More Oahu luxury Condos - 1010 Wilder

It's easy to confuse 1010 Wilder with the condos mentioned in the last post at 1001 Wilder. But the buildings are very different, and in different neighborhoods. 1010 wilder is located in Makiki, a few blocks away from Punchbowl, and it offers great views of the city, with a little bit of ocean view on the horizon if you get up high enough in the building.

There are only 48 units in this building, and 4 units per floor, which is a very low number when you consider that Koolani has hundreds of units, and a dozen or so on each floor.

It was built in 1974, which is pretty old but the building has been taken care quite nicely. The units in 1010 Wilder can be quite large, at 2100sqft for a 3bedroom unit, and priced about $1.5-$2million. With a current monthly fee of about $1000, you get a heated pool, BBQ area, a recreation area to host friends, and a resident manager at your beck and call.

As you would expect you get 2 car parking, and laundry inside the unit. In the luxury condo market, every unit should have a laundry inside. If you have public or community laundry, you're probably not in the Hawaii luxury condo market yet.

Some of the units in this building have been remodeled and upgraded with granite kitchens and marble baths, and even hardwood flooring. In fact, once you're inside some of these units, you won't be able to tell that the building is 35 years old.

If you can find a condo that is in original condition from 1974, you're going to get a great deal on it, and if you're going to remodel any of it, you might as well remodel all of it, so look for something either perfect, or terrible, but no in between.

Luxury Condos in Oahu Hawaii

When it comes to Luxury condos, Oahu is hard to beat. With beautiful ocean views from so many different buildings, you can watch the sunset or sunrise from any angle you want, with mountain views in the background.

1001 Wilder is a luxury condo building in Punchbowl area, built back in 1964. Prices in this building are about $1.5million for a 2200sqft 3bedroom condo, which is quite large for any condo. With a nice large grassy area to relax in, 1001 Wilder is a great choice for people who want a condo in Honolulu, but not in the tourist areas.

You can still drive 5 minutes down to Waikiki, but the Punchbowl area is basically for local people who need to commute into town for work.

The building features a concierge, doorman, which will feel familiar to people from New York and other large metropolitan areas. It also has an exercise room, heated pool, and meeting room. Even though it's warm in Hawaii, having a heated pool is great because in the winter it gets down to about 70 in the pool, which is just a little too cool to hang out in for very long.

Like most luxury buildings, 1001 Wilder has a resident manager and laundry in the unit. Parking in the building is no problem, since each unit comes with 2 parking stalls and guest parking is readily available.

You can't get an ocean view from 1001 Wilder, not a good one anyway, but you can have wonderful views of the mountains, which become more beautiful the longer you live here. At first you love the ocean, but after a while it's the mountains that really show God's creative power.

Units in 1001 Wilder actually don't come up for sale very often, so if you see one you like, you better jump on it. Condos of this size in Honolulu are not all that common.

Oahu Condos continue hot market! Buyers out in force!

I decided to make a separate post for the Condo stats because they are so vastly different than the single family statisitics for Oahu. It's like 2 separate markets, prices in some areas move in oppositie directions, as do the market trends in SFR's vs. condos.

Condos in Oahu are still rising in price, with a 3.1% increase since March of last year. Most notably, in East Oahu, the median condo price actually rose 11.2%. That is the largest percentage gain for any area of Hawaii for this year. Also, the number of Hawaii Kai condo sales also rose by 36% since last year!

Coming in a close second, North Shore condos rose by 9% since a year ago, with about the same number of sales as last year.

In other areas, the number of sales and prices have both dropped quite a bit. In Makakilo, there were only 10 sales so far this year, compared to 30 sales last year. Prices in Makakilo have actually risen though, to a median of $362,500!

Overall, the number of condos sold this year is down about 21%, but the median price is up 3.4% on all of Oahu. At the same time, core honolulu condos seem to be doing incredible! Kapahulu to Kuliouou condos have risen about 73% in median prices! That's not a typo!

In condo rich Mililani, while the number of sales has dropped from 69 sales to 55 sales this year, the prices have still risen 3.3% year to date, and 11% for Feb 07 comapred to Feb 08.

The median price of all Oahu condos was $339k at the end of February, and there were 2476 total available condos. That's the highest it's been in about a year and half, and it has only been higher than that once in the last 5 years.

If you're looking for condos on Oahu, call me!

Brand New Townhouse in Hawaii for $405k!

