 Aloha and welcome to Inside Hawaii Real Estate, a show dedicated to providing up-to-the-information used to Hawaii home buyers, homeowners, and investors. I'm Wotanaka with my co-host, business partner, and wife, Leonie Lam, a realtor with over 20 years' experience in various leadership roles in the Hawaii real estate industry. Thanks. Well, Will is a full-time realtor with a background as a real estate litigation attorney, and he was the former head of a title and estuary company during Hawaii. And we work as a team to keep you informed with the latest in Hawaii real estate. And today, we have a show that is filled with so much aloha. And guess what? We're buzzing over to the Garden Isle of Kauai, and we have a Kauai real estate expert with us. His name is Greg Bloss, and he's going to help us go inside Kauai real estate today. Welcome, Greg. Welcome, aloha. Thank you so much for including me in your show today. Yeah, we are so excited to have you, and then, you know, for everyone out there. So, he's Greg Bloss. He's a broker and realtor with Ocean Front, Sotheby's International Realty, serves all of Kauai real estate, from the east to the west, and north to the south. And, you know, we're so excited to get into the neighborhoods. He lives in Kapa'at on the east side of Kauai with his wife and two sons, and he's been on Kauai for 20 years, and he is one of the top realtors on Kauai. So, Greg, you know, when you and your wife, Candy, moved to Kauai over 20 years ago, what was so special about Kauai that you wanted to move there? Yeah, so I think that my wife likes to always say that we were the penguins that didn't like the cold. So, we moved here from Colorado. We just celebrated this week in our 34 wedding anniversary. Yeah, it came here for our honeymoon. We did the Nepali Coast to helicopter ride. My wife's name is Candy. She said, let's come back for a 10-year wedding reunion, our wedding anniversary, and backpack the Kauai Coast. So, we did. We're there, and we're like, why don't we live here? So, we started a five-year journey and two years into that five years approximately. We just packed up about one way tickets to Paradise, and here we are. Well, my favorite things from Kauai are Tamiha's Nestle White, like the Krakseed. I don't know if you've ever had that, but every time I go to Kauai, I will go to CVS or Long, and I'll pick those up. And then I also love Kauai Global. I don't know if you have had that. Yeah, exactly. My favorite and everything. So, yeah. So, we're super excited to have you. Great. Yeah, thank you. So, love living here. And like you said, I have two boys. My oldest one is a photographer on Island, doing really well. My youngest just graduated college in Colorado, and he's now going to flight school. So, it's been an amazing place to raise your family. We love it here. And before this, as we were kind of chatting, we were talking a little bit about the Kauai you really see market. So, I don't know if you want to just give us a little heads up about the way things are going right now for Kauai you really see. Yeah. So, it's, you know, markets all across the country are different right now, right? You know, interest rates have certainly played a part of that. We are a resort destination, so we do get a lot of cash buyers, but I like to call it an evolving market. It's always changing. And like you, we've both been in the real estate for a while. I'm going on 20 years now. We've both ridden through the crashes and stuff. So, I think it's still a great market. It's just the market, the inventory is limited, but it's still an amazing place to buy and on real estate for sure without a doubt. And you know, I went to Kauai, you know, several times also. I mean, it's always lush. I mean, yeah, that's why they call it the Garden Isle for reason. Right. And you know, you kind of taught me from a talking story with you before that there's different microclimates. So, we have that here, but you mentioned there's seven microclimates and, you know, within different neighborhoods and, yeah, let's unpack that a little bit. Yeah. So, I mean, we're known for having like the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. Waimea Canyon is, you know, out of the middle of nowhere, you go up to Kauai in our mountains and all of a sudden there's a, looks like the Grand Canyon. So, we have the mountains, we have tropical, we have a rainforest up in Honolay, we have the desert and the southwest side, we have, you know, just all everything but snow and that's good. We ran away from the snow. And then on the neighborhoods, you know, we cover from, you know, most of our resort markets are dictated by zoning. So, the North Shore Princeville is zoned as a visitor destination area. We have a small pocket on the east side in Kapa'a, small pocket in Luhue. And then Puypu is our Ux major. So, Princeville on the North Shore and then Puypu on the south side is our two big resort markets. And, you know, local families live everywhere, in between and through and in the middle of all that. So, well, let's get started with the resort area. So, I went to Princeville, I went to Puypu and, you know, someone's looking to just visit or even maybe, you know, buy a second home or even move to Kauai. I mean, what would be the difference between living in Princeville versus living in Puypu? Oh, right. Yeah. So, I think, you know, Princeville also people, it's really