Are Hawaii Real Estate Prices Dropping?

I'm coming to you again from the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii. I just barely squeezed it in, just waiting for the camera equipment and the 3G and the 4G and the 8G and the 5G and the no G to kick in right as the sunset is hitting the horizon. So without any further ado, let your Maui fix begin right now. Here we go. Oh, yes, I know it. You know why I do it? Because it's fun. That's it. This is the most fun I get to have in a day, like literally. OK, maybe there's other things I do that are more fun, but this is pretty right up there. And I'm at one of my favorite places in the entire world. Have you guessed yet where I'm at? Do you know? Well, in the comments section, why don't you do me a favor and tell me where you're at? I'd love to hear. Is your head on the pillow? Are you just getting ready to pass out cold on Eastern Standard Time? Or maybe you're in L.A., maybe you're in California, Washington, Oregon, and you're just three hours ahead of me. It's no big deal, man. You just finished dinner and you're like, man, what's going on on Maui? Right? We're back. Oh, man, I'm telling you. With me, has Wi-Fi gotten sketchy? Wi-Fi, 3G, all that. But here I am at the beautiful Napili Bay. So you notice the question of the day, the title of this email, I know. Are prices of homes and real estate dropping in Hawaii? The answer, of course, is an astounding, resounding no. They are not dropping. It's actually one of the most resilient markets in the country. Even during the big crash, I think, oh, uh-oh. Or like you guys say, oh, wahoo. It's actually, oh, uh-oh. It's all right. Stick with me. Man, look at this. We got a little Karen Hall. What ever happened to Karen Hall? Karen, where are you? She was my first regular on the channel. And she was the one that I always knew when the sun sets were going to just blow up. So that's what we call a little sparkle of the glory of God up in the heavens. We call it a little Karen Hall. You guys remember Karen? She's awesome, huh? And Maui Dan. Anyway, they're not dropping. The statistics just came out, actually, for August. And you can go to it at TeamWestMaui.com. Link will be in the description, as always. But yeah, median, average, still climbing. I know it. No matter what they try to do, they'll never break the spirit of rising prices. Especially when it comes to your groceries, your gas, and all things cost of living. Welcome to the new America. But yeah, prices are not dropping for homes. So, hey, on kind of a personal note, could I ask a favor? Is it possible? Could I? So here's something that's funny. It wasn't funny. It was just kind of one of those things. I was getting ready to launch my new website. As you know, I've started every video since 2012 with EricWestHawaiiRealEstate.org. That's my website. I don't talk about it much. I don't really make, ask, or whatever, tell people to go there. I just say it because that's my personal website. And I had it redesigned. And I spent a lot of money in making it the best version, the newest version of itself. And it was... I've been working on it. My gosh, you've got to see this. This is way more interesting. We'll get back to the website. This guy just did a huge jump in this little pocket of water. He did a suey right there. The guy did a suey right there. And then his dog is just sending it on these rocks. I thought the guy fell. I thought he hurt himself. He's going to do another one maybe. This is good entertainment right here, man. Look at these guys. Look at that dog. Those are sharp rocks. And they're slick. Oh man, I was just getting ready to do the big reveal on my website. And then we get this. This is good stuff. You've just got to roll with it. You've got to flow with it. Whatever happens, it happens. It all happens for a reason. Not that we understand what the reasons are, of course. But someone understands the reasons. So there we are looking at the Seahouse Restaurant. Shout out. Good stuff. Ono Grinds. We've got to keep both of these guys in frame. You never know what they're going to do. I feel like he's going to pull a fish out of the water and just bite its head off. I thought that was the dog. That's great. Anyway. So what happened was my website, which is hawaiirealestate.org I was going to relaunch it with the updated everything. And I've been working on it for about a year. That's shocking. Anyway. It's one of those things where you've got to get in line. The production team. Everything is a big deal. A rock? Okay. Hang on. I've got to find a rock. I'm in between a rock and a fireplace now. Okay. I think I found a rock. Alright. I found a rock. There's a rock? Now I've got to toss it all the way over there. I'm going to toss this dude this rock. Toss it in there, yeah? Okay. Here we go. I really don't know what game we're playing right now. But he wanted a rock. So he's got a rock. Is he going to play fetch with the rock? I don't know. Oh, I see. He's using it. He's getting OPE or something like that. I got you. Getting dinner, baby. Got you. I'll make sense now. I want to see him do another suey in there. That was cool. Didn't even know it was deep enough. He did a suicide right off of that rock into that little tide pool right there. Look at this dog, man. This dog is just charging. Tell me it's not like father like son like dog like owner. Right? Anyway, back to my little story about my website. I spent about a year getting in line, paying for it. I use a development company and they get a workload and it takes them forever to do anything. So I've been in production for about a year and you know what these companies can be like. They're busy. You're just a customer. You've got to pay top dollar for good work but you're in a queue and it's a very tedious, huge project because my website is thousands of pages and it's just a complicated monster, basically. I had a legacy site, built it in 2011. It's