15th Ave in HPP

[dreamoutloud]

Thanks everyone for the great info! We made an offer on the house, but it was not accepted WE will keep looking!
Gypsy, we looked in Leilani but didnt really want to be in a lava zone 1 if we could help it Thank you for the offer though!
Laur

[mac nut]

At the rate new houses are being built on 15th ave seems it would make it cost prohibitive to put a hiway in there. just between kaloli and paradise on 15th there have been at least a dozen houses built in the last 6 months and more lots being cleared for construction daily.

[csgray]

I switch up the routes I take across the subdivision to get to Shower and have been amazed at how many new homes are being built. They are going up fast too, as little as 3 months from breaking ground to being lived in sometimes.

Carol

[DTisme]

Definitely a building boom going on - we count 11 houses in one stage of construction or another from 3rd & Maku'u to highway, on or visible from makuu. We had a fence put in a couple of months ago and the guy says he is busier than ever, with new construction everywhere in HPP.

We've been here 5 years and don't feel the mosquito bites anymore. I don't even welt up as much from LFAs now, but we do treat for them. (Not that it does any good.)

[lavarat]

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.

[lavarat]

I would like to add that there was no cell phone reception and no cable at that time. The telephone company did have an excellent internet speed of 11 megs. I moved to 22nd street just a few miles away and the internet speed was just 1.5 megs. It has to do with how close the house is to the telephone central office and how the lines snake around the subdivision.

On the plus side the house on 22nd did have cable and road runner and the street was paved. On the down side, the paved street encouraged high speeds and the jungle and mosquito clouds would block out the sun.

[dreamoutloud]

Wow,LAVArat how crazy that you lived there!!! what a small world! We actually made an offer for more than the listing price but we were not accepted secretly hoping the deal will fall through and we will have another chance
My sister drove out there for us while she was taking a lomi lomi class on the BI and she was able to get spotty cell service. That was a concern for sure.
Anyways thanks for the replies all!

[lavarat]

If you do get back in the running, check to see if the liens have been cleared. I was there for a month enjoying the seclusion when an electrical contractor left a notice of lien on the front door. I checked with them and found out that the mechanical contractor and the concrete contractor were also owed money. A few days later a real estate person called me and said that the house had been put up for sale and that they were going to start showing the house to prospective buyers in a few days. So all of a sudden instead of enjoying the seclusion, I was going to see an endless stream of strangers going through the house until it was sold. The real estate guy told me that the lease had the standard clause that required me to allow them to show the house whenever they wanted. Sure enough the clause was in the lease. But I soon turned the tables on his strong armed tactics. I told him that this was a legal contract and that they failed to disclose that the property was in financial trouble and would likely be put up for sale or foreclosed by the bank. Had I been informed, I would not have signed the lease. I refused to let them show the house. After a while they agreed to my terms that they would only show the house once a week and that I would get credit for a day's rent for each day they showed the house. There was a lot of interest in the beginning, but pretty soon it dropped to nothing and they never got an offer. There were about ten other foreclosed houses on 15th street. Also check that the copper wiring and plumbing has not been ripped out.

[Tink]

Another "trick" in foreclosures is "grenading" the septic system. Either they flush an M80 down the toilet, shattering the piping or cracking the tank if it's a fiberglass type, or dump massive amounts of grease to contaminate the leach field. Both very expensive fixes! Ask your agent to have a septic inspection clause in your contract if it is not there, it will save you lots of dollars and a big migraine to go along with it. While having the inspection done, ask the contractor what would be the best economical Maintenence of the system according to the "leachability" (how well the soils absorb the waste water) is. when growing up on a septic system, my Dad would have the tank pumped every 5 years for a family of 4 to remove the solids buildup in the tank to keep it from spilling into the leach field. All the surrounding neighbors had to have their leach field rebuilt, but ours kept doing what it was supposed to do for over 30 years until they moved, and the new buyer leveled the place for his own McMansion.

Are you a human being, or a human doing?

[ericlp]

quote:

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Originally posted by dreamoutloud

I did notice the greenhouse and nursery and was wondering what sort of impact that would have. perhaps many cars traveling down that road?

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Impact? How about Trucks and Workers making all kind noises at 5AM? Going on till who knows when? Hope you like the same kind of music they like. Seriously... Now maybe they are quiet... Lucky for you... How about the stench? What? The winds blow variable around here. What happens when a huge truck drops off a big load of chicken manure or Mac mulch that will be cooking for months.

I don't know I can think of other things as well, but I'm sure you can get a start on just some of the things that might impact your decision. No fooling, you should really think this over more. I'm not trying to discourage you from buying but, what is the real estate tango BS? Do your due diligence. I dunno, in hawaii, it seems to me anyway, imagine something bad then times that by 10 on how bad it really can be because it probably is.

Good Luck!