06-07-2014, 11:08 PM
I actually lived in this house as a renter for one year back in 2009 when it was brand new. I may have been the only person to have lived there (legally). I chose this house because of the seclusion. The small house next door was vacant and my neighbor across the street lived in a small building way back in his property and hardly there. The house had 9 foot ceilings and a nice kitchen with granite counter tops. The stove had one of those fancy glass tops and a built in microwave above it. The bathroom sinks also had granite counter tops. The carpet had not been installed correctly and would unravel when I vacuumed along the edges or internal seams. The one acre lot was not landscaped and mostly natural which was nice because I did not have to mow the lawn or do any yard work except keep the weeds away from the perimeter of the house.
The lava in this area of HPP was only about 200 years old so it did not have more than an inch of top soil to support the jungle type of vegetation which breeds the clouds of mosquitoes in other areas. It had a lot of scrawny ohia trees about 6 inch in diameter which struggled to survive in the thin topsoil. The back lot fronting 14th street had a guava orchard which also seemed to have been abandoned because all the fruit would rot and drop to the ground.
There was a lot of traffic for a few minutes from the big nursery at quitting time which did raise a lot of dust. For the most part it was a very nice place and I enjoyed my stay there. I moved out after the one year lease because the owner was not keeping up with the payments and I knew that the bank would eventually foreclose and evict me with little notice and lose my deposit. I went back a few months later and there was a red notice on the door from HPP saying that it looked like the property had been abandoned and they were going to take action against the owners to maintain the property. The weeds by this time were the height of the windows.
I looked up the tax records at the time and the owners from California had paid about $240K. They were trying to sell it for $160K when I was there on a short sale after the real estate market collapsed. Too bad the house was gutted by thieves in the intervening years. It is now selling for $104k as a fixer upper.
The lava in this area of HPP was only about 200 years old so it did not have more than an inch of top soil to support the jungle type of vegetation which breeds the clouds of mosquitoes in other areas. It had a lot of scrawny ohia trees about 6 inch in diameter which struggled to survive in the thin topsoil. The back lot fronting 14th street had a guava orchard which also seemed to have been abandoned because all the fruit would rot and drop to the ground.
There was a lot of traffic for a few minutes from the big nursery at quitting time which did raise a lot of dust. For the most part it was a very nice place and I enjoyed my stay there. I moved out after the one year lease because the owner was not keeping up with the payments and I knew that the bank would eventually foreclose and evict me with little notice and lose my deposit. I went back a few months later and there was a red notice on the door from HPP saying that it looked like the property had been abandoned and they were going to take action against the owners to maintain the property. The weeds by this time were the height of the windows.
I looked up the tax records at the time and the owners from California had paid about $240K. They were trying to sell it for $160K when I was there on a short sale after the real estate market collapsed. Too bad the house was gutted by thieves in the intervening years. It is now selling for $104k as a fixer upper.