From SoCal to Kona – Real Talk on Relocating

Aloha, hey, it's Julie Zemelis, 365 Hawaii, and I am with Real Broker, and I am here with my guest today. Kelly Corsino from Southern California. You're a Southern California real estate specialist, also with Real Broker, and love partnering with the Zemelis team. You guys are awesome. Thank you. I'm Eric Zemelis with Real Broker as well, coincidentally. And Eric and I work as a team here in Kailua-Kona, and we have been working with Kelly for about a year and a half as our premier partner in Southern California. And she has actually helped us move one of our beautiful clients from, you tell them the name of the two. Fallbrook. Yeah, Fallbrook, to a small town here called Waikoloa Village. And the reason we're doing this today is because we're actually seeing quite a few people from Southern California moving to Big Island of Hawaii. And we wanted to kind of like tell people a little bit more about what Kelly's seeing in Southern California and what the differences maybe between what is available in California versus Hawaii that you might not be aware of and why the Big Island is a place to consider for retirement but maybe why it's not. And also Kelly can give you a little bit more information about what she's seeing in the Southern California market and why some people are deciding this is the time to go. So Kelly, why don't you start us off and tell us a little bit about what's going on in your side. Well, I've seen a lot of trends in California been licensed here since 2004. So I've kind of seen it all. I saw the big crash, I saw a lot of stuff. This one's been interesting because the COVID phenomenon really did something wacky to all the markets, we know this. What we saw, and now I've had to measure it in order to help my buyers who are buying here make an educated decision about what to pay, what is actually a reasonable price to pay now. And what that brought me to was analysis of seeing that on average in the coastal communities here in California, we went up 24 to 26% in two years. That's unprecedented. I mean, normally we have like four to six growth, 4% to 6% yearly is pretty steady. Some years a little more or less, whatever. And so that has been a weird one. And what we've seen in the last like 14 months, I would say, is I wouldn't call it, some people are like, oh, the market's tanking. No, it's not tanking, it's adjusting for the wacky 24 to 26% gains. And it's coming back down into the realm of reality. So the trick for us with buyers here is to make sure that they understand that we kind of have to look at pre-COVID pricing and then act as if that never happened and then do our stats based on that. Like what would that house cost today if that weird spike hadn't happened? Conversely, the same conversation has to happen with our Southern California sellers because they have to stay in the realm of reality. We can't say, oh, well, it's gonna be an amalgamation of the COVID spike and some new normal. It's going right back to what it was pre-COVID. Yeah, yeah. In fact, I was doing some research on the San Diego market and it said that there were 70% more houses on the market last month than this time last year. And that much more inventory, buyers do have the upper hand in most cases. But it's interesting here on our island that we had a huge drop in single-family home sales last month, like a 70% drop in volume year over year. So there seems to be kind of a stock. But we are just like you where there's sellers here who believe it's still 2023 and they don't wanna lower their prices because they don't wanna lose money even though they got that 25% gain over the last two years. But it just seems right now if people are thinking about the stock market, there is more of a buyer's market happening on this island now than there has been in the last four years. So that's the reason we're doing this video because now is really the great time to actually purchase. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that for the sellers, they really need to look at it. It's always when you're buying and selling, or shall I say selling and buying, you're getting the benefit and the good end and the bad end of whatever market you're in. If it's high, then you're selling high, but you're also buying high. And if it's lower, it's you're selling lower, but you're buying. It's the boat experience. Exactly, so you kind of have to factor that in. And I think that's why a lot of folks have jumped ship on Southern California real estate being so high to go to other places in the country that aren't in the direction of the Pacific Ocean because they see these, oh my God, I can get $400,000 and I get a mansion. And it's like, yeah, but you're a Southern Californian. Are you really gonna be happy there with the environment, with the weather, with the culture? Southern California has a very specific kind of culture. And I feel like Hawaii for a lot of our clients, it is a really good fit because it is kind of similar, especially, I work with a lot of seniors and they, and we, I count myself in that, I'm definitely a senior. We remember when the coastline communities were very laid back. They weren't bougie, they weren't hoity-toity, they were just chill. And people wanted to surf and make art and it's changed a lot. And tell me, am I mistaken or are we going back in time maybe 20 years to go to Hawaii and experience what SoCal communities used to be like? Right, in fact, if I was coming from Southern California and wanted that lifestyle, there are other islands that are still bougie, but Big Island, and especially like Saikona, especially East Hawaii too, it is still 1970s vibe. So, yeah, cause that's another thing too of being on Big Island is that it's pretty rural. And I don't know if a lot of people understand that we only have 250,000 people live on an island the size of the state of Connecticut. And so when people say, we do actually have quite a few people who've moved here from Southern California. And one of the things they say is they're just tired of people. They