the area is Honolay, but the North Shore there is, in my opinion, no offense, you have a beautiful island too. But I think it's probably one of the most beautiful spots on the planet with the Nepali coast. Honolay Bay is so picturesque. So, it's a lot rainy. So, you're, that's what makes it beautiful. But so, if you don't mind the rain, that's a great place to go. Puypu is more in our arid desert climate. You have cactus growing down there. So, you go from a full on rainforest to cactus. But so, sunshine, if you just want to come here and have sunshine on you as much as possible, then Puypu is where you want to go. And that's in the Kaloa area. And but that's kind of the temperatures and then that's what kind of dictates the difference. I mean, what about this place called the coconut coast? Yeah. So, I live on the east side in Kapaa. And the coconut coast is a more of an older eclectic, if you will, a little bit kind of town. And it's not really a surf town, but it's got a great vibe to it. The past, I would say six, eight years, there's been a revitalization of Kapaa town. We also have the Kauai coastal path that runs through there that eventually will be 16 miles long. I think it's like eight miles right now are coastal paths. So, it's a great area to live. You're halfway, not quite, but we like to say we're halfway between the North Shore and halfway to the South Shore. So, it's a great place to be. We can go either direction based upon where the sun's shining. So, on that map that we were looking at, the coconut place. So, is that Kapaa or Lihue in between or? The coconut market place, that area is right in on the east side in Kapaa town. Ah, got it, got it. And then just south of there. So, if you look at Kauai as a clock, you've got Prince Phil and Honolay at 12 o'clock. And you've got Kapaa around, you know, three o'clock, Lihue at four o'clock where our airport is. You had south to Poyipu, Kaloa at six o'clock. And he had west, Kalaheo, Lauai, Waimea. I think every island has a Waimea. And then head on over to Kekaha. And that's where it ends and heads to the Nepali coast. And speaking of in terms of the resort area, so when we think about resort areas, I think we talk, think about vacation rentals. Right, right. So, is it still allowed and how regulated is it like 30 days or less or how does it work on Kauai? Yeah, not to get in a really long story, but you know, basically we have our zoning. We've always had it. But over the years, people will just start vacation renting a property that might not be in the legal zoning area. About 2012, there's a huge crackdown on that. So, some properties. So, for an example, Prince Phil is a resort destination. It's a visitor destination area. It's legal. It's approved. Everything can be rented there that way. But not Honolay. So, if you find a vacation rental in Honolay, it's been grandfathered in. You know, when they did kind of a cleansing, if you will, back in 2012. Then the east side, we mentioned the coconut coast. A tiny, tiny little marketplace in Lihui where you got the Marriott. It's now the Sonesta resort. And then you've got one condo across the street, Banyan Harbor, and that's it. And then you head to Southside Poipu and that's where you got the Hyatt. All kinds of great resorts and condos and vacation rental homes and stuff. So, vacation rentals are permitted in the resort zones, but then is it island wide? Is it like 30 days? Is the minimum? So, yeah, it's a little more complicated that you have to have like a six month lease to begin with and then 30 days. But yeah, a lot of people can just do 30 day rentals and they try to go month to month. And that's so, but yeah, all the other areas and you have to have a TVR license. So, sometimes you'll see a placard outside of property with a TVR number. That means that they were grandfathered in. They're outside of the VDA area, but they've been grandfathered in. So, we know you live in Kapa'a, but where's your favorite place to do a staycation? Oh, yeah. Or you can be in your sons. I'm putting you on the spot. Yeah, well, I have three. Is it okay to have time? Absolutely, yeah. So, back in the day, we'd always called the Hyatt Camp Hyatt. So, it's far from a quite a grand Hyatt, but we would go to Camp Hyatt. It's a great, because it's a huge, great resort. It's beautiful. It's down in Poipu. And then over the years, Kloa Landing was built and Kloa Landing is also in the same area. It's another great staycation place, but can I wear one of my favorite places? And it sounds funny, sounds odd. But why may a plantation cottage is way over in the west side out in like the desert, the boonies. It's like about 30 years ago in time. And I love going to the cottages, they're amazing. They're old plantation cottages. And time definitely slows down over there. And I need a staycation. I mean, I don't know about you as a realtor, but I need things to slow down when I check out. So, I think you have some really great options. So, it's a small island, but it's packed full of lots of great opportunities from things to do without a doubt. And in terms of, you know, the Kauai natives are local residents. So, you mentioned, you know, you live in Kapa'a. There's also we always flying into the Hua airport. So, are those the so-called where local residents live? I mean, I'm sure they also live in the resort neighborhoods as well. Right, right. How would you kind of