hawaiirealestate.org and it combines three MLS systems. There's a lot of moving parts to this thing. Anyway, check it out. So they finalized the launch of my site about five days after the fire. I feel like this lens needs to be cleaned off here, by the way. Ah, isn't that better? By the way, I've got my shirt on here. Lahaina, never forget. Never forget Lahaina. Yes, sir. Anyway, like three or four days after the fire, they're done with the site. Of course, I'm in the midst of just mayhem, right? Trying to help the community and just trying to keep the wheels on and I didn't even see the email. I was getting thousands of emails and text messages. I never saw the email. I just wasn't checking email, honestly. So what they did is because I didn't respond to any of their final sign-off here, sign-off there, they just said, well, we're done. You didn't say anything otherwise, so we're done. So a month or so goes by and I finally reach out to them. I'm like, well, yeah, I didn't respond because of the fire. But they're like, okay, well, if you've got problems with the site, because you didn't say anything, you've got to kind of get back in line again and then I had to pay to get a bunch of these things that weren't right fixed, essentially because I didn't speak up because the email went out. I didn't say anything so I essentially was I was sorry, the guy's throwing rocks again. Anyway, my absence of approving it was an approval, essentially. Does that make sense? So then I had to get back into the production line again, had to spend like another big giant chunk of money and so anyway, almost two years in the making. It just launched the day before yesterday so if you could do me a favor, do me a solid, just check it out. I'll put a link in the description, hawaiirealestate.org It's my site. It's been around since 2011. It's been my little pet project, my little baby. Oh, this guy's about to fall in. He didn't though. In the lean years, it took everything I had to keep that site up and running because it cost money to run a big website like that. It's a miracle that I was able to keep it up and running. It's never been down for a day but sometimes I had to you know, beg from Peter to pay Paul to ask Mary to please please help me keep the lights on back in the early days and Hawaii Real Estate's been around. hawaiirealestate.org has been around and it's served my clients and served the internet community and it was one of the first sites to combine all three MLS systems. So I combined Hawaii, which is Hawaii Information Service that also serves the Big Island so it's kind of weird here. The MLS system for the Big Island in Kauai is one service called Hawaii Information. Then there's Oahu which is High Central and then there's Maui which is Realtors Association of Maui. So I was one of the first guys and probably the first single starving agent to do it and then certainly after that some people came in with bigger pockets, bigger budgets and did exactly the same thing and then they outranked me. So I was going up against some other companies that are massive. I won't say their names but it was a David and Goliath kind of thing. So I was pretty I was very distracted at the moment. This guy just went down hard. He's got very slickery shoes on and he's in a very slickery spot. It was not pretty. So yeah, this is the announcement of my new website with a lot of other things going on around here. So anyway you can't make this stuff up. I mean he went down. He went down hard. So anyway, if you guys wouldn't mind checking it out. I think it's I think it's a beautiful site. I really do. We put a lot of heart and soul into it. Blood, sweat and tears. And the fire caused another year plus delay if you can believe that. So imagine, and that's sort of my message I guess a little bit tonight. No matter what gets thrown at you you don't realize the challenges that other people are having and the difficulties that they're going through and the setbacks that they're having. And I know we're having a setback. You're having a setback. Everyone's just basically getting jacked up from every corner of reality. And you can't even invent half the crazy stupid things we go through, right? It's just like you can't invent and even though launching a website and it comes out right after the fire and it gets delayed and it costs more money and it's a pain in the butt and it's just a nightmare and the company doesn't care. They're just basically extracting more money from me as a result of, you know. We all go through these things, right? We all go through this annoying process of life where you're dealing with kind of bad actors in a way that kind of throwing my real estate hosting company under the bus but hey man, you know, it's like there's no mercy sometimes. They're just like well, guess what buddy? You get to pay and you get to wait. But my hosting service does such a wonderful job, right? They're amazing. They're talented and my search my website ranks so well in the search. So if you put in like, for example, put in Hawaii real estate, which by the way is the most coveted three words in Hawaii real estate because that's what all you guys search for. That's the number one thing you guys search for. So everybody wants to be on page one of that thing. So if you put that in right now in your Google, in your Bing, in your Safari, in your Brave, in your whatever browser you're using, whatever search engine you're using, tell me in the comments where do I show up on page one? I want to know. And then I want you to click on it because if you do, then the algorithm gods, right, that are running the world will be like, oh, they like hawaiirealestate.org. So where do I, if you go search that up, it's kind of fun. As long as nobody else falls down around me or jumps in the ocean or asks me to get a rock, tell me if you put in Hawaii real estate, that's it. In Google, in any search engine, where does my little, I'm just a little guy, right? I'm just one agent, just one guy. Where does, where do I rank, right? Next to the Goliaths in the industry. Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Hawaii Life, and the other ones that I'm not going to say their name because they copied me. You know who you are, Alex, you copied me. You changed your whole website name and then you took my idea and you went and got IDX feeds at these other MLSs. You rat! I'm not going to say anything. I'm just joking, you know, it's competition though. But there's another, two other people on this island that also figured out what real estate hosting service I use and then they went and got it themselves, right? So you know, your competition, I guess the ultimate form of flattery is imitation. So I see you, you imitators. I see you, I'm watching. Good for you. That's what makes America great, right? Competition, we work hard, it extracts the juice from us, the best that we have. And then we go to war and may the best man win. And that is the opposite of socialism and communism and the government giving handouts. You work hard, you give it your best, you get in the ring, you fight, and then you're just victorious because you got in the ring. Matter of fact, I had that poem up on my office wall for years. I forget what it's called. Maybe someone can tell me. I forget who even wrote it. But it's the guy that gets in the ring, man. You get in the ring, right? And you fight the good fight. And the competition drives you to do better. So I'm competing against the big boys. hawaiirealestate.org is back. It's relaunched. It took two years. It cost way too much money. I'm excited about it. It's there. I never promote it other than I say, Eric West here, hawaiirealestate.org But I never tell you to go there. I never even ask for business because I've got way more than I can handle. No, just kidding. I'm just kidding. That was the case for a while though. But anyway, thank you guys for checking it out. I appreciate it. This was a little bit of a shameless promotion of my website. hawaiirealestate.org. Will you please go check it out? Search me up. hawaiirealestate. And other stuff too, man. You can put in any name of these condos. Put in Napili Point condo for sale. Put in Napili Shores condo for sale. Put in Napili Surf condo for sale. Put in whatever that one is. Napili Hale? No, Napili Bay Hale, maybe. And then well, that one doesn't count because those Canadians, they never sell. They never sell those condos. I want to sell one. Where am I pointing? Hang on a second. Napili Kai. You Canadians from Napili Kai, what the heck? You are holding these assets tighter than you should. And then Puna Point, right? You put that in there. Puna Point condo for sale. Put in the condos that never sell. Napili Kai condo for sale. Tell me, where do I rank? Because to tell you the truth, guys, this is the kind of stuff I obsess about. Why? Because that is called my job. My job is to sell real estate. That's what I do. And one of the challenges that we have as real estate professionals is how do we market those properties? And one of the ways the way you market a property is on this beautiful thing called the internet, on social media. That's what we do. That's what we're tasked to do. And then we all compete to do it. And then these huge, giant companies come in like Zillow and Redfin, and they try to take all the money because the little guys like us got to now all of a sudden pay them a bunch of money? I don't think so. You'll never see me giving a penny to Zillow. And all you agents that do, I'm going to say it. Ready? Shame on you. You're feeding the monster that's trying to destroy our industry. Redfin. If you're paying Redfin, shame on you. Those are the big guys that are trying to steal our hard-earned money because they can dominate Google. And we know that Google is being dominated by who knows who. So it's the little guy. It's the David versus the Goliath. And for those of you that tuned in last night and listened to Christian Haneke, thank you. So many of you made the switch. And that's usually what I'm promoting, right? Switch for Lahaina is for the people that are here trying to survive. HawaiiRealEstate.org, that's me and my ohana selling real estate. But thank you, Christian, and thank you to all of you that switched already. It was an unbelievable response, so thank you so much. Anyway, that's all I got. I know I talk too much, but that's my job. If you ever met me in person, I don't talk that much. I'm a pretty quiet guy. And so is Christian, as a matter of fact. It's weird, huh? It's like we save it all up. We save it all up for these special moments called YouTube and YouTube Maui Fixes and switching for Lahaina. And in the end, guys, a lot of it is just about we're just men out here working, trying to feed our families, right? Supporting those that we love. And part of it, I do it on my YouTube channel. So most of my clients come from here, and I thank each and every one of you that have supported me and used me over the years as your agent. I appreciate it. It's put me in the top 3% of agents on this island, and I'm so thankful. And now the boys are licensed. Dylan, Ryan, Colton, we're gonna pass the baton. And someday when I'm 94 years old, I'll retire. But until then, I ain't going anywhere. All right, guys. Till next time. I appreciate you tuning in. Thank you for going to hawaiirealestate.org and hit me in the comments and let me know where do I rank on your browser in your town when you put in Hawaii real estate. Am I the little guy next to the Goliaths of the industry? Click on it and send them a message all the way from Maui, Hawaii. Until next time, Maui Dan, yes-ah! Blind Daniel, I love you, buddy. I wish you could see this, but I know in your soul you see so much more than we do. And Christian, Switch4Lina, thanks for being here and helping out. Until next time, Eric West, coming from Napili Bay.