just don't want to sit in traffic anymore. They don't want to be fighting for resources. So they find themselves a little more spaced out here. Eric, what do you think? Yeah, so what I'm going to say, and I'll just add a little. So we noticed this same trend in Northern California in 2005, we started coming over, but we moved here permanently in 2010. And this was shortly after the dot-com boom and all of those kinds of things. So we thought that after that happened and it kind of, Northern California returned to the slow pace that it once did, but it never did. It just kind of kept rolling and rolling. And we, you know, it's like, if we wanted to go out and do something, go to like example, like Tahoe on a Friday night, it was a seven or eight hour journey versus it should be four, right? And all those little things that every time you wanted to go do something, you were competing with everybody. And it just got to be a real disaster with that regard. But one thing that's interesting about here is that because of the set amount of hotel rooms and rental cars, there's only so many people that come on the island at any given time. So a Christmas Eve is not going to be terribly more crowded than in the middle of, you know, any other time during the day. So there's some definite advantages to being on an island that has only so many hotel rooms. That is nice. That's, I kind of like getting into Disneyland, right? Once the park is full, the park is full. Yeah, they close the gates. So, okay. So one of the things we wanted to do is kind of let people know some of the things that we want to like hit upon. And just so if you guys are who are watching this, say, you know, this is, I'm trying to think about, should I retire to specifically for us, Hawaii Island? That's where we're located on the West side of Kailua-Kona. And we cover all of Kailua-Kona up to Waikoloa Village. And we also have referral partners here on the island to go up into the luxury properties in the South Kahala region. And people who want to pretend it's Northern California and go up to Waimea and those areas where it's up at higher elevation, it's cooler. So with us, we were going to talk about maybe the cost differences of living on our island, housing market realities, healthcare, social and community connections, climate and health, family, and also how can you make it work? So one of the things- Just a little bit of information. Just a little bit of information and we're going to get to you fast because that's what Southern California people do. One thing I keep hearing, you got a lot of politics going on in California. And- I think, we had the National Guard here last night. I know. And people seem not to beat up our governor as badly as people beat up your governor. But I want people to know, this is important too, however you swing politically, Hawaii County, our island, was the number one voter for Kamala Harris in the entire election last time. So we do lean left, right? And so sometimes we lean so left, the island's going to tip over. But there is some conservatism coming back in because that's how it's going. So just to tell you that. But also, I know that California always, they always kind of cry a little bit about their taxes. So can you give us a little bit- Wait, which taxes? Is that property tax or income tax? All the taxes. Because we have a lot of like all the taxes too. So if people are thinking, hey, I'm going to go someplace else where it's not so taxy, go from California and Hawaii. Give me a little bit about what is going on with taxes in California. I'll tell you a bit about what's taxes in Hawaii. Okay. So property taxes here, if you're in LA County, we're at about 1.25%. And Orange County is close so that I have to double check on that. But cost of living here is fairly pricey, but there's also a lot of competition. So I think that's one of our advantages is that you're not just relegated to whatever, Ralph's or Stater Brothers or whatever. You've got like the little guy over here and the farmer's market. And there's just a plethora of options. And so oftentimes many of us find ourselves going, well, I get seven items at this place and then I get 14 items over here. And we have our little circuit on shopping day that we do. And we come home and we're doing all right with our pricing. But yeah, I mean, if you just wanna walk into Gelson's or Whole Foods or Whole Paycheck, as they would call it, then yeah, it's gonna be expensive to live here. Gas prices are over $5 a gallon, I think. I don't know. I drive an electric car, so I'm not really sure anymore. It's so strange. But, and taxes on gas and utilities and things like this. Yeah, it's pricey. It is an expensive thing. So what's your, okay, so you have your property taxes at 1%, one and a half percent on the property value. Okay, and then what is your sales tax? So if you're in LA County, it's like 9.75%. Okay. Okay, I can see why people are kind of crying. So just to talk about sales tax. We have a GE tax here. Yeah. It's about four and a half percent. But what's interesting about the GE tax is that it's not only applied at the end of the process, it's applied throughout the manufacturing process. Not that we have that much manufacturing, but throughout the difference. So you get a kind of a, it's kind of a double tax is what it is. Okay. So that makes it a little bit more expensive, but it also makes the goods more expensive at the end to kind of make up for it. So that would be the sales tax. But I will say gasoline here is cheaper. It's about four bucks a gallon, around $4.50 depending on where you go. Okay, yeah, I was double checking my numbers. So California at large is like seven and a quarter percent for like sales tax, but LA County is 9.75. Get out now. I know, right? And this is the thing that I think a lot of people really need to consider is that the longer you wait, the more expensive everything gets. Just everything, everything, everything. So the sooner you can settle someplace where maybe life is a little more affordable. I mean, I don't imagine