Top 3 Safest Neighborhoods in Hawaiʻi | 2025 Real Estate Tour

All right guys, so we opened Google AI today and we asked it, what are the safest neighborhoods on Oahu? Not our opinion, we're not steering or directing you towards anything. Secret beaches in this neighborhood, a lot of nine out of 10 schools. If safety's my number one concern, it is on my list personally. That's the kind of ---- that pisses me off because I hate people telling me what to do. The pains of being a fatherly challenged real estate content producer in Hawaii. Risking my life. Let's let this stupid car go by. We're here in Kailua, we just looked at a home with our clients, Allison and Will. Mahe happened to be here showing, so we came and met her. And yeah, Kailua is, I guess, it's one of those neighborhoods. It's sort of this highly sought after, more higher priced neighborhood. It's a little bit transient. Like these clients, for example, they came to us and they're like, I want kids playing at the park. I want more of a familial, you know, communal feel. Parts of Ewa Beach, parts of Kailua. Hawaii Kai doesn't really come up for them. It didn't really come up for us as a suggestion. I'm pushing Mililani, but they just want more of a Hawaii feel. And although Mililani feels Hawaii to Mahe and I, and to the team, it doesn't feel Hawaii to them. So why are we here? We're in the Aikahi neighborhood of Kailua, cause that's where our showing for our client was today. We have clients that live in this neighborhood, secret beaches in this neighborhood. I'll just leave it at that. Cause sometimes people don't like you mentioning secret beaches. There's this park that on the weekends, there's games and there's noise. And so maybe you don't want to live on this side of Aikahi if you don't want the elementary noise or the neighborhood park noise. Me, I actually don't mind that kind of noise. I recently almost bought a house next to a park just like that. But for some, it's a nuisance. But this is just a backdrop for the topic. Why did AI say it's one of the safer neighborhoods? It's not exclusive to Kailua that we could find ourselves in a setting with a park and kids playing in the distant background. You ask people like, hey, name your top five safest neighborhoods. A lot of people would have Kailua in that list where they'd have a number one, number three, number five, I don't know. But it would come up on a lot of people's list. Now to some, they may begrudgingly say Kailua because while violence and crimes might be lower than other areas, there may be a bit more of a culture war here. But that's not what this video is about. If you want that video, leave a comment or maybe go to coreteamhawaii.com, go to the bottom, fill out the contact form because that's where you should be going for all your Hawaii real estate needs. But yeah, Kailua is a cool place. If my wife would do it, we would at least consider it. Who wouldn't want to be within walking distance to breweries, cool restaurants, the beach, Whole Foods and gyms and down to earth and your kid's school in most cases. Good fair weather where it's wet enough to be green in most cases, but it's not so wet that it's like Kaneohe or North Kaneohe or something. Kailua is a good pick. Let's go to another safe neighborhood. All right, so now we're in Merirani, a Merirani town and Google AI brought Merirani up as one of the safest neighborhoods too. So we came here. There's Hanerani schools, a Christian school. There's Merirani Baptist Church, rec center that I take my kids to sometimes. There's a baseball field down here. I just saw an older man in the house over here. Uncle, you know, right now, look, he's, check this out. Uncle's raking his yard. It's not hard to see why Google AI would corroborate all the information and come up with Merirani as one of the safest neighborhoods. I'm always looking to call out contradictions. I'm always looking to be negative and nuanced and discerning on your behalf, right? And so we've literally made a video, more clickbaity than true, but we made a video at a time where Merirani I think had like a murder or something and we're like, has Merirani gone downhill? And you're not in this utopia here at Merirani, but generally speaking, I would say this is one of those neighborhoods for sure. I know a lot of people that live here, myself included, for the reasons Google AI stated, not to mention a lot of nine out of 10 schools. Merirani High School has to be considered one of the more sought after for public schools, but then you have private school options like Hanerani, this Christian school. It may mean something to you, it may not, but they're flying the flag half-staffed today because Charlie Kirk was assassinated yesterday. Yeah, it's just like an all-American neighborhood. In fact, we've said it a bunch of times on the channel, Merirani is certified