I currently have this townhouse in escrow. It was listed for $405k, with 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths, built in 2006. It's beautiful, and located in newly built ocean pointe, a great community in Ewa Beach. Just to compare, that same $405k would get you a 1 bedroom condo of 900sqft in Hawaii Kai. Money goes a long way in Ewa Beach.

This townhouse has a beautiful view of the mountains, and a nice little private yard. Who would have thought you could get so much, so new, in Hawaii? This is exactly why so many people have moved over to the Ewa Beach and Kapolei areas. Sure there is more traffic, but the home you get to after the traffic is just so much newer, nicer, bigger, everything-er.

Mauna Luan Condos in Hawaii Kai

In the middle of Hawaii Kai you can see several tall condo buildings at the bottom of Hahaione Valley. The most popular one (sells fastest) seems to be the Mauna Luan, a 20 story building with wide ocean views from just about every unit. This is the view from the 20th floor.

You can buy a great 2 bedroom condo for about $500k, while a nicely renovated penthouse runs about $575k.

There are a lot of great things about the Mauna Luan, and maybe the first things you'll notice is the fantastic amenities and grounds. As you soon as you walk onto the building grounds, you see beautiful tropical landscaping and running water features everywhere.

The 2 pools at the Mauna Luan are amazing too, just like a resort. In fact, "resort" is the word that people use to describe how the entire grounds feel. This of course is what the monthly fee covers.

Finally, if you want a view of the marina and the ocean, the Mauna Luan has fantastic views. Every single unit has some kind of view, because of the way the building is constructed.

If you're thinking of buying a condo in Hawaii Kai, consider the Mauna Luan.

It's still a sellers market - just ask the buyers

This week I've been with 2 different buyers who were looking for a nice condo in Oahu. We looked in Waikiki and Ala Moana for one of the buyers, and found a few that we liked. When we began talking to the first seller's agent, he said that they would not negotiate at all on the price.

That seemed odd so we moved on to the next property and wrote an offer $10k below asking, which was a reasonable offer, I thought. Today we got a counter offer for more money. If anyone thinks this market is slowing down, they should talk to the buyers and sellers actually in the market. Sellers are not being very negotiable, which shows how much confidence they have in the market.

If this market is slowing down, nobody has told the sellers. When we looked for condos around Waikele and Waipio, there were a several available, but none of the sellers seemed to want to negotiate on their prices. The real estate market is apparently still very strong in Oahu!

If you're thinking about buying a home in Oahu right now, don't expect to negotiate the price down too much. The sellers are holding out!

What can you get for $300k?

I've had a few different clients this month looking for condos in the $300k range. I'm not sure why they all three showed up at the same time, other than that they were all military. It was an interesting thing to see what kind of different properties we could find in that price range in various areas.

In Kaneohe we found some low rise concrete building condos at Na Pali Gardens for $300k, with 2 bedrooms and 1.5 baths, a nicely redone kitchen, about 900sqft. They had only 1 parking spot, which was kind of a bummer. The building is in good condition for being almost 40 years old, and the complex has a decent pool too. Kaneohe is really starting to make a turn around with recent renovations in the downtown area. Most don't have laundry in the unit, but a few people have somehow gotten them in there.

In Waikele, we found 2 bedroom condos built in the 90's with about 750sqft, 2 parking stalls, and a little lanai. The properties feel totally different, more like suburbia. The kitchens were decent but not old enough to have been remodeled yet. You get 2 parking spots, and a short drive to costco. You also get a washer dryer in the unit.

In Waikiki, we found some 1 bedroom studios of around 550-600sqft, in highrises, but only a couple blocks to the beach and all the action. I also found an apartment building conversion, which seems like has been very nicely done with new appliances and remodeled lobby to feel more luxurious. If you want a studio in Waikiki, about $300k will do it, surprisingly. You can live close to Ala Moana or right on the Ala Wai Canal. These were mostly built in the 60's and 70's, but all have been remodeled to some extent. Some have been completely redone to feel like new. Only 1 parking stall, and usually no laundry in the unit.

If you don't need a ton of space, $300k will still get you a nice condo in Oahu.

Luxury Waikiki Condos

This week I've been looking at luxury condos in and around Waikiki with a great ocean views. So after a couple hours of looking through the listings, I thought it would be valuable to post some of my best findings and explain a bit about these buildings.