people run their air conditioning like as much there as we do in these urban centers where there's concrete and asphalt like everywhere. Yeah, yeah, okay. So that's interesting because there's different levels of what you're prepared for here. But Eric, tell them a little bit about what the property taxes are here. Do you have the numbers? I do have the numbers. I don't know what the percentage is. I do, okay. Oh, look at that. Go ahead. So, okay, so just so people know that for homes up to 2 million, you're gonna pay 11 point, so it's 11 cents on every dollar. So just as an example, that's residential, that's not homeowner too. Okay, and then so, okay, so if you live here, homeowners are $5.50. So $5 per 1,000. So I've been hearing specifically that people will say if you're a homeowner in Hawaii, especially here on the Big Island, it's not that bad compared to other places. It's cheaper than the mainland for sure. However, if you kind of dipping your toe into either investment property here or a second home, that you have to be a resident to get that lowest property tax. And if you decide that you're basically gonna own an STVR and kind of go back and forth, they'll tax you at, they'll catch you for 11 cents per dollar, for 11, Eric, tell me. A thousand. A thousand, yeah. Yeah, $11. You're almost getting taxed almost three times. Double, yeah, double for that. For not living here as you would if you did here live here full time. And then they can, basically they say as long as you're here for more than like 260 days of the year, then they give you the full price, the full residential status. And so we do have people who need to travel to go see family. They wanna get off the island and go travel and see the world. And so they do that and they take time and they offer and do that. A lot of the people that are coming here have sold their houses for cash in Southern California and they buy another house here, cash, and they don't have to carry a mortgage. So that's not an expense for them any longer. And then also when people come here, our healthcare has its issues. And I've heard of also people keeping their doctors in Southern California and flying back to Southern California for the specialized healthcare. So, yeah. And that's pretty common. I have, you know, I do a lot of relocation clients all over the country and pretty much almost everywhere in the country, if they came from here and they have their doctors here, they're coming back here. And that's not necessarily true of other places in the nation. We just really have some good health. Amazing healthcare. So I have another story to add to that. I was having to have some Mohs surgery because of skin cancer from here, which is common, of course. And there's not a lot of surgeons on the island that are able to do the Mohs surgery. So you end up going to Oahu, which would be the big island, not the big island, but it's the main island here. But, you know, we had a surgeon that was from LA and he wanted to spend time in a smaller rural area. So he'd spend one week a month here on the big island and work. And he would crank through a whole lot of people in a very short amount of time. And it worked out really well. So that was, we've seen a few, you know, people getting out of the rat race and still bringing their medical benefits here to the big island. In general, we do pretty well on most items, but if you have something specific, you end up going to Oahu. And if it's really bad, you'll end up going to the mainland. Got it, got it. Yeah, well, I mean, that's what they made plans for. Yeah, that's what they planned, exactly. Real quick one, housing market realities. So also just to give you guys, right now the single family home that you're gonna get the median price for is about 1.1 million. That's down from 1.3 about five months ago. So the prices have come down a little bit. And also if you wanna live in West Hawaii, which is more like a Southern California atmosphere, that's what you're gonna pay for a house. Can I add a little? So the West side is the dry side, in just in case you're wondering. And the East side is the West side. So it definitely has a, you know, if you're gonna live in Hilo, in the Hilo side, it can get a lot of, they probably get, I'm gonna say almost a double what we get for rain and it can be windy, but lately it's been raining a lot on the West side and it's been dry on the East side. So whenever they switch is kind of a weird thing, but that gives you an idea. And so most of the people that, if you want a sunset, you'd live on the West side. And a cocktail on the beach is West Hawaii. But in East Hawaii- Indulge me, what am I gonna pay for that, for that? Okay, so on the beach in Hawaii, those houses will probably run you close to two and a half million. If you're on the beach, you know, right there. And if you're in the resort zone and you're paying for the amenities, basically having full access to all the resort amenities, those are running about $3 million. And so you want to spend the money, they're there to take your money. And if you really want to go nuts, you can live in the community of Kukio and it's next to the Four Seasons Hawaii, which is one of the best hotels in the world. You can get those houses for up to $23 million. So if you're in that price range, please call us. Extended, yes, by all means. And you can sell your home here with me first and then we'll- Yeah, we'll just go right on over. Right on over there. Okay, so it's interesting. So apples to apples, I find that really interesting because we have a lot more real estate here. You know, we're a bigger territory and especially if I cover a very vast territory because my relocation specialty just kind of takes me all over. And even though I mostly try to concentrate like within like five to eight miles of the coastline, it's sort of my all the way up and down to like Oxnard down to Fall Grove, apparently. Yeah. You can still get something that is gonna be nice and it's probably going to be, you know, not super updated or what have you and not super