Oahu North Shore beachfront homes

North Shore - Homes on the North Shore of Oahu offer great beachfronts, with wide white sand beaches and famous surf. From Mokuleia to Laie, the houses on the beach on Oahu’s North Shore can vary greatly.

Starting in Mokuleia, this quiet part of the North Shore has many older homes sitting right on their own little white sand beaches, with great water for swimming most of the year. Waves come in the winter, but not close enough to shore to be a problem. You can get a beautiful beachfront home for just a few million, and have a lot of privacy. You’ll hardly ever see anyone on these secluded beaches. North Shore beachfront doesn’t always mean huge surf and lots of tourists and pro surfers. In Mokuleia, it usually means uncrowded beaches and mostly residents.

Over in Waialua the beaches can also be fantastic, although sometimes you get some brown water from the river runoff. Houses in Waialua tend to be very old and often run down, though some people have begun to renovate. You can buy an old tear down on the beach for $1million, or get a renovated house on the beach for $2-4million. Oceanfront real estate in Waialua is usually very peaceful, and you’ll hardly ever see anyone else on the beach. You just have to be careful to know where the river is.

Haleiwa real estate is one of the most popular areas, simply because there is a bunch of tourist stuff there. Homes in Haleiwa are usually older, so you can get a nice piece of land and renovate the house for $1.5million, or you can buy a nice renovated home on beach for $2-5million. If you live in Haleiwa, you’re going to see a lot of tourists and surfers, and also you can get some great rents during the surf season. Waves are larger, and the harbor is right there so you can have your own boat.

Moving East, Kawailoa is a great strip of beachfront homes between Haleiwa and Waimea. With only a small strip of beach, it Kawailoa isn’t the best place to sit on the sand, but it does have nice calm water. A tear down will cost about $1.5million on the beach, and up to $4million for a home in great condition. It’s easy to drive by this area and miss it, but if you’re looking for beachfront homes in Hawaii, don’t forget Kawailoa.

The Sunset Area is the next neighborhood East on the coast, with a lot more sand and much nicer beaches as a result. Oceanfront homes in Sunset range from $2million for a near tear down to $15million for a new home of 4000sqft or so. The Sunset area is famous for surfing and the real estate there is fantastic. Many large estates sit on the beachfront, offering a lifestyle that can’t be matched anywhere.

One hidden little gem of North Shore real estate is Kawela Bay. Just next to Turtle Bay resort, Kawela is like a private island within an island. There isn’t much surrounding it, so you’ll have to drive 15 minutes to a grocery store, but the seclusion and privacy is exactly what some people are looking for. Kawela bay has calm water year round, with nice waves on the outside if you are willing to do a little paddling. The homes in Kawela are older, but it’s only about $2million for a beachfront lot with beautiful sand and safe swimming year round. Plus you can go next door to the resort and enjoy their restaurant and amenities.

Laie has both cliff side and flat land homes on the water, and some great beaches too. It’s far from everything, which means peaceful secluded beaches all to yourself. Homes here are smaller and older, and with the price being lower than other areas, they offer the opportunity to tear down and build your own dream home.

Oahu Beachfront homes - Waimanalo

Waimanalo - You don't hear about Waimanalo very often, but it has beautiful beaches and a quiet old Hawaii feel. Many of the residents have lived there for generations. Homes on the beach in Waimanalo tend to be older and cheaper, around $2-3million. The beach and the water in Waimanalo is beautiful, and buying real estate there can be a really bargain compared to other areas. You'll likely have to drive to Kailua for groceries and everything else, but that's only a 10-15 minute drive.

Life in Waimanalo is a throw back to the Hawaii of 50 years ago. The pace of life is slow, and the town is just a tiny strip of small stores that is very easy to miss as you drive by. But ocean front real estate in Waimanalo is a great option if you like the slow small town feel of it.

You can buy beachfront homes in Waimanalo for a fraction of the cost of other areas like Diamond head, and you’re only a few minutes drive into Kailua town, which is probably where you will spend most of your time.

Ocean View Home in Hawaii Kai

I have this house overlooking Portlock listed right now for $1.8million, which is a bargain for a home this size, with this view, in this neighborhood. This is the home that we featured on HGTV, with 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and over 3500sqft of living space. With beautiful ocean views from nearly every room in the house, it's a unique luxury Oahu home. This home sits about 100ft or so above the ocean, overlooking the homes in Portlock that are oceanfront. The difference between being right on the water and being a block back can be about $2million!

With so many people looking to retire in Hawaii, Oahu luxury homes are maintaining a strong market. Our latest large sale was a $22million estate on the beach in Kailua. Between Diamond Head, Hawaii Kai, Kailua, and the North Shore (Haleiwa and Sunset), Oahu has all kinds of luxury estates to offer with as much as several acres on the water.

The range of luxury homes is currently about $1.75million all the way up to $25million, and many of the buyers are international, which means our current weak dollar is helping their buying power!

Contact me for Hawaii Luxury Home information or a private viewing.

Want to buy real estate in Kailua and run a B&B?

You might be thinking that you want to run a B&B in Hawaii. Well, so do lots of other people, and it may soon get easier to buy real estate in Kailua that allows for a B&B.

The Advertiser reported today that "the controversy over bed-and-breakfast operations on Oahu has resulted in measures that could increase the number of such accommodations but impose new requirements."

