All Forum Posts by: Matthew Brown

Hi @Eduardo Bilbao - I just want to clarify that the STR situation on O'ahu has cleared up significantly and things have turned out quite well. Department of Planning and Permitting opened up the STR registration on October 24th, 2022 and once you submit the required documentation and pay the fee, you will receive authorization to do nightly rentals. Key thing is that your building has to be recognized as vacation rental building and the building association has to allows STR's. Clients have told me it the entire process went smoothly for them.

So at this point, I see no reason not to invest in an STR on O'ahu if it fulfills your real estate goals.

Aloha, 

Phil, I suspect that the most successful local real estate investors who are investing here (and with less leverage) are doing live-in flips or house-hacking with roommates/friends.

The rest of the island's most successful local real estate investors are loading up on financing risk or investing on the Mainland.

We've had our pandemic-driven surge in Oahu real estate values, which might linger on for another year.  But Koa Ridge seems to be filling the homes as fast as they build them, Ho'opili is moving a lot of dirt around to build more new neighborhoods, and there's a lot of interest in building new commercially-managed high-rise properties within a half-mile of the light rail line.  

Among my military readers, "anything up to a quad" can be a code phrase for "buying with a VA loan." While that's certainly possible to do here, sellers hate dealing with buyers whose loan is subject to the much stricter appraisal criteria for safety & habitability. It's not a bad loan by itself but this is currently very much a seller's market. If you're trying to win a bidding war here then you'd want cash or another type of loan.