04-11-2011, 10:40 AM
quote:
Originally posted by KeaauRich
My only other advice would be to take the listing pictures with a grain of salt. We saw some places that looked like palaces online, but were dumps in real life. And look carefully at the pictures..if there is dirty laundry scattered about or dishes in the sink (can you believe folks and their agents would allow these kind of pictures to be posted???) then be highly suspect of those places. We looked at probably 50 houses over a two year period, and I'd estimate only about 10% were accurately represented by the pictures. A few were nicer than they appeared online, but most were much worse. If there are windows in the pictures, look out the windows to get a sense of the yard. If you're purchasing a house and the listing ad shows mostly pictures of the landscaping, that's another red flag! Oh, and be sure your friends know about "permitted " vs. "un-permitted" houses -- we fell in love with one house, and it wasn't until we were writing up our offer that the agent told us the house was un-permitted, and therefore had to be purchased with cash. That's when we stopped using that agent...
Maybe we were lucky. I found the place we bought doing online research from the mainland. Our real estate guys had not seen this listing, and kind of wondered why I wanted to see it. The house was just an average run of the mill house. But I saw something in the property and landscaping. As we drove onto the property,our agents couldn't believe it. It was like a park. The gent that was going to manage the rental of our place said he could rent it and would play up the park like setting, and the fact that it's close to the Highway 130, and therefore closer to Hilo. The house was fine-though we did tear up the carpeting in the whole house and had a tile floor installed with the expertise of a local gent and new friend we made in HPP. He tiled the entire house including kitchen and both bathroom counter tops, and for a very reasonable price. He also made us a dining table with bench seats,4 bed headboards, a nice free standing cabinet, and some nice bedside tables. Some people are just multi talented!!
Jon
Jon in Puyallup, Wa.
Jon in Keaau/HPP