big. Probably like a thousand square feet and it's probably gonna be, it should have been a two-two but instead it's a three-two. So rooms that are sort of chopped, that kind of a thing. For like maybe 1.2, but it's not gonna be like on the beach but you could have views of the beach. You're like walking distance to the beach. But it's, they're not gonna be updated. They're gonna be kind of, you know, a little bit beaten and you're still going to be in this. This is the thing I really wanna emphasize is that, you know, if you're still really digging the urban thing, then here all day long and twice on Sunday. I mean, really, there's a lot to do here but there's also a lot of congestion here. There's a lot of traffic, there's a lot of smog, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of annoyances. And frankly, that's why a lot of my senior clients are trying to go to places that are just slower because they just, they're like, I don't wanna see a million people every day every time I go to the market or do, so I want an open road ahead of me when I'm driving, you know? You can get plenty of open road here, you guys. You're not gonna find that here. Yeah, well, one thing too, I go even like, I mean, I used to love going to LA all the time but I've gotten older too. The traffic and the people running you down on the highway and people drive 90 miles an hour and then they'll just, they mean it when they're coming up behind you. Here, people drive with aloha. People do not honk at each other. People give each other the right of road. You know, it's just, people are gentler, kinder, especially on the roads here. And also for the most part, there's one road that wraps around the entire island. You might have two roads in Kona. And so as an older person who doesn't like to get lost on streets and get lost on highways and go off on the wrong side, what happened to me in Honolulu, that's happened on the Big Island. It is very easy to navigate and drive here. And- And it's a two lane highway too. It's a two lane highway. So you really can't get lost. People don't run you down. But also people who move here always talk about how much just chill it is here. Everyone goes to bed at nine o'clock. People get up at eight o'clock in the morning. They go for their five mile hike along the roads, along the ocean. They go for a walk. They talk to people. People wave. They're cool. I'm packing my bags right now. And so, and you know, when we've asked people, what's the number one thing that you love about this island? You know what they say? They say, it's the people. They like the people. They like the culture of kindness here. And that's another thing too. We left the Silicon Valley because it was all about me. And people are like, what do you have? What do you make? What car do you drive? That kind of crap. Me, me, me. And what do you have? How can I compare myself to you? That doesn't happen here. We have billionaires that are drinking next to you with a Tell Me Bahamas shirt on that you would never know they have that kind of money. People are non-flashy. They're not ostentatious. And I guess as ladies, you can choose to have Botox or not. People are not tied to plastic surgery here. You can gracefully here and not have to worry about it. Be still my heart. I mean, yeah, it's, and honestly, you know, as somebody who is not in the spring chicken set, you know, I remember when all of this, all up and down the coast and all the territories that I'm familiar with being a native Californian were super chill. I mean, yeah, you had your areas that were bougie, you know, you're, but gosh, you know, even Santa Monica was so laid back. Like people just did not put on airs and it has drastically changed in the last. So we've seen a little bit of the growing up here in Hawaii too. And they've had to change some things that some of our beaches that we used to just go and didn't think about now are hard to get to. And they've closed some of it off. Like you could just drive up to this beach one time and kind of do backyard, you know, camping or something like that. And they've kind of cut that down a little bit. And it goes back to this, the same problem they had in Southern California is that in Northern California too, is that the, as they, as you grow and more and more people get onto the doing it, then it gets harder. It has to be kind of patrolled and more happens. And then the uptight attitude comes along and then it becomes really a whole different ballpark. If you've got 50 people doing something is one thing, but if you've got 5,000 people doing it, it makes an entirely different scenario. And you need different laws for that too. And that's kind of where we're at is that, you know, they're cutting down on the, you know, it used to be, you know, only your brother and somebody else could go down to this place. But now, you know, if everybody else, tourists find out about it, it makes it really funny. I was thinking of going, driving up to the top of the volcano. You can take your four wheel drive up there. And there is a, you know, a hundred Jeeps in line to go up there. So they've made it very complicated and very long and take so it was a big deal to make sure that happens. And that's kind of one of those examples of when too many people do something. It kind of. Yeah. And the thing is that just so you guys know too, I know about the fires in Los Angeles and how devastating that was, is that there is not a lot of development on this island. And there's just not a lot of infrastructure for more development on this island. And they don't want more development on this island. So we're not going to have 10,000 people showing up every year as more housing's being built. So maybe in the future, when the baby boomers all go on about their very way, maybe they'll build more multifamily family developments. You know, we just don't have mental, we don't have apartment buildings here. We don't have high rises. We don't have skyscrapers. We are a very low density island. And do you guys have ordinances about how high? Yeah, you