Tree City, USA. On top of that, I think it would be certified Rec Center City, USA. You watch the movie, The Sandlot, where they go to the pool and stuff? I didn't grow up in a neighborhood like that. I thought that was literally just made for the movies. I didn't know there were neighborhoods like that. Well, Merirani is that neighborhood in Hawaii. They don't even have that ubiquitously on the mainland, but then you have it here in Merirani. It's definitely a place to raise kids. So for me, that's the kind of ---- that pisses me off because I hate people telling me what to do. I really don't like rules. I was a defiant student, all of that stuff. However, that comes with it, right? That comes with the librarian, the rec center. Whoa, before you go in, wait, let me look at the picture and you four times. Okay, you can go. We're doing a video on safe places and they don't even want you parking if you don't have the right registration with the town center. So, yeah. Yeah, we're gonna have to repaint a house soon. So many of the houses are this. They're just beige. They were made in the 90s to 2000. It was sort of audacious then to go with like a gray house. There's this one color that I see some people have that I don't really see it yet. Maybe I would tell on them, get them in trouble. You know, I can see how parking is very limited here and you would want to police it because there aren't that many parking spots left. So I can kind of understand. But that's what you want for your kids is kind of safety. Yeah, I mean, I'm stupid and ridiculous. That stuff like that irritates me, but it was all the teachers and people always like telling me, no, no, no, you're bad, you're bad, you're bad in school, right? Cause I wasn't a sit down and shut up kid. Perfect example to go to show like, I am comfortable taking my kids to a rec center and falling asleep or reading a book or walking outside to take, like, it's a safe place. I have zero worries, especially around like a rec center in Mililani. But you know, even at the town centers and stuff too, on average, it's more safe. And in my personal experience, Hawaii Kai, that's a place we weren't able to go with just the time restriction and the drive from Kailua to Hawaii Kai would have added on like an hour and a half plus to our days. But Hawaii Kai is another one that Google AI put on the list. Makes sense. Hawaii Kai is like the Orange County, Newport, Marina part of Hawaii. Like Hawaii Kai sounds very Hawaiian, but it's not Hawaii Kai, Hawaii like sea, Hawaii ocean. They got Kaiser. I actually don't know my like Hawaiian business man, missionary overthrow history too much, but it was named after him. We like to exaggerate and talk about the exaggerated points of a neighborhood sometimes, but you guys watching understand, right? That this, the neighborhood isn't entirely that thing. But when I think of Hawaii Kai, I think of Marina, like Tesla, Maserati. When I worked in the medical field, the majority of the physicians lived somewhere going down Kaneanole Highway, East Honolulu, towards Hawaii Kai either on the way to or in Hawaii Kai. We have a physician right now who is looking for homes and all of his coworkers, he's transitioning from the military into the civilian world. And all of the physicians in the civilian world said, you gotta live in Hawaii Kai, Hawaii Lut Ridge. This family was actually like, nah, this is not vibing for me. Same experience I had in the medical field he had. So I'm picturing the doctors I used to work with, the doctor that this doctor is starting, the doctors that he's starting to work with. I picture people on a Sunday on a 30 mile bike ride. So they're clipped in, you know, you unclip and you do the awkward walk to go get coffee at the coffee shop. Again, this is an exaggerated point. But I remember I was at a coffee shop in Hawaii Kai on the Marina once, and there were a couple of, looked like fourth wives, their dogs and strollers, and they just finished tennis or golf lessons. And I don't have a poodle that I push in a stroller, but you're not inherently like a bougie or pretentious person because you take your dogs and walk in the stroller. Maybe they got hip dysplasia, you know what I mean? But I'm just, I'm talking about the exaggerated points of Hawaii Kai. You have these ridges and these one of one homes, quintessential certain kind things, you know? And Hawaii Kai is in everywhere. If safety is my number one concern, it is on my list personally without using Google AI. When Kenji and I were talking about, well, where's the like contradicting part of Hawaii Kai? We're like, I don't know if it exists. Perhaps there's some homelessness on the beach somewhere or something, but. What's that you said, the Hawaii Kai boys? Yeah, like, don't let me, you say Ewa Beach boys, Wai'anae boys, like, okay. Kapolei boys might