What next?

Okay so I have told you about moving here. How about where we are going to live besides the hotel???

So that is really the million dollar question. Housing here is very expensive, but it is paradise. We have decided to buy a townhouse to live in instead of renting or living in base housing. Are you out of your mind??? Yes, we ask that question everyday. So here is our justification and thoughts on the situation. We will be here for roughly 3 years. Our experience with buying a house in College Station was pretty good. The Navy is giving us a beefy housing allowance and cost of living adjustment now that we are here. We looked at base housing and simply can not justify paying all of our BAH for a 2 bedroom home. We also can't seem to justify paying an increased BAH in May when Brad makes rank for the same 2 bedroom home. We can see renting something in town for that amount or smaller but renting just seems to be a waste of money in our eyes. Yes, we would not have the commitment and huge mortgage to deal with once we move. We would not have to figure out how to keep the place rented once we move. We would not have to worry about what is going to happen with the housing market as much. But as you can see we do chose to worry about these things since we are buying.

So yes, we are totally out of our minds for even considering purchasing a home in Hawaii. We will be able to say "We have a second home in Hawaii" or "We winter in Hawaii" if we get stationed somewhere awful in the snow. So we won't tell anyone that people are living in our home in Hawaii so we can afford to say these things. We just won't talk about these things for now.

We have looked at several places in different locations on the island. We decided that we wanted to live in Kaneohe/Kailua on the Windward/East side of the island. The area is known as the country of the island. It is away from the hustle and bustle of Honolulu and Waikiki but only a 15 minute drive away. It is also away from the Aiea town with the mall and shopping, but still only a 15 minute drive away. Aiea, incidentally, is the only US city name without any constants in it. The language is a whole other post that you will have to look forward to. Brad will have a little bit of a commute but if we lived in base housing he would have about a 20 - 30 minute drive to go 5-6 miles. From the Windward side of the island, it is still a 20 - 30 minute drive but it is about 20 miles and it is through the mountains and lush green country side versus the concrete buildings and shopping centers. I will have to remember to take pictures of that area. We have friends that live in both places so it was just where we liked better. The drive from the base area is the most beautiful drive. We take H-3 which is a link between Pearl Harbor and the Marine Corp base out in Kaneohe. All of the big highways were built with federal funds to link the different military installations on the island. The locals will not drive on H-3 so traffic is pretty light on it in comparison to H-1 which at times is bumper to bumper traffic for hours. H-3 is said to be built in a ceremonial graveyard. I will have to figure out the whole story and post the history/legend story here soon. Anyway, when we were deciding where to live we just liked the feeling that both of us got as we emerged from the H-3 tunnel and say the Kaneohe Bay view. When you come out, you will see what we are talking about. It is just peaceful and serene. It is true Hawaii gorgeous landscape.

So what about the actual house? Well that has been an adventure. We looked at lots of places with very specific ideals of what we wanted and needed. Well, the wanted part kind of took over once we saw what we were getting for the money that we were spending. Everyone said that houses out in HI are a lot smaller so get ready. I was not ready at all. How in the world can anyone live in a 2 bedroom home that is 700 sq feet??? I know that I am from Texas and everything is bigger in Texas, but really how can I cram into such a small place. We have entirely too much stuff as it is, which we downsized considerably before we moved. And on top of that we have a new addition to add to the family who is going to have its own stuff??? Crazy talk. So we decided that we needed 3 bedrooms. I mean where else are we going to put our visitors??? Actually, many factors played into this decision, like how much we could get for rent vs. cost of mortgage. So we found a place and put in an offer. That really did not go so well. We put in the offer well under the asking price because in our minds things were not worth what they were being asked and we thought we could get it for lower and should. Welcome to the Hawaii housing market. Needless to say the sellers were not too thrilled with our offer and the realtor decided to be an unethical b(*&h and basically ignore our offers until there was another offer on the table that was higher. Then the realtor called back and said well that offer fell through are you still interested??? So we played her game again and the results were the same so we decided to move on. Yes, to bigger and better places. When we say bigger, I am talking price. A different property in Kailua had caught our eye, but it is more expensive due to the location (the other place was in Kaneohe). There are some good and bad with this property but for us right now it is the best choice. So we played the negotiating game again but this time we played with a realtor who was actually very ethical and professional. Unfortunately, we did not get to play with numbers as much as we wanted to because the sellers were already selling at a loss and were pretty firm on their asking price. So, with time ticking away we decided on a number and accepted. We are going to try and close by the end of the month which is going to be a very big push but hopefully everything will fall into place and we will move in the first part of November. What a great birthday present, right!!!

We are heading over today for the inspection. I am really scared that something big will rear its head and break the deal. I am fully expecting some items to be found and we will have to deal with those but I am hoping over all everything will be normal. I am planning on taking some pictures to post but here are a few that we took from the listing.


Here is the front of the house.

Here is the lanai with a bit of the view. We have not decided if we are going to pull up some of the decking to put in grass for the dogs, it all depends on what is underneath.

Here is the back yard looking at the house. There is not a fenced in section but there is enough room to let the dogs out on a long leash to play and potty.

Here is the salt water pool in the complex. We are going to use the heck out of this pool.


Here is the kitchen. Yes, it is green. We will be stripping the cabinets at some point to refinish them in a better color. We also want to upgrade the countertops this time so we can enjoy them. But for the time being, it is very livable.


Here is the living room and the dining room. The whole house has a wonderful berber carpet that is really soft on the toesies. We looked at a lot of laminate flooring and we are glad that there is carpet here. Especially when the wee one comes.


Here are the two bathrooms in the unit. The red one is upstairs and the white one is downstairs. The downstairs is also the laundry room. We plan to upgrade both of these rooms while we are here but that won't be for a while.

So that is the new place if all goes well. We are so ready to get moved into a home. I will get some more pictures today and post them so you can see the bedrooms too. There is one bedroom downstairs off the lanai and then the master and second bedroom are upstairs. There is a view of the ocean from the upstairs front bedroom and I think from the downstairs one as well. I think if you look over the lanai wall you can see it too.