Selling your luxury home in Honolulu? Include in your marketing portfolio an aerial photograph of your property to add another dimension of the appeal of your home! Contact me for more information.

First installments of the Honolulu Real Property tax bills are due August 20th! In June, the Honolulu City Council finalized the budget for fiscal year 2009 and voted against increasing real property taxes. However, the property tax credit for homeowners was reduced from $200 to $100. Assessment notices sent out last Fall included information on deductions for which an owner qualifies. For example, a standard homeowner’s exemption is $80,000 and increases to $120,000 for homeowners 65 and older who have applied for and obtained the exemption for age. These exemption amounts are deducted from the total assessed value, and this net assessed value is subject to the tax rate. The rate for “Residential” properties remains at $3.29 per $1000 of assessed value of your home. The tax rate for non-residential properties is $12.40 per $1,000 valuation for non-residential properties.

Source: http://www.co.honolulu.hi.us/council/d1/080604pressreleasefinalbudgetjune408.pdf

Want to know who has been in your house? The Honolulu Board of Realtors ® will be implementing the SentriLock Electronic LockBox system this September. The state-of-the-art SentriLock enables accountability to clients and offers numerous advantages over the manual lockboxes that are set manually and rarely changed, creating a security issue. While the Board cannot mandate that all licensed realtors purchase and use the boxes, I am happy to be providing this service to my clients.

The SentriLock Company is majority-owned by the National Association of REALTORS® and REALTORS® sit on the Board of Directors and set its direction. Some of the features of the system include the following:

· The LockBox records every time the key compartment is opened and holds a total history of 70 accesses at any given time. The owner can download all history from a box by using a SentriLock Card that utilizes an embedded chip and requires a personal pin number. If box is left open while showing is conducted, box will record length of time the box was left open.

· The Agent can log onto an online SentriLock System website and view access reports showing who accessed their listing and the time. If a SentriLockCard was used, it will show the name, the name of company, contact phone number and email address.

· Agents can set “Call Before Showing” access on their boxes, this will require all showing agents (with or without a SentriLock card) to request this CBS code.

· Contractor Code – agents can provide contractors with a code that has no limit in time access to your lockbox or you can program a time duration that this code can be used.

· If the agent is unavailable when an interested buyer wants to see the home, the buyer's agent would be granted access to the residence via the lockbox. Outside vendors also could have access to the lockbox.

Want to read more about it? See http://www.hicentral.com/pdfs/Article-REProfessional-MarApr08.pdf. 

What a beautiful day for a race! Light tradwinds, plenty of cloud cover, and numerous volunteers and police officers keeping us safe, enabled successful race conditions early Sunday morning. Thanks to everyone for the encouraging words and support! I finished in 3 hours and 1 minute!

 

The Honolulu Board of Realtors has just published the “Oahu Housing Trends” providing statistics for the residential housing market during the second quarter of 2008 (Volume 18, Number 2).

Here are some of the highlights for the Hawaii Kai region:

The number of condominium sales decreased by 37%. The median sales price increased to $557,500, with average days on the market (DOM) at 27 days, the lowest for any condominium area on Oahu. The DOM indicator measures the time a listing is on the market before a sales agreement is reached and does not include the escrow time.

The number of sales of single family homes dropped by 41%. The median sales price decreased to $870,000, with a DOM indicator of 50 days.

The Quarterly Absorption Rates (QAR) were at 32.5% for single family homes and 49.1% for condominiums in Hawaii Kai. The QAR is calculated by dividing the number of number of properties sold by the number of active listings in a particular quarter.

NB. Use of this data does not imply any endorsement of my interpretation by the Honolulu Board of Realtors

The Honolulu Tinman event is fast approaching! This year, on Sunday, July 20th, over 700 people of all ages are expected for an 800 meter swim at the beautiful Queen’s Surf in Waikiki, a 25 mile bike through the neighborhoods of Kahala to Hawaii Kai and back, and a 10K (about 6 miles) around Diamond Head. About a third of us will be women. This will be my second time competing and I hope to beat my time from last year of 3 hours and 6 minutes. Training, discipline, and a mental commitment are certainly required, but the feeling of accomplishment is enormous!

Very special thanks goes out to my trainer, KC Carlberg, owner of Try Fitness Hawaii and to the group of women I swim, bike and run with. KC has provided us a conditioning regime that promotes athletic strength, development, and well-being that ensures a successful event. We have a great time training together! Race time is 5:30 a.m. Come on out to support us!

"Immobiliare" d'Italia

Buon giorno! Our family trip to Italy was fabulous! Per due settimane, abbiamo visitato Roma, Ravello, Toscana e Firenze! (For two weeks, we visited Rome, Ravello, Tuscany and Florence.)

Of course, while we were there, I had to check out the real estate—“Immobiliare”—and to meet the local real estate agents in the town of Amalfi (Costa Real Estate) and in central Tuscany at San Gimignano. Grazie Italia!

What happened to IndyMac?

Pasadena, California-based IndyMac Bancorp, Inc. is now IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB, after federal regulators seized and froze home equity lines of credit assets last Friday. What is something Senator Schumer said? After he released a letter indicating that IndyMac would collapse without intervention, there was a run on the bank for over $1.3 billion.

How should Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae be rescued?

The Bush Administration would like to expand the Treasury credit line (a blank check from the taxpayers, asked the members of the Senate Banking Committee?) and buy equities in Fannie and Freddie. This is not being met with enthusiasm by Congress, but the rescue plan did have some support on Tuesday. Fannie and Freddie, a major source of funding for banks and other home lenders, are companies set up by Congress and owned by shareholders. Their recent bail-out has caused shares to fall 26% for Freddie and 27% for Fannie, further threatening the broader financial system. Treasury Secretary Paulson hopes the proposal to stand behind Fannie and Freddie is included in a broader housing reform bill.

Senate Passes FHA Modernization.

Over 90,000 REALTORS mobilized to contact their Senators in favor of housing bill HR 3221. It passed on July 11th with a vote of 63 to 5 to approve legislation that is hoped to create affordable housing opportunities by setting loan limits up to $625,500 for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA. It will stimulate housing demand with a temporary $8,000 home ownership tax credit if Congress convinces the President over the next few weeks that this will help to restore confidence in the mortgage and housing markets. Stay tuned…