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Knowledge is Wealth!As mentioned in the above main article, so would be beforehand knowledge of the 4 Rates that can both create and moderate wealth. These rates are  Interest Rates,…

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Why is this such an enigmatically difficult thing to do? How does a Seller know he/she is not underselling or overselling at a wildly under/unattainable price? How does a Buyer know he/she is not simply overpaying? At the end of the day, it really has everything to do with statistics and the laws of supply and demand. Assuming freedom & transparency of information - when there is a large enough supply of something accompanied by an equally large demand of the same thing - the free market does a good job of equaliberlizing the supply-demand fair price. However, when something such as Penthouse are very few in number...

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Interest Rates - I strongly feel that we have moved into a new economic paradigm of lower interest rates and lower inflation for reasons which I mostly covered in my September Hawaii Damon Newsletter (Quantitative Tightening). The FED will continue to slowly increase the FED Funds rate in the next year or few (after one this month, maybe 2 more increases in 2018) by only .25% each time) and there is no doubt that in the long term the FED Funds rate carries mortgage interest rates with it. However, short and medium term (as mentioned in previous newsletters) it is all about the 10 Year Treasuries (Bonds) and specifically their yields (interest rates) which compete with the home mortgage rates (the 30 yr rate is for the most part, a premium % on top of the 10 year treasury yields).

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Your CAP Rate would be the yearly NOI (Net Operating Income) on, for example, your investment condo you have rented out after receiving rents for the year and paying out all taxes (property and GET tax), maintenance and management fees. You would then divide this amount by the purchase price you paid for your investment condo to get the CAP Rate. For a simple example, let's say you purchased your condo for $500K and your NOI for the year was $25K then your CAP Rate would be 25 divided by 500 = 5%

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Part II (Focus on Sellers) - What are the best Strategies for both Buyers and Sellers in our current Real Estate Market in Hawaii? Furthermore, what is the current situation of our market? As stated in last month's newsletter, understanding the fundamentals of the latter question will help us answer the first question. The right strategy will change according to each individual or family circumstances. I will review the main ones e.g. trading up from a median neighborhood to a luxury neighborhood, up-sizing, down-sizing, condo vs single family home, move or renovate, first time home buyer etc. to briefly name a few. I will also provide tips for getting the best fair price for your home if you are a Seller and ways to seek out great value if you are a Buyer

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What are the best Strategies for both Buyers and Sellers in our current Real Estate Market in Hawaii? Furthermore, what is the current situation of our market? Also, the strategies will differ depending on each individual or family circumstances and I will try to get thru the main ones e.g. trading up from a median neighborhood to a luxury neighborhood, up-sizing, down-sizing, first time home buyer, condo vs single family home etc. to briefly name a few. I will also provide tips for getting the best fair price for your home if you are a Seller and ways to seek out great value if you are a Buyer.

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Should I Renovate my Home or Move (Up/Down-size)? I think the best way to approach this question would be to first look at it purely from an investment perspective and ask yourself this follow up question: Would the proposed renovation (including possible room addition) add positive returns for each $ invested upon resale? I will show you how to answer this question in my step by step guide outlined below! After understanding the answer to this question from the investment perspective, it will be equally as important to make sure the results match your and or your family's emotional and long-term goal objectives.

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Centered around the Ward Village and extending all the way to Park Lane Ala Moana, the Kaka'ako-Ala Moana corridor is booming with new condominium projects. Also, we are actually seeing mortgage interest rates falling again. What happened? Isn't the US Fed Raising Rates? I'll cover these two topics in this month's Hawaii Damon Newsletter. First, let's talk about interest rates. In my December Newsletter - Hawaii Market Projections for 2017 - when the 30 Yr Fixed Avg. Mortgage Rates climbed to 4.13%, I predicted rates would decrease ("meander") again to around 4% during Q1 2017. As of this writing, just at the beginning of Q2, the Avg. 30 Yr Fixed has now dropped to 3.97%.

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In this final Part IV segment we will simply have a good hard look at the numbers allowing the potential investor to compare buying Real Estate in Hawaii with perhaps other possible investments opportunities. In Part III we saw that from 2015 to 2016 the average monthly median price increase by 5% and 8.3% respectively for homes and condominiums. Here is a chart showing the median prices starting from 1987 (US$)