12/30/25 2026 Predictions - Live W/Core Team Hawaii

Welcome back to the last live stream conversation of the year. It's actually a monologue because it's just me today. Mahe is spending time with family and Jody's doing the same. And we're going to talk predictions for 2026. I don't like predicting. And so I don't like being wrong. And I don't like being salesy. And I don't like the audaciousness, the audacity of thinking I could know when there are so many external factors, whether it's the U.S. buying back their own bonds or Trump tariffing or sending out tweets like who, you know, China and Taiwan getting conflicts. No one can know exactly what the market's going to do. But I do like to focus on principles and the way we use principles to make long-term decisions. So I'm always going to revert back to that. However, today we're going to get a little more specific. I had a conversation with one of the smartest people I know in preparation for this podcast live stream today. And I have some thoughts. I have some thoughts about 2026 and how it might go. And I have some questions, right, that we can just pose. Some intelligent questions as to, well, what if this happens? What if that happens? We're going to get into that today. As always, go to coreteamhawaii.com, scroll to the bottom. You know what? I'm going to do a refresh. We're going to get a new monologue. And then these videos here are some of our more historically popular YouTube videos. But we have some bangers that have come out since. And so we should probably get those up too. But go to the bottom, fill out the contact form. You know, New Year's, people will be off and stuff. But for the most part, my assistant is standing by Sunday through Thursday, ready for your call during most business hours into the evening. And when you register here, it pops up. I see it on my phone. She sees it. The team sees it. And either her or someone, one of us will call you seven days a week. A little more delayed on Fridays and Saturdays. But what else? Yeah, we're going to talk about the market today. Everyone wants to, like, people want to know. Our thing, if I wait to sell my house in June, will I do better than in December? If I have the ability to buy now, should I buy? Because will I have to pay more in June? No one knows. And so principally, it's do it when you're ready. It's rare that people can time the market, even if they wanted to. So it's rare that people have the positioning and the will and the buying power to buy now or keep that for later. Actually, that's a little more common. You know, it's possible that you get pre-approved now and just sit on your hands and watch the market pass you by. But for selling, it's less common that you could sell now, you could sell later. Most people need to sell because of some reason, like summer, because the kids are out of school and then we're going to start school in Vegas or you're in Vegas and you move back home. And so we want the kids to start elementary when they move back here. I moved and made sure that my son started elementary here. We left California and moved back home. And so sell when you're ready. Hawaii is not seasonal enough for me to not pull the trigger when I want to. It might be that December is healthier than May. Typically, we find that springs are more healthy. There's more buyers and more sellers in spring. However, the buyers and the sellers in December are very serious. And if you have the home, if you do have that home, that perimeter lot with no neighbors and a lot of privacy and it's single level so you can age in place and it's been well renovated and it's in the cul-de-sac and has a nice curb appeal and nice grass. But if you have that, it's going to do well in December and in June. And you could never know which market would produce a better result for you. Because in June, it may be that there is some world conflict. Or in June, it may be that Trump has been all over truth social and he's been saying, telling you right now, we are going to drop an atomic bomb on Venezuela if they don't give us their oil or they don't stop driving boats to the ocean or whatever. You never know what's going to happen. And so you sell when you're ready. In terms of buying, we have an old adage. It's not timing the market, it's time in the market. And so typically, buy now, don't wait. Now, you have to be careful and be more specific, right? And so am I only here for two years? And at the end of the two years, I have to sell. Okay, well, what are you buying? Are you buying in a condo building? What are the maintenance fees? What does the reserve study look like? What's the deferred maintenance? When's the last time they replaced the sewer line? How old is the building? What do they typically spend on elevator maintenance? Like, it's a little more dicey situation. Am I buying in Manoa? Am I buying in Manoa where what I'm buying is a unique one of a kind? Am I buying with a loan or am I buying with cash? If I'm buying with a loan, what's the interest rate today? And what's that amortization look like? How much will I pay to interest and to principal over the time that I hold the home? If I'm buying cash, what would I have otherwise done with the cash? Where would I store that wealth? Would I put it in high-yield savings? Put