even be a new advent in a generation or two from now. But don't let me hear you saying Hawaii Kai boys, okay? I saw this Instagram clip. He starts with a little gold chain and then a thicker one, a thicker one. By the end, he has this gold chain that's like it's as big as my truck. I saw people take that and parody it with like Hawaii stuff. And the first one was like Hawaii Kai, the thin chain. And by the time we got to that thick chain there in Kalihi, Ewa Beach, Wai'anae, you know. You know what? Thank you for that question. East Honolulu, like, yeah, more gated communities, but also more than even a Kailua or anywhere else. More homes that have gates for just the home. Like once you get from Kahala to Hawaii Kai, like if you're a gate company, that's where your clientele is, right? Like we could do a whole video on where the most pools are and have like a pool company. That'd be a great video. Have a pool like service company come on. Gates, like gate to getting your driveway or to getting your community. Yeah, decent amount in Hawaii Kai and East Honolulu. We came here to Island Vintage in Kapolei. It's like the coolest coffee shop, sort of a modern day co-work space. There's also Target behind me in the movie theaters and all the things that yes, outside perception is Kapolei would be very safe. Remember we used Google AI to guide us on what neighborhoods to go to today. So Kenji sent me what chat GPT says about Kapolei. Strong schools and community, amenities close by, low environmental risks. So talking about fires and floods, tsunamis, I guess. Crime is mixed, growth pains because of rapid expansion. Newer homes, cul-de-sac. I feel like if you know how to discern what artificial intelligence is telling you, that's fair. Safer perception. Perception isn't necessarily reality when it comes to whether or not to have a ring camera or lock your door though, right? But there are a lot more neighborhoods that could be on the list for safe neighborhoods if you're gonna say crime is mixed. So take a place like Aiea. In Aiea, you go down the hill towards Pearl Harbor and find smoke if you want it. Go up in these neighborhoods like Royal Summit or Pearl Ridge Estates, entirely different. Look at Ewa Beach. Ewa Beach is like here that's different than here and they're only separated by a road. We've talked about in other videos. I went to Campbell High School. It was Kapolei and Ewa, Ewa Beach all going to one school. And when you say Kapolei, nowadays you include Makakilo, especially if you're not from here, but Makakilo is a part of Kapolei. All of those people went to Campbell and had a lot of fights. You know how you have snow days on the mainland? Well, we had fight days. I remember one year having like a whole extra week of school in June because of the multiple times they had to shut the school down for fights. And so that doesn't inherently make a neighborhood unsafe. I also remember, you remember there's like the Kapolei high school fight or something and a kid pulls out a gun. Could it have been a fake gun? Could it have been a BB gun or whatever? Is he just flexing? I don't know, but that happened. I know a guy I used to work with. I hope he's doing good if you watch this, man. I hope you get the help you need. He lives on the streets, or like he lives somewhere over here in Kapolei. And the mutual friends that we hold still know, like they know he's out here. So Kapolei, yeah, mixed bag. I would just say, I'm surprised it was on the list. But again, we're asking artificial intelligence. I feel like if you asked local people who grew up here for their top three or four or whatever, I don't know that everybody puts Kapolei on it. Kenji's shaking his head. But if you asked like military PCSers, maybe they choose to live in Kapolei for the price range and for the more modern style house. And they're sort of in their bubble. Might they say, you know, agree with the list and put Kapolei, yeah? Bruh, just depends. You gotta put Manoa. If there's this list, right? I don't know the actual crime statistic. We're going off sentiment and sentiment matters. I feel like Haula would be safer. Haula. Oh, that's like Laie Haula is very likely a lot safer. Community that's centered around the Mormon temple and the BYU, the whole thing out there. Point is, is I'm a little surprised Kapolei's on the list, but I can see why. But I can also see why it's from AI. And if it were local people being surveyed versus military transplant, you get a mix of different answers. But to be fair, AI said it's a mixed bag. So hope you guys enjoyed this one. Go to courtteamhawaii.com. Go to the bottom if you want more of a personal dialogue instead of listening to this monologue. Book an appointment. We'll help you sell. We'll help you buy. We'll get most of our listings on this channel and help you sell and buy real estate. Aloha.