First of all, the true luxury condo market begins at about $1.2million in Oahu and has a view like this from about the 30th floor of a highrise. And most of these properties are right in Waikiki, Ala Moana, or Kakaako. There are also some nice ones in Diamond Head. And it's important to understand that there's a big difference between ocean view and ocean front. If you want ocean front, it's going to nearly double the price of a luxury condo, to around $3-4million.

Some of these units have an elevator that opens right into your condo, because they take up an entire floor. They usually have very nice rooms that look something like this.

Right now there are several brand new or almost new buildings where you can get a luxury condo that has never been lived in. At the Pinnacle in downtown Honolulu, you can get a fantastic brand new condo for about $2million with an ocean view, and very large at around 3000sqft.

At Keola Lai, a new building in Kakaako, the penthouse is currently for sale for $2.3million and is about 2500sqft. This building is right across from the ocean, so it's got fantastic views. The building should be done in a few months (they say). They also have smaller 1500sqft units for about $1.3million.

Just down the street from Keola Lai is a building that was completed last year called Ko Olani. A great building with a valet (nice feature!) and fantastic ocean views. It looks like this. Very nice building and great finishes everywhere. Bargain priced at around $1.3million for an upper floor with great ocean views.

People love the luxury condos in Hawaii because they can leave them closed up and have very little to no maintenance while they're gone. In exchange they pay a monthly fee to the building management, which takes care of everything on the exterior. For a luxury condo in the $2million price range, the monthly fees are about $1500-$2000/month. That sounds high until you think about how much you have to spend maintaining a house of that value. Yard work, paint, pool, repairs, roofing, etc. It all adds up.

New condos in Kailua by Schuller / Dr Horton

There has been much speculation about the new condos that are supposed to be built in Kailua by Schuller homes. The project, which will be called Ironwoods at Kailua, is planeed to be 153 condos on the north end of Kailua.

People have been calling and emailing me about this project for a year or so, and today I had a nice woman from Kailua calling me for more information because the Schuller site doesn't say much. So I called the Schuller office and spoke to a guy who said very plainly, "we don't have any new imformation about it yet."

I asked him, "Is it going to be a long time before you know anything? Years?"

He said, "It's going to be a long time."

The Dr Horton site doesn't have anything more than the number of properties that will be there. There are no floorplans, no prices, no nothing. I think they are having legal problems with the project. Either that or they are trying to finish off the Makakilo and Waianae projects, because that is what the guy said he has right now.

Whenever they actually do come out with the prices or any new information, I'll post it here, but you'll likely have to camp out in front of the sales office to make sure you get one. They are going to sell like hotcakes. Actually, they are going to sell like Kailua condos, which sell faster than hotcakes.

When you look up condos in Kailua over $500k, it's pretty slim trimmings. Only Bluestone, an older building, is priced around $800-$900k. Whereas in Hawaii Kai condos are everywhere, Kailua has very few. That's part of it's charm - mostly single family homes.

So wait until 2008 or later and I'll put some info here about Ironwood, the newest mysterious condos in Kailua.

Kailua town condos - no car needed

Recently I've had a few buyers for Kailua town condos. If you want to live somewhere that allows you to walk from home to the shopping, restaurants, and beach, Kailua town condos are ideal.

There have been some retirees moving from California and some young first time buyers that have really liked the condos in Kailua town lately. If you want to live right in the heart of Kailua town, there are several great condo complexes that allow you to walk to the grocery store, Starbucks, and everything that Kailua town has to offer. Of course, next year that will include the new Whole Foods that is coming. We can't wait for that.

There's Poinciana Manor and Gardenia Manor, which are two similar complexes that are low rise buildings. They're a little old but pretty well taken care of. You get 2 parking spots with most units, which is a great benefit. Both of the complexes have great grounds with lush landscaping and koi ponds. Very nice ammenities. Poinciana has a saltwater pool too.

At Hokulani, a newer complex, you only get 1 parking spot, but you get a much newer complex. The units are generally a little smaller, but they're cheaper, at around $350k-400k, so if you're on a limited budget, they are a great option.

Windward cove is a unique complex, where each unit has a rooftop lanai. They are a bit bigger and therefore a bit more money, at about $500k. Very limited parking.

Windward Harbor is right next to Windward Cove, but I think all the units have 2 parking spots. Also, they have a great pool and tennis court. Nice ammenities and a nice koi pond. There isn't much guest parking, which is a bummer.

There are a few others that are nice, but these are my favorites.