The City Planning Commission wants to 1) lift the ban on new bed-and-breakfast homes and 2) limit them to residential neighborhoods and 3) required more information about them in advertisements.

A Kailua resident against the proposal said "The only beneficiaries are the few people who would destroy our residential character and turn it into a resort."

Some Kailua residents don't like B&B's because of problems with parking, too many guests, loud parties, late-night arrivals. But one amendment calls for the repeal of the present B&B law, allowing them in residential neighborhoods under a conditional use permit, and provides an avenue for neighbors to block the operation.

These issues are exactly why a legal bed and breakfast in Hawaii is so valuable. It adds so much dollar value to the property because they hardly ever get listed for sale. I can't even quantify exactly how much value it adds, but a B&B is basically just an income property with massive income. On a really good B&B, you can get triple the monthly income that you would on a long term rental. Awesome.

This new law would allow for a lot more homes to get the conditional use permit, which means that those homes would increase in value as well. While neighbors may not like the new laws, it will certainly help the property value of those B&B's, while potentially it could hurt the neighbors'. Would you want to buy a home next to a tiny hotel with people coming in and out all day and night?

Both Kailua and the North shore have lots of these little bed and breakfast homes, which means these new laws could be pretty impactful. A lot of the B&B's are right on the ocean, with prime locations for getting high rents. If you're thinking of buying one, you better buy a legal one, because an illegal ( or should I say, non-legal) B&B could get shut down by the City at anytime.

Magnificent Oahu Luxury home - a private island within an island!

Yesterday I view a home like none other I've ever seen before. It wasn't just that the home was beautiful and magnificent (it was), but the location. As we all know, location is everything, especially so in Hawaii, where 50 feet in one direction or another can mean you are waterfront.

In the case of the house I viewed yesterday, it sits on an island that juts out from Paiko Lagoon, with no other houses on the island. You take this little private road out onto this little private island and come to this massive private home, which is the only structure on the island. The home was just built this year, and is definitely a very unique property. I don't know where else in the world you can find something quite like this. It's certainly one of the most luxurious homes in Oahu.

Paiko Lagoon, as mentioned earlier this week, is a small hidden waterfront area just between Hawaii Kai and Diamond Head. The homes are pretty fantastic, most with great water frontage.

The view from the house is amazing, since it's surrounded by water on three sides and a preservation area on the fourth side.

The home has four, yes four dishwashers, 4 washers and dryers, massive lanais, a pool, a 4 car garage, 3 refrigerators, and the list just goes on and on.

The beach in front of the house is mostly hard sand, so it's not the best beachfront to swim around, but the builder put in grass everywhere around the property, all the way down to the water, so it's easy to sit right by the warm water.

It sits out on Paiko Lagoon, so the water is very calm, and the views are amazing. The way this home was built, the master bedroom leads right out over the water and feels like you are in a boat or something floating. With over 3500sqft and 1500 ft of lanais, all facing the water, there is no shortage of ocean view here.

I've seen plenty of oceanfront homes in Hawaii, but usually that means that one side of the house is on the ocean, not three. Usually the house is set back from the beach by about 30-50 feet, but this house is right on the water. You can lean out the bedroom and look down at the ocean. Amazing.

The little finishes are quite amazing too. The builder used very custom materials, like this beautiful custom tub and faucet. It's shaped like a dragon! That steel tub is encased in a marble box. Pretty amazing.

Luxury homes are common in Hawaii, but this is no common luxury home. With a media room, massive closets, huge entertainment areas, and multiple lanais, it's an entertainer's dream. The owner said he has hosted hundreds of people at this house, which required him to have valet parking off the property.

And the price? Well as they say, if you have to ask, you probably can't afford it. It's about $10million.

Have you ever heard of Paiko Lagoon?

If you live here in Oahu, you've probably driven right past Paiko Lagoon without ever noticing it. Even though it's just one turn off of Kalanianaole Hwy, it's a sort of secret spot for locals. With fantastic ocean front homes, a sandy beach, and nice calm water, it's the best kept secret in the Hawaii Kai area. I say "area" because it's not quite in Hawaii Kai, but actually considered part of the Diamond Head region in the Honolulu MLS.

This is kind of unfortunate, because Diamond Head makes people think of something very specific, something very not Paiko Lagoon. Paiko is a lot more like the Portlock area in that the shoreline is flat with small sandy or rocky beaches, and no waves at the shore. There are nice waves about a half mile out though. The water looks like this:

If you want to live in an ocean front home in Hawaii and you have about $3million, Paiko Lagoon might be for you.

This home sold for $3.3million a while back, with a great pool and as you can see, a very tropical island feel. You can live right on the beach or right across the street from the beach for about half the price. Some of the homes here in Paiko Lagoon might remind you of Portlock and other areas of Hawaii Kai, with their large open layouts and high price tags.

It's only about 2 miles from Paiko Lagoon to the middle of Hawaii Kai, with Costco, the Koko Marina center, and everything that you love about Hawaii Kai. So why is it included in the Diamond Head district? Beats me. It's farther to Diamond Head than it is to Hawaii Kai, so I guess it's just because Paiko Lagoon is west of the actual sign on Hawaii Kai Drive.

If you want to buy oceanfront property in Hawaii and you would like a nice beach with year round calm water, this is the place for you, for $3million.

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.