describe like the local resident community? So, I think, you know, so, Lihue is our main, you know, that would kind of be our professional town, if you will, because that's where the main hospital is. So, you have a lot more professionals, you know, we have our lawyer offices and other, you know, companies and stuff that's, you know, CPAs, things like that, whatever, you know, that type of stuff. Rest area, you know, spreads out and it's a resort island and, you know, has agriculture is a big part of it. But so, a lot of local families are going to live in the west side in Waimea, K-Kaha, L-A-L-E, Hanapepe, Kalahail, Lwai, Hulua town, that's kind of the south and west, but they're also going to be, you know, from Kalahail, Lihue and Kapa'a. They're going to be your main, you know, to use the word local areas where a lot of us would live that are, you know, live here and work on the island in different jobs. You know, my wife's actually a childbirth educator on the island, 20 years of that here, 30 years as a nurse, but he works all the way in Waimea now. So she drives an hour to work and runs the childbirth education over there. So people, you know, you live where you live, but you'll drive to a job. So you said, so you folks have been on island living there as residents for the last 20 years. And so from then to now, I mean, is there, there have been a lot of change, would you say? Is there a lot of development happening? Is construction or things like that? So construction here is slower than what you guys are used to. So, you know, I think I like to always call it Kauai-isms. You know, I think they have a made up word, you know, there's Hawaii-isms, you know, and then there's Kauai definitely has its own unique-isms, like, you know, for example, why are there roosters and chickens running all over the place? So that, that could be a whole nother episode we could discuss by those, but we have chickens everywhere and we're quite known for that. But again, I just forgot your question. I just got so excited. Oh, is this kind of wondering like in the last 20 years? Oh, yeah. So because it's so slow paced, we don't, our infrastructure is built slowly. So for resort was to open up, it could take a long, long time for that to happen. So our construction is minimum. And, but over the years, it's just, you know, we've definitely grown a little bit on the south side, where most of our growth has been. That's really where the big growth area is. And I think the county's kind of pushing things in that direction as well, as it can better serve the infrastructure needs down there. But for the most part, it's still a slow pace, great place to raise your family. It's been great. You know, I always joke that we live in Kapa'a, but Anzar, you're probably, you know, three people away from knowing, if you know 50 people really well here, you know the entire island. Let's put it that way. So an auntie can call. I just saw your son and I think he should be in school, but I saw him surfing at Bacalus. He got caught. Yeah, right. So. Because the population there is about 73,000 or so, maybe 75,000. So it's a small town doing, I guess. Yeah, right. Very small town. Yeah, very small town vibe and feel, but that's what we love about it here. So, but we still have, we have Home Depot, so we're not that small. And we have Target now. We're super excited that we actually have Target finally. So. Well, that's saying something when you get Target. Right. Exactly. How about medical care in Kauai? Like if you needed to get medical care, hospitals and things like that. How is that? So good news is I mentioned my wife's in the medical profession. So Wilcox is our main hospital in Luhue. And it's, then you go north to Kapa'a where I am. You have an area called Mahilona and there's, it's a state-run hospital. It's got a small ER in it, but they're growing a huge expansion. And then over in Waimea is the other state-run hospital. And then that's where my wife currently works. She worked 19 years at Wilcox and decided they recruited her. I don't know. She's over there now. She loves it. So she, anybody that's under 35 and having a baby knows my wife and has great things to always say about her. So. Well, that's wonderful. But the healthcare is good. We have great healthcare, great place for, you know, that I tell people, people always feel safe. You can come here and retire and feel comfortable. We have great healthcare. But now that we're talking about healthcare, how about the school system? Yeah. So I think our schools are great. I mean, my kids are products of that. So when we first moved here, they started at a small little private Christian school. And then we always told them, if you make good grades and good decisions, you can go to public and high school because they're incredible athletes. They both went to state and soccer. One went to state and cross country. So the schools are like anywhere. I think that if the parents are involved and you get there and that they're great. And the other nice thing since it's a small community, Kansas argue, you're probably, you're only a few people away from knowing their teachers really well. And so you always will hear, there's problems. But I think our schools are great. They, my, yep, one son has his own business as photography. And the other one is going to become a pilot. So I think they're done well. That sounds really good. Actually, a lot