can't build higher than a palm tree. Well, come on, palm trees can grow. What, three feet tall? Five stories. So we have two or three buildings that might be five stories tall, right? This is not Waikiki. So, and one of the things I was telling Kelly when I first started doing this, the people that really love living on this island are the people who've come and visited it quite a few times. Because they like the vibe. They like the chill of this island because we don't have Waikiki experiences. We don't have, like you just said, the competition. We don't have 14 different grocery stores that you go to decide, you know, I'm gonna go get like something pre-made. I'm gonna go get something. We've got farmer's markets, which is amazing. But because you don't have 15 different places to go, shopping is not part of the experience of entertainment here the way it is in North Carolina. If you like hiking, you like biking, you like swimming, you like snorkeling, you like spearfishing, you like pickleball. Those are the kinds of things. It's a very active outdoor lifestyle here and the people here who live here, Hawaii is named as one of the most healthiest states in the nation. People who come here want to stay healthy and they want to be healthy. And that's why the California and California lifestyle, being outdoors, active, that's why it's nice to move over to something that you're not gonna get hit by your car. And then you can still like ride your bike on the street, you know, or participate in like things like mini triathlons because we are the heart of Ironman. And so we have a lot of people who do swimming, biking, and running. Eric. I'm gonna add something to that. So one of the interesting things is that I think that also what makes Hawaii really healthy is the same thing that it's hard to be sick and be here at the same time. So with that being said, there might be less sick people that come here or they actually end up moving off the island. And that's one of the downfalls is if you have some chronic condition, you're probably better off being on the mainland. Yeah. Circling back to health. So I feel like, you know, I know these communities up and down the coast pretty well. And I gotta say, I know that, you know, Southern California is known for being an outdoor lifestyle kind of place. But over the years, again, I have seen that a lot more people do tend to kind of, like they strike out and they, I went and did my hike and then I came back home and I closed the doors and I closed the windows and I closed everything. And then I was in my little space. And, you know, you have, what are they called? The, oh, the- The Lanai. The Lanai culture, right? Where it's like, everyone's chilling on patios. And I walk along the communities here and I live in Long Beach and Belmont Shore is a fabulous beach community. And it's just right here. And when I walk around the neighborhoods there, I mean, adorable bungalows, many of them fixed up beautifully. And they have these beautiful backyards, but they're not like the kind you would see inland that are like, you know, grass. It's gonna be like a patio that faces the street. And everyone's patio is doing their private as in their walled in, but it's a low wall so that everyone can just see. So it's like, hi, hi, hi. And I'll walk around on a Saturday or Sunday and like, nobody's out. Oh. And I'm like, okay, let me try this at a different time of the day. Maybe they're all at the beach or whatever. And like, no, they're inside and they're air conditioned. You know, it's like, something's changing. And I do feel like, you know, Long Beach in particular is known as the biking city of the country. Like we have more bicyclists and bike lanes and bike accommodations than any other state. And that's about it. I mean, I know there are other things going on, but again, it feels like, and I could be wrong about this, but it does sort of feel like people strike out and then they just come right back to their bubble. And they're not just integrating with their neighbors in that open line eye feeling out here anymore. Well, I think there's two things about that. It's called a screen. It's so much easier to sit on your phone nowadays than ever. And also I think the pandemic actually helped create isolationism. And one of the things that we, one of our little things to talk about is community. Because if you come to an island, you're alone. If you're not intentional about going out and making friends, then you'll be on alone 250, you know, 2,500 miles out in the middle of the Pacific ocean from Los Angeles. And so it has to be, and one thing that's nice about Hawaii because of the aloha spirit, there are a lot of groups to do a variety of different things here. Ukulele, there's a lot of senior groups. You can like, you know, do chair yoga with older people in the gyms here. People here, again, because of the, you know, because I think people find that we are a friendly island and it has a nice experience and stuff. I think that people who do move here like to meet people. Yeah. Crazy. I mean, like if somebody moved there, do you think they would have the experience of the neighbors coming over to say, hey, welcome to the neighborhood? Yeah. Well, it's interesting you say that because there are people from Southern California who are coming over and they're doing what you just said. They've come all the way to Hawaii and they don't want to get outside their house and meet people. And so don't be that guy guys, because one of the things I do when people come into the, to Hawaii Island, I put them to work as volunteers. I do. And I have a huge group called the Kona Newbies Group. And when people first come to the island, they can join this Facebook group and they can meet new people. And we do events. We volunteer for the Ironman. We go out there and we help with the park restoration. We work with kids. It's a great way to meet new people. And it also, one thing I've seen people too, decide to retire. They have no purpose left in life. So I help them get purpose. Let me add, I got a little