A Blog of the Big Island

The Vice President of Administration for KTA Super Stores issues the following statement yesterday: "It is our intention to make improvements to the property.  We evaluated many different options and concluded that additional parking for our store would be in our best interest.  Currently, we are...

The Tribune-Herald reported today (sorry, that link will probably only be good for a couple of weeks) that the County Council had approved funds to pay for a part-time "visitor access manager" to help educate people about the tidepools. Of course, not many people realize that the Vacationland Haw...

Today's Merrie Monarch Parade was great fun.  The weather cooperated (a little rain before to cool things down).  You gotta love a town where the parade has the mayor walking down the street in a pair of jeans and waving to everyone.        See a lot more photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jo...

Its a busy time on the Big Island right now -- its Merrie Monarch Week! Now, to many people, their first reaction is "huh?". But to those in the hula and Hawaiian culture world, this is a BIG EVENT. Some have called the Merrie Monarch hula competition "the World Series of Hula" or "the Superbowl ...

The Polynesians arrived in the Hawai'i sometime after about 1100 A.C. They are believed to have encountered and settled first on the Big Island. They eventually inhabited the area now known as Hilo where they farmed and fished. Oral histories show that there was trading of goods as well. Some re...

I am so glad that we, as Realtors, didn't pay for this survey. I mean, isn't this Real Estate 101? Curb Appeal Helps Sell Houses. Now some of the other findings of the study are really interesting. Some of them touch on things that I've mentioned in a previous blog entry (energy-efficient feature...

Anyone else out there using Open-Realty?  Its a free, open-source content management solution for real estate companies (note: I am in no way involved with Open-Realty or any webhosting company that offers Open-Realty as a part of their product suite -- I'm just a user).I've really found it to be...

Very interesting article about property tax assessments in the Hilo and Puna areas in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald (you may have to register and after another week or so it will be gone). A couple of quotes: “Despite declining Big Island real estate values, many landowners are facing higher property...

I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Julie Tumbaga, a Vice-President of OREXCO, which is a qualified 1031 exchange intermediary company. It was a great learning experience and I thought I’d share some Q&A with her to the readers of the blog. If you would like to reach Julie, she...

Interesting -- it appears that the population on the islands may be shifting a little bit. Today's Star-Bulletin has this article about some minor population shifts in the islands. What is interesting is the growth of part-time residents. I know I've seen signs of this on the Big Island. We have ...