of our doctors on the island, a lot of our younger doctors, pharmacists, all local kids born and raised here, they've gone to school and come back. So it's, yeah, they've done well. Oh, that is so awesome. That's wonderful to hear. Yeah, we have five kids combined. So we hope that one day they'll be able to see some of them come back. Hey, great. You know, just kind of going back to the development in the South Shore, I guess. Yeah. So, you know, here on Oahu in terms of the permit system, you know, people, whether it's new developments or people trying to do renovations, it's taking about a year, maybe 10 months to a year to get the permits approved. And then, you know, so in that way, I mean, development or renovation is, I mean, it does take some time, especially if they want to do it the legal way. So, is that the same case or? You know, it used to be, it has definitely got better. I'll definitely give kudos to the county. I think it started a couple of mayors ago that they tried to improve that process. And I think they're continuing to build upon that process. And so I would say where it varies, right? You know, it's sometimes a moving dartboard, but on average, I would say about three months, you should be able to, if you have proper plans and they've been done right, and you take it in and your property is properly zoned, you should probably have approval to turn around and build. So, but what we run into now is sometimes people, there's not a water meter there and going through the process of getting a water meter can add time. So you start adding all these other things in, sure, it can take a little longer. But if it's ready to go, hopefully within 90 days or less, you should be able to have building plans approved. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Well, it sounds like you guys are awesome director of, you know, planning. Yeah. Yeah, they worked hard on that. So that's good. So we're, we're pretty, I'm glad to hear that we're better than you guys. That makes me, we're always the small forgotten island maybe sometimes. So it's nice to hear we're doing well. So. In terms of development, is it single family homes? Is it apartments, you know, I mean, even some high-rise, well, I can't imagine too many high-rise condos going up on Kauai, but well, what type of developments? Right. Well, that's, that's where the sad part comes in and all this is that it's, we don't have enough affordable housing. We don't have enough, and the word affordable sounds bad. It's just affordable could be, you know, for anyone, right? Just, just having, you know, housing that's not more for the tourist or second home market is difficult to get the contractors to build that when they can build, you know, mega homes. And I understand that, you know, it's just economics, economic 101. So, but we just don't have a lot of, we need more of that. And I think that hopefully the county is trying to do some things to improve upon that. But most of our construction is geared around second home market, resort market. We don't have lots of big subdivisions like you guys do where a developer comes in, has five, four plans and builds 500 homes. It's, it's, we just don't have that. But most of our single-family homes tend to be custom-built homes, you know, so someone's hired a contractor, they built it, or the contractor's built it and then sells it type thing. So, we don't have very many big subdivisions where they built a lot of homes. And then along those lanes, we talked about the single-family and just a little bit curious about your condo market. Like, so for existing buildings that you have, are the maintenance fees relatively moderate or is it pretty high? Because we have a lot of aging buildings here on Oahu. And so, I was just wondering if Hawaii is similar to that. We do. So, you know, we're, you know, as most of the condos are going to be along the coast, I think same probably there, right? So, when you're up on the ocean, you do get kind of beat up from the salt there and the stuff, the environmental issues. But I think that, I don't know what yours are, but I think ours, you know, ours are probably anywhere from a two-bedroom condo that's going to have a pool, those type of infrastructure. You're going to be looking at $800 to $1,400 a month for your HOA dues. That's pretty average. Yeah, that would be pretty average for us as well. I think the median for us on Oahu condo is probably about $900. You know, just if you looked at all the actors on our market right now, that's kind of the median. And then, you know, it goes a lot higher because we have some pretty luxurious condos here in our market. Right, for sure. So, probably very similar. I think we're probably comparable in that element. Okay. And so, I know it depends on the neighborhood, but like general pricing for condos, if someone was looking to buy like a one-bedroom or a two-bedroom, like what is the general kind of pricing in your market? Well, you're probably not going to find much for under half a million. I think everything's going to start at $500 and up. A good vacation rental, most of them are going to be two-bedroom condos, the newer ones, and those are going to be anywhere from $900 to $1.5 million. Entry-level condos for like locals to buy that aren't vacation-rentable are going to start at like $450 and up as much as, you know, you could spend. But with most of those that are not