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.