It’s one of the first questions buyers ask me, and my honest answer is: it depends on why you’re buying.
Are you buying a primary residence, a second home, a vacation property or an investment? The right part of O’ahu can be completely different for each one. This post is about buying a primary residence, the home you’ll actually live in every day.
This is also where I see buyers make their biggest mistake. They start looking at neighborhoods before they’ve worked out what they need from a neighborhood. O’ahu looks small on a map, but different parts of the island offer very different ways of living.
So before we talk about Honolulu, Kailua, Hawai’i Kai, Ko Olina, ‘Ewa Beach, the North Shore or anywhere else, here are the four questions I work through with every buyer.
1. Start with your budget, not your dream neighborhood
What’s your price range? And if you’re financing, have you been pre-approved?
If you’re relocating from somewhere like rural Texas, O’ahu prices can come as a shock. Where you live now, a million dollars might buy a large home on acreage, maybe even on a lake. Here, we’re on an island. Land is limited, and land is expensive.
So I don’t start with a dream neighborhood that may or may not fit your budget. I first work out where your budget gives you realistic options. Then we narrow it down from there.
2. Where will you work, and how long will you drive?
Where is your job? If you have children, where will they go to school? And how much of your day are you willing to spend in the car?
Buyers moving to O’ahu often underestimate this. A place that looks close on a map isn’t necessarily a quick drive at rush hour. Kapolei to Honolulu is only about 19 miles, but at peak times that drive can take 45 to 75 minutes. Many areas have one road in and one road out, so one accident can back everything up.
Yes, we have The Bus, and now the Skyline rail system, which is continuing to expand. “Continuing” is the key word. When my daughter and I visited the Titanic museum in Belfast, she was admiring the ship and said, “Wow, Mom, imagine. It only took them a couple of years to build this ship, with all its carvings and furniture, and how long have we been working on the rail?”
So don’t just look at mileage. Think about your actual day: where you’re going in the morning, where you’re coming home from, and how much of your day you want to spend getting there.
3. How do you want to live?
Now for the fun part. Picture an ordinary week and ask yourself:
- Do you want an urban lifestyle with restaurants, shopping and entertainment nearby?
- Do you want to be close to the beach, a golf course or a resort community?
- Would you prefer a traditional residential neighborhood, or something more rural?
- A house with a yard, or a condo where you can lock the door and leave?
- Morning walks on the beach, or a garage, more space and a quieter street?
There isn’t one best place to live on O’ahu. There is a place that will fit you much better than the others.
4. Pay attention to what the listing won’t tell you
This is the hard part when you’re relocating and can’t spend weeks exploring the island. A listing gives you the square footage, shows you the kitchen and counts the bedrooms. It doesn’t tell you what it feels like to live there.
Aircraft noise is a good example. Some neighborhoods hear more of it than others. If you’re in the military or used to it, you might barely notice. Someone else hears the same plane and says, “Nope, absolutely not.” Neither of them is wrong.
That’s why I ask for your must-haves and your deal-breakers. The deal-breakers often tell me more.
I learned this from my own sister. After I moved to Hawaii, she decided to buy here too, and she handed me her list. She knew exactly what she wanted, or thought she did. So I listened, showed her around, and let her see different areas and different kinds of homes. She ended up buying something completely different from what she’d imagined, and she spent many very happy years there.
My job isn’t to plug your checklist into the MLS and start opening doors. What you say you want and what will actually make you happy here aren’t always the same. A good agent listens for both.
So, where should you buy?
If you ask me, “Karla, where should I buy on O’ahu?”, I’ll ask you a lot of questions before I answer:
- What’s your budget, and are you pre-approved?
- Where are you working, and how long are you willing to commute?
- What’s important to your household day to day?
- What kind of lifestyle do you want?
- What are your must-haves?
- What can you absolutely not live with?
Once I know those answers, we can match you with the parts of O’ahu that make sense financially and for the way you actually want to live.
I’ve been selling real estate in the islands for almost 30 years, and helping buyers understand the differences between our neighborhoods is one of the most important parts of what I do. If you’re thinking about buying or relocating here and aren’t sure where to start, Contact Me.
Coming next: a closer look at individual O’ahu neighborhoods, what it’s really like to live in each one, and the questions to ask before you buy.
Karla Casey, REALTOR® | Coldwell Banker Realty | RB-17901
Direct: 808.366.4306
Email: karla@kcaloha.com
KarlaCasey.com