approved in the VDA will be between $450 and $800. Then it wasn't always like that, right? Is that something that was more in recent times that condo prices started to increase or was it always like that? I think, you know, the pandemic just made everything, you know, right? So, but yeah, I think pre-pandemic condo prices tend to stay lower, but our construction hasn't kept up. And that's why I think Kauai is always a great place to buy because we don't have big developers coming in here building big, huge condos and a big subdivision. So there's really nothing to create a lot of new inventory coming in, which means that I think it continues to help property values maintain and hopefully improve, but we can't promise any of that. But without a lot of construction behind it coming up, you know, it just tends to make things more valuable that exist. And what about like agriculture because it's like the garden aisle, right? So is there a lot of agriculture happening or is there like what should we be looking out for? Yeah, there still is definitely the west side. There's a larger agricultural, but as you head towards the east side to Kapa'a, Moloa, you're gonna have a lot of more micro farms. And so that's actually been a big passion of mine is to see more people come in, you know, get ag land and actually start farming and produce farm housing. I think it also helps some of our housing shortages that we have, but definitely we have a lot of restaurants that are farmed the table, you know, right here on Kauai. So definitely great produce that way. It's a great climate and grow about anything all year long. So do you guys have like a farmer's market? Yeah, they call those sunshine markets and there's pretty much one every day on the island somewhere. Yeah, there's a sunshine market somewhere, a farmer's market. So yeah, I think the main big one is in Kapa'a and it's on Wednesdays. And you can you can count on the traffic backing up around there, you know, you remind your, you remember it's Wednesday when you go through there, we're like, oh, farmer market. Yeah, good stuff. I usually go to get the better deals. And do I dare ask you your favorite restaurant, all of Hawaii? Yeah, I'm probably going to offend someone because I know a lot of owners of restaurants, but I'd have to go back to the restaurant my wife and I went to on our honeymoon 34 years ago. That was the beach house in Pueypu. It's still there. You're going to see one of the best sunsets in Hawaii in my opinion from the beach house and they still have an amazing menu. Not much has changed on it. I think it's owned by the Monkey Pod now, but they kept it pretty much the same. So I'd have to pick that as my favorite restaurant. I apologize to all my friends. I love your restaurants too, but I'd have to pick that. Well, there's some sentimental aspect to it. Right. Yeah. For us, my wife and I, it's a very special place, great memory. So the beach house is basically where we're going to be taking you when we're going to dine out for you. We're all going right. Let's all do it. Hey, could you tell us real quick, what is your backdrop? Is that on Kauai? Yep. So that's Hanalei. The camera flipped it around, but yeah, that's the Hanalei pier. So it's kind of an iconic picture of Kauai when people think of it. And, you know, if I was to, if someone told me they're coming to Kauai and they had one brief moment to go to a beach for one day, I would say go to Hanalei Bay. Great place. So beach house, visit Hanalei Bay and farmers market. So our trip has to be on a Wednesday or I guess any day. Any day. Right. But my favorites I'm with. Great. You know, in terms of, so if, you know, you know, from our viewers, they're interested in flying out to Kauai, maybe look at some properties. What is like the best way to reach you? Oh, best way to reach me is probably my cell phone. It's always on, always with me. So I think it's, you know, in the thing, but, you know, call me my cell phone, 652-8101 and email and then have Instagram. And I think you're going to post all that. But yeah, if you call me my cell phone, I don't answer because I'm with someone else giving them my attention, but I'll call you right back if you leave me a message or text me. And don't you have like your, like a weekly podcast on social media? We're not quite the level as you guys, but my business partner Monica and I have been doing a called Talk Story. We posted every Monday or Tuesday. So if you follow us on Instagram or Facebook, you'll find our Talk Story episodes. And we're only like, I think six in so far. So we're, there's just 90-second little blurbs. And we saw that now. It's fantastic. Any last message to your viewers about Kauai? Yeah, I think that the, you know, call me if you want to buy real estate. I think that's the number one message. But, you know, Kauai, don't forget about Kauai. Make sure you include it in your trip to Hawaii. Even if it's just for a few days, I think that you enjoy it and love it. Just come back, come here knowing that it's a slow pace and just accept that when you get here. Thank you so much for coming on today. We really appreciate you. Great. Thank you. Mahalo to you. Appreciate it. And hopefully we gave the viewers some good information today. Yeah. Oh, that was fantastic, Greg. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks for including me. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.