to add to that as well. What also is interesting is that remember that we are 2,500 miles away from the mainland and it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but when you look out and all you see is water out there, right, you do feel kind of lonely. So, I mean, not lonely, you just feel isolated. I think we can describe it. So if you do not go out and make your community and make your friends and kind of gather a tribe or an Ohana, that you are going to be in trouble at the end of the day, because you need to have that. And we were just talking about that. What happens when your car breaks down? Who's going to come pick you up? We had a, our refrigerator died last week. And first of all, trying to get a refrigerator here is tricky, let's start with that. And local Lowell's had three, which is amazing, which is a great deal. And hopefully one was one that you thought was aesthetically pleasing enough to buy, okay? So we get there and we find a refrigerator. But my other problem is that I had a truck that was broken down because I was repairing that at the time. So I have no way of getting this refrigerator home and I need to have it because now everything is getting, you know, getting a little warm at the old house. And so we put a call out to our potential, you know, our friends in our Ohana and a guy comes up and says, hey, I'm around, don't worry. We call like four people. And somebody finally one guy says, yeah, yeah, I'll come. And he literally showed up at the Lowell's at the same time we were checking out and we were able to put that refrigerator in the back. Yep, yep, yep. And we tell people if you, you know, especially like this happened a couple of times to us too. And we've done a whole video about this. If you guys want to watch this video, it's called why do they leave on 365 white? And one of them is that people have health scares and being alone in a hospital, or if you're a spouse and you're somebody's, you know, hurt and you're alone, you guys, there's nothing better than human connection and nothing better than having somebody you can rely on, but you have to go out and make that relationship happen before you have to pull back into it. And so one thing again about being on this island is that everyone knows that, right? In Southern California, you can sit at your house all day long and you'll probably have a mother nearby or a sister or a cousin or someone to come get you. You come here and you know that you are like in a, like, you know, adventure story and you kind of figure stuff out. And so, and that's one thing too, is that we're doing this video to let you guys know you're not alone if you move here. We are the relocation specialist for Western Hawaii. We actually help you make friends. We actually connect you with people who can help you find a doctor, a handyman. We have a whole group of people who are helping each other because we're all in this together on this island. That's such a really big deal. That is a really big deal because I, you know, whether like, even when I have real clients who are moving just within the state, but like far enough away to where their support system and all their peeps are like an hour, two hours, three hours away, like, yeah, we, I have to make sure that they know where and how all their resources and needs are going to be met. And, you know, what kind of a lifestyle do they want to live? Now, some people do want to isolate. They just do. They're, you know, whatever their reason for it, if that's the lifestyle they choose, so be it. But most people do want community. And that is the reason why they might end up wherever they end up and end up unhappy. Right, right, right. But I'll tell you another story though. We just got a call from this family that wants to build, they want to basically own a farm. And this woman's like, I'm slightly on the spectrum. Just want you to know that. And I don't like people. I don't want to be near people. I want to be as isolated as possible. I'm like, and we will find you that spot because you can absolutely be completely away from every single person for a very long time on this island. You can go to the Hamakua Coast and you can sit on 10 acres and you can be very far away. So we have that too. Something for everyone. There is, there's a but for every seed on this island. I always tell people that. But let's like, let's talk about real quick about climate because the whole Southern California versus Hawaii experience, they're not the same. No. So your experience is you've got colder days, right? You got colder ocean, right? Yeah. Colder nights, that's the other one. Colder nights. You also, like what's happening in California? You got wildfires? We don't have wildfires. We have water fires too, just not as many. Not like those guys. Those guys seem to be always constantly getting smoke in the air from somewhere around the burning. I mean, we're just on fire over here, okay? Yeah, no, and I shouldn't make a joke about that cause like so much devastation. Yes, we do have extreme temperature swings and the further inland you go, the more extreme those become. Like I used to live in San Fernando Valley and it was astonishing. It would be 101 during the day and like 40 at night. Oh my God, I'm dying. You know, my body, you know, it felt like the ice plunge sauna, you know, experience. So living here temperature wise, I think again, my area of speciality would be definitely more comfortable, which is gonna be more temperate. But the ocean here, I love so many things about my dear California, but the ocean, I got no love for this ocean. Yeah, 55 degrees. But probably yours is probably warmer than it was in Northern California with that. So you probably would guys. Oh yeah, no, no, no. It's definitely warmer, but it's murky. You can't see anything, like anything. Like if you walk out into the water and the water is up to your waist, you can't see your feet. And that's another thing too, that when we came to Hawaii, because we grew up in our playground with Santa Cruz, the smell of kelp and vine on the shore. Didn't realize that that was a thing until you come here where that's not happening at all. And we also don't have seagulls, you know, there's nobody pooping on our heads and they're not attacking our food from the air. And also you can see, you can walk, like today the ocean temperature is 81.5 degrees. Oh my God, how cold. In the winter time, it's like 78 and you can go swimming all year long and you're always gonna freeze. And the good news is we don't have great white sharks out here trying to bite our surfers. And also just because it's like temperate, our swing of temperature is usually 10 degrees for more than a night. I'm gonna add one more interesting fact here in particular, Kona, is that we get more rain in the summer than we do in the winter. