers from one of Hawaii's top real estate agents.</description>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/rent-vs-buy-its-not-a-fair-comparison.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/rent-vs-buy-its-not-a-fair-comparison.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>Rent vs Buy - it's not a fair comparison</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
There are thousands of articles on the web comparing renting to buying, almost entirely focused on the monthly or annual cost of rents, mortgages, repairs, etc. 

The problem is that it's not a fair comparison. No matter how cheap your rent is, after 30 years of renting, you still have nothing to show for it. Even if you had invested the money you saved by not buying, the long term tax benefits of owning a home, having a mortgage, and tax free capital gains, make owning a house a substantially ... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Wed, 02 Mar 2011 11:52:13 -1000</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/home-affordibility-is-peaking-are-you-ready-to-buy-guest-blogger-lisa-udy.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/home-affordibility-is-peaking-are-you-ready-to-buy-guest-blogger-lisa-udy.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>Home Affordibility Is Peaking: Are You Ready To Buy? (Guest blogger Lisa Udy)</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
Two recent reports by CNBC have stated the mortgage market is facing some major changes. The Obama administration is set to announce next week overhauls to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac run programs and, according to many economic experts, mortgage interest rates are expected to go higher as the economy continues to strengthen.


These changes are going to affect home affordibility and buying a home will get harder as the government tries to roll back temporary housing fixes implemented during th... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:36:56 -1000</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/real-estate-101-whats-a-spec-home.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/real-estate-101-whats-a-spec-home.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>Real Estate 101: What's a Spec Home?</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
Real Estate 101: What is a Spec Home?



When meeting with a real estate agent to search through your new home options, it is easy to get a bit confused by the terms that are used by real estate agents. While agents are not trying to confuse their clients, the reality is that certain terms are so common in the industry that it is easy for an agent to forget that everyone might not be familiar with that term. 

One such term that could potentially cause some confusion is &quot;spec home.&quot;... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Sat, 15 Jan 2011 02:11:31 -1000</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/buy-a-house-to-save-your-life-seriously.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/buy-a-house-to-save-your-life-seriously.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>Buy a house to save your life - seriously.</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
Did you ever think of your house as a financial safety net?&nbsp; 

I read a post this morning on Gigi Hawaii's blog, in which she explained that owning a home is about to save her life, so to speak.&nbsp;

She writes, &quot;We plan to apply for a reverse mortgage next month... If the reverse mortgage goes through, we will pay off our two mortgages and David&rsquo;s car loan, thereby saving $3,000 per month.&nbsp; ... We have no choice but to do this.  When he was 
demoted in July, David had a $23,000 pay cut... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Fri, 17 Dec 2010 11:21:42 -1000</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/nobody-buys-a-house-in-december-do-they.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/nobody-buys-a-house-in-december-do-they.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>Nobody buys a house in December do they?</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
It's the Christmas season, time to buy gifts, spread cheer, and mostly, focus on the birth of Jesus.&nbsp; With all the Christmas parties, recitals, and other events, you wouldn't expect people to be doing extremely time consuming and stressfull like - buying a house. 

But the statistics show that hundreds of people buy a house on Oahu every December. Around the country, tens of thousands of people will buy a house around Christmas.&nbsp; And you may not have thought about it but - many sellers are mo... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Fri, 17 Dec 2010 03:26:53 -1000</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/hawaii-home-sales-up-big-in-september.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/hawaii-home-sales-up-big-in-september.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>Hawaii home sales up BIG in September</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
In May of 2009, I called the bottom of the Hawaii real estate market, and in January through May of this year, I posted several times about the coming market rise.&nbsp; Well, the September sales numbers are out for Hawaii homes, and the numbers are pretty impressive.&nbsp; 

Here are some highlights:


There were 274 sales of single-family homes on Oahu in September, an 8 percent rise compared to last year.

The Oahu median price of single family homes was $622,450, up 3 percent from $605,000 last yea... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:46:23 -1000</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/fha-to-revise-mortgage-insurance-premiums.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/fha-to-revise-mortgage-insurance-premiums.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>FHA to Revise Mortgage Insurance Premiums</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
Congress just passed H.R. 5981, giving FHA (Federal Housing Administration) the authority to adjust its annual mortgage insurance premium.&nbsp;&nbsp; All FHA loan borrowers pay a monthly insurance premium on top of their mortgage payment, as a way to insure these low down payment loans.&nbsp; Currently an FHA loan allows you to buy a house with 3.5% down. 

A recent bulletin issued by David H. Stevens, Assistant Secretary for Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner, said that FHA would lower its upfront mort... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:03:37 -1000</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/fha-loans-will-no-longer-allow-6-seller-closing-costs-credits-to-buyer.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/fha-loans-will-no-longer-allow-6-seller-closing-costs-credits-to-buyer.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>FHA loans will no longer allow 6% seller closing costs credits to buyer</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
Well,&nbsp; HUD is at it again.&nbsp; It will go into effect sometime 
in the summer, but FHA loans will be limited to 3% seller concessions 
instead of the 6% currently allowed.&nbsp; 


&nbsp;


This won't mean much for higher priced homes but it will 
cause people buying lower priced homes, which tend to be the people that
 need&nbsp;the help the most, to have to come up with more money.&nbsp; 

&nbsp;

Basically this is another case of the government hurting people by trying to help t... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:56:00 -1000</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/rates-are-going-up-just-not-today.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/rates-are-going-up-just-not-today.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>Rates are going up, just not today</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
Last week, the Federal Open Market Committee announced they were leaving rates unchanged.&nbsp; According to the statement released, in an effort to &quot;provide support to mortgage lending and housing markets&quot; they will &quot;purchase a total of $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and up to $200 billion of agency debt.&quot;&nbsp; 

However,&nbsp;what's important is that &quot;they expect to gradually slow the pace of these purchases in order to promote a smooth transitio... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:17:08 -1000</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/2-ways-to-buy-hawaii-real-estate-with-zero-down.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.alohatony.com/blog/2-ways-to-buy-hawaii-real-estate-with-zero-down.html</link>
            <author>alohatony@gmail.com (Tony Kawaguchi, RA)</author>
            <title>2 ways to buy Hawaii real estate with zero down</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
While most people know that VA loans allow military buyers to get into Hawaii real estate with zero down, most don't know that there is a similar&nbsp;loan backed by the USDA (yes, the beef people) that also allows zero down purchases for regular civilians. 

The USDA home loan will allow any buyers who make less than $109k/ year to buy a house with no money down. Similar to the VA loan, there is a funding fee of 2%, but other than that, it's quite simple. 

If you have more than 5 people in yo... ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:11:01 -1000</pubDate>
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