House Hunting in Paradise

The northern route to Hana.

Thurs 9/5 --  Driving up Haleakala to the crater at the summit is one of the must-dos of Maui. On Thursday morning during breakfast we resolved to tackle the other giant must-do, which is "the Road to Hana." Before we had left for Hawaii I had talked by a friend by phone and said where we were going and his first question was: "So are you going to drive the Road to Hana".

Hana is small town on the eastern tip of East Maui, on the far side of massive Haleakala from the rest of the island. Getting there requires driving along either the north or south coast of east Maui, on a winding narrow roads with many sights along the way. Of the two roads, the one along the north coast is by far more popular. One can take tour buses that go all the way to Hana town, stopping at the many waterfalls along the way.

We had read about the many waterfalls in our guidebooks, but honestly I didn't care about any of them. Waterfalls don't excite enough to make me want to interrupt the drive, find a place to park the car along the narrow road, and hike into the forest on a narrow path, passing other visitors going each way, in order to see a pleasant cascade. I enjoy seeing them from the road. Jessica was of the same mind, so we mostly read about the waterfalls we didn't see, or sometimes saw from the road, as we drove road.

Jessica remarked that many properties for sale, and I began to notice that as will. Real estate for sale signs used to be common in America, but lately it seemed one hardly saw them, except maybe on very high end properties.  Used to be putting up the metal realtor sign was a rite of passage for a house sale. Now there simply isn't a need for them in the same way. Online listings move properties, often before there is time to put up a metal sign. I could write a lot about this, as I've thought it about much---the way the real estate market has changed so much. 

People talk about real estate prices far outpacing inflation and wages, and to me the biggest factor is that the supply is almost the same, or slowly going, but demand is now huge. In the old days if you wanted to buy property in, say, Kauai (where this idea first hit me), it was a big honking deal to locate listings, let alone go check out the place. This kept demand, and prices down. Normal people could afford to live there.

Now examining properties in any market in the world can be done skillfully from one's laptop, for free. So money now can find many more properties, and prices have been bid up by an entire world full of people looking for investment properties, if not places to live.

The prices get bid up so much by the world buying community that locals, who to have the advantage of being, well, local, no longer can afford simple properties. The first place I knew about this happening was Aspen. The working class got priced out of Aspen and had to live in nearby communities, which themselves got bid up until people had to commute over mountain passes.

Then this hit other communties like Aspen, and now we are seeing the Aspenization of the entire world, including places where one would have thought the supply of housing was inexhaustible (like the Phoenix Valley). 

Hawaii is perhaps one of the places where it most severe. A great number of native Hawaiians have been forced to leave the islands simply because they can no longer afford even simple housing, in a way that was normal for previous generations. If they are lucky, their inherit "auntie's" bungalow and get to to stay in Hawaii.  Boomers mock the young for failing to be frugal enough to buy houses. But is way beyond that. Hawaiians they live doubled and tripled up, or even go homeless in huge numbers. They cannot marry and have families. 

That being said, there are still market swings. It makes one wish for a real estate crash, so people can afford to live again. Some speculate we will see one, as people dump their AirBnB properties. It turns out its a lot harder to make money that way than people realize. Maybe that's what we were seeing on the road to Hana.