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The winter is tending to be more of the dry side, dry time, and part of it is partly because the temperatures are cooler in the winter. In the summer, the warm temperatures come up from the ocean and kind of come up the valley and then the cool temperature comes down when they hit, they rain, okay? So that's kind of, but in the winter it's cooler so we don't get those, we don't get those, those, the clouds. The convergence of that. I, you know, so I've been, I've been, and I love it. It is a very beautiful experience. And the thing that I enjoyed was that when it rained, it was so pleasant. I mean, I'm sure there are times- It wasn't like a cold winter storm rain. No, no, no. And I'm sure there are times when the rain can get aggressive, like when it's really- Oh yeah, when it's pouring, it's pouring, yes. Sure, right? Yeah, and that's probably- Yeah, but the sound of crashing rain on your roof, no, it's only gonna last for 45 minutes. It's part of being in a tropical experience, yeah. That's the other thing is, you know, it is brief and I just found it to be extremely pleasant and my skin never looked- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what we were gonna talk about too, is that you are in a level of the Fountain of Youth a little bit here. Yeah, 80%, 80% humidity in the summer will do that to you. No, pop up your Facebook, I'm 80 years old. Can you see? So 113, you're not gonna be able to go anywhere. Oh my God, it's- But wait, wait, wait. Let me get back to climate change for just a sec. So one thing I will say, one thing that I did like, if you are somebody that likes sun more than a lot, one of the advantages of, say, California is that once it stops raining in April, it probably won't rain again until the winter. You're right, until November. So you have a long stretch of dry time, but that's kind of the reason that they got the fires too. Yes. We don't also get, we don't have fog, we have vog. So vog is the, so we have a volcano on the island. We actually have five, but the one that's rough now is Kilauea, and it has gone off 30 times since January. December is, end of December is when it is. I forgot when it started, but about every five or 10 days now it erupts, and it erupts for either a day or two days, and then it stops for another week and then erupts again. And it erupted last night for 12 hours, yesterday for 12 hours, it stopped. But if you now look out over, you can kind of see it a little in the background here. You see this kind of like a white glaze on it. That's the vog. So today is a pretty, I would say today is a two-thirds voggy day. So it kind of, you don't have that wonderful blue sky anymore, everything turns white. So it's kind of a bummer, but it's not all the time. That's the interesting part, is that there are days that are perfect, but there are days that are voggy. Okay, I gotta ask, I gotta ask. So like people who don't live in California, they're like, well, we may have crazy winters and this, but we don't have earthquakes because they're just freaked out about earthquakes. And I'm like, I'm a native, I've lived through a bunch of them. And to me, it's just not a big deal. Is that how the islanders feel about the volcanoes? Because for me, I think, volcano. So first of all, so this is why they have something called lava zones here. And a lava zone is where you would find the volcanoes. And what's interesting, give you an example. It was Lilani Estates down in Puna where the 2018 eruption happened. And it was one of the, it erupted for almost six months and it just made two more miles of earth going out at the end of the island. It had a river, a 50 foot or a 75 foot wide river that went for five miles down the hillside. So it was just gigantic. But what was interesting about that is that you knew where it was gonna be. It was a specific place that it was. So as long as you don't stay in these specific places, you're okay. And remember that these are, these volcanoes just bubble lava, but they don't spray up into the air. So people like, we were watching Pompeii and watching the people get killed by that. This is nothing like. So very few people die from the lava. People don't, it goes so slow. It's like being chased by zombies. Hello. But also what's happening now with the eruption. Not the fast zombies, right? Yeah, the Kilauea volcano right now is erupting in a volcanoes national park in a huge caldera. And you can actually go and peer in quite soft, you know, easily. You can't even feel the heat, it's far enough away. So even though it was just bouncing just a couple of weeks ago, 13 feet, 103 feet in the air, everyone's so far away, you're watching on webcam, but you're also like, you can see it, but you're not close enough to actually feel it. And it keeps itself in the caldera. So it's the most beautiful geologic experience right now on earth, because people can actually go and watch and no one's gonna get hurt because it's inside a huge caldera. And it's actually pretty cool, especially for people who like the spiritual nature of this island. You know, that energy of creation here, people feel them. That's another thing too that, you know, I'm speaking to all these people who say, they've been here before, they get off the plane and they feel