If You Build It, They Will Come

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

If you haven't already noticed it's official, the Big Island building boom is on:

The Big Island is booming and home builders throughout the island are struggling to keep up with the demand.

When looking at total private-sector permit activity, including remodeling, electrical and plumbing permits and the like, Hawaii Island far outshone the others during the last quarter of 2020, the state Department of Research &Economic Analysis said in its most recent report. Building permits during that quarter increased for Hawaii County, while decreasing for all other counties in the state.

“It’s all driven by the mainland hordes all trying to retire early or move here and work from home,” he said.

https://www.westhawaiitoday.com/2021/05/...new-homes/

[ChunksterK]

"If you build it, they will come" . . . until they stop.

Many of us have been here long enough to have been through several cycles of boom and bust residential development. Covid-19 has made this cycle feel different, though, and it may have stronger legs that some earlier versions, depending on how the pandemic goes from here. Having said that, I just read an article in my paid subscription to "The Economist" that says the Covid induced flight from mainland big cities is reversing, partly because the disease is lessening and partly because suburban and even rural real estate markets have gone into a frenzied sellers' market with eye popping prices. There are still bargains in West Virginia and Cleveland, though.

[terracore]

We know several families who have moved here since the pandemic. The thing that is different this time is that technology has made working in a traditional office obsolete. A lot of them aren't going to renew their office leases and the employees are expected to work from a home office. From an employer's perspective, they get to shift the burden of supplying real estate for the employees to work in onto the employee. None of these technologies are really that new, but being forced to use them during the pandemic they didn't get the loss in productivity they were expecting. Getting to work from home is seen as a fringe benefit that costs the employer nothing.

Many of the families moving here are generational. They are bringing their parents with them. Caring for family is one of the reasons that people move back to the mainland.

The housing bubble is crazy, but a lot of it is an effect of allowing millions of people to skip paying rent or mortgages over the last year. Nobody wants to build new houses when the cost of building supplies is doubling every 6 months.