like they're home. And there's people here who are saying, you know what, every time I leave this island, I cry. And those are the people who usually stay the longest, no matter what happens, if it's expensive or they need to get their doctor someplace else, they stay the longest because they feel the most connected to this island. And I wrote a book called How to Move to Kona. And my last part of the book was nobody ever said to me while I was living in Santa Clara County, I was called to live in San Jose. And I can guarantee you, most people would say I was not called to live in Santa Monica either. And so, but people feel that way about this island, specifically. And so that's why I'm saying people who, my favorite client is people who've come here numerous times and have always thought that maybe they'd want to retire here someday or spend more time here on the island. And we have a whole connection of human beings that feel that way about this island. I connect with each other because they do. They're special people. They're intuitive. They want to take care of the island. They care about conservation and environmentalism. And we work, we do beach cleanups. We make sure that there's information about not wearing toxic sunscreen in the bays. And so if you're that kind of person who's watching this, you know, we welcome you and we put you to work, but we also help you get community and make you happy. And I think that we create, you know, we can give you testimonials. We help people have great lives. Yeah, well, and that's wonderful. And, you know, I think that a lot of the clients who tend to gravitate towards working with me, you know, I'm definitely of the spiritual set, you know, I'm a spiritual singer, musician, you know, songwriter background and sing in New Thought churches all the time. And a lot of my clients are looking for somewhere that feels that it's gonna have that kind of a feel like it grabs them right here and just they feel that connection. I wrote this really fun retirement guide. I like to do things that are sort of unusual. So my retirement guide, it looks like a comic book, like an old fashioned traditional comic book and with the drawings and everything. And it's real edgy. And you're probably gonna see some cussing in there because, you know, that's how I roll. And it's edgy and fun. And it kind of pokes fun at, you know, like our mortality, just basically going, okay, we're gonna start this whole conversation with how's your health? How many years of life do you think you have left? You know, what are you trying to afford? And what do you want your life to look like in the time that you have left? Because let's face it, we've all got a date stamp on this thing. Time is ticking. So time is ticking. And so that guide, which I can make sure that you guys have. Yeah, it's so funny because I'm working on one, but I use chat GPT. Now I gotta change it around, make it a little bit better. Okay, well, yeah, you start there and then you morph. But yeah, I can make it available to your folks if they would like to. Okay, so everybody who's watching this, I'll drop a PDF link, yeah? Or if it's on the website. And also in Southern California, thinking about moving here, I did put together a comprehensive guide. And also I've reached out to my people who have retired here recently and a little bit longer to get their insight too. So you'd have people who actually are retiring here with what they did, they felt was most successful, they did to make it happen, so. Including my follow-up clients. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I have to give a shout out just really quickly. So one of the things that I love to do with my clients, all of them, regardless of what's going on with them, is do a fun video. So when they do a listing with me, you're gonna see, and I can send you guys some footage if you wanna incorporate it. But basically it's, you know, the highlights of the home and what's special about it, but also some fun things. So, you know, like I ended up jumping into their pool at the end of the video, you know? So like, if you're ready to take the plunge. So this kind of attitude, these kinds of attitudes, I think are the kinds of clients that you guys like to work with, I like to work with, and I know that we can serve at a very high level because they get us and we get them. And I think that's what creates a wonderful experience for everybody, and I'm just so grateful that y'all had me join you here today so that, you know, I can meet your people and hopefully you can meet some of mine as they decide they're gonna leave SoCal and head your way. Yeah, yeah. So if you guys, I know there's a variety. We have over 4,000 subscribers on this channel and there are people who have been waiting to make the leap. So we made this video for you. So if you're thinking about saying, you know what, time to go, do something different, time's ticking, come to Hawaii, we'll help you be successful and use Kelly, she's an amazing realtor. She got high marks from the people that we've given her to. I actually had somebody else too that didn't move to Hawaii, but she sold her house with Kelly in Southern California. And I have to say to Kelly, she's inventive, fun, and she gets the job done. And so thank you. So Eric, any last thoughts that you wanna share with our people? You guys did a great job of covering all the last bits. Thank you, thank you so much for having me, you guys. I just love you, you're such an awesome team, really. I know your heart and I so appreciate that. I know when I send anybody your way, you're gonna treat them like gold. So thank you. Thank you. And again, for our people, Kelly's amazing. And we have this love fest and thank you for watching. And if you guys have any questions, please drop them in the comments below. And if you love this channel, we give out free real estate information all day long. Subscribe and you can go to our email, I mean our website at 365HawaiiRE.com too for lifestyle information about Hawaii. Okay, thanks guys. There you go. Okay, aloha.