in bonds? Would I put it all in NVIDIA? These are all things you have to talk about with, like, should you buy, should you not? Principally, buy now and wait. But if you only have two years or you don't have three years, then we have to look at some of these more short-term causes and effects. And here's the thing. Even when I talk with the most analytical person who either thinks they understand, you know, macroeconomics or actually really does understand macroeconomics, the conversations we have are stimulating. It typically doesn't make them buy or not buy. They're going to buy or not buy because of their life positioning, even the smartest people, right? And so someone may have a more pessimistic view. They're older and they've been through bear markets or they've been through crashes, and they've seen their home drop in 2007 and 2008 and 2009, and finally rebounded in 2014. And then by 2021, it went crazy. And now they look at all of the... They look at our debt service as a nation and they're like, we're due for the big one. You know, someone may be more of a bull. They're like, I don't know, I just buy. I don't know, I just buy. I just buy and it'll work out. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't matter. They can't take my dog away from me. They can take my house, but they can't take my dog. Irregardless, that person, if they like to talk about money and the markets and the president and the Fed chair and the... They still, typically, whatever we talk about, doesn't shift their decision to buy or to not buy or to sell or to not sell. They've become convicted all on their own, and we're just someone for them to process that information with. And so let's talk about 2026 and what we think might happen. Let's... Some people have... I can't really make the negative case. And some people may think, well, that's biased, Derek. So you think it's all roses. It's convenient for you, for someone who makes their money when people buy and sell real estate with you. You think that the market at a minimum is going to be flatlined and just, you know, stay kind of baseline. And at best, it's going to go up. Well, yeah, that is kind of how I feel about the housing market I'm talking about. Even if I talk about the stock market or the S&P or something today, it all reverts back to how does that correlate with the housing market? That is how I feel. And I could be wrong. However, I just don't... I haven't heard a convincing case as to why we should all be worried about the big bust. There's one thing I saw recently, and that's that foreclosure rates are up by like 20%, and that's not insignificant. That is a number to pay attention to, and I actually did not get to have that conversation with our loan team today in preparation for this. But I did see something come across my feed about foreclosure rates being up. What I immediately thought of is two things. One, it used to be said that a healthy or maybe a normal rate of foreclosure was about 1%. So for about every 100 loans that go out, about 1% going to default. Now, I don't know if they're talking about only primary residences or if they're including investment or second home products in that, but the term 1%, at least leading from probably 2012 to 2020, was a pretty common, like, yeah, about 1% of loans going to default. During COVID, that lowered to like 0.2%, 0.2%, 80% reduction. Almost no one was foreclosing. Now, people still will. All sorts of things happen. People die and divorce and things happen, and there will always be people that default on loans. But here's the thing. If we were at a historic low, like 20.2% of a percent, and 1% had been homeostasis, and now foreclosure rates go up by even 50% from 0.2%, we should not be so alarmed about a 0.3% foreclosure rate, but we should pay attention to the trend. If there's an upward trend in foreclosures, we want to pay attention to that. Now, I don't know the numbers if you were to parse out single family and condos, but I have a sense that a big contributor to that increasing foreclosure rate are condos. Condos in many markets across the country have just experienced pressure from rising insurance costs, deferred maintenance. Here in Hawaii, I had someone call me recently, they need the main sewer line replaced in their building. They had spalling in this building, and just deferred maintenance and large assessments. For many homeowners, that can start to put people in a position where it just doesn't make sense to care about the loan service anymore. Ruin your credit, let the loan go away, move in with family or become a renter if you can. Maybe you got to move somewhere else where renting isn't so competitive, but it's not worth it for me to be losing and bleeding $5,000 a month, or even $1,000 a month for some people. So for condos, I can see a disproportionate rise in foreclosures, and I could certainly see why. I bet you that increase in foreclosures across homes in general is largely condos and not just single family, but I don't actually have the evidence to support that. That's just my sense. But that's the only case I see for the sky's falling and the market's crashing. I don't see, I can't make a case to be negative, to say, you have to sell now. If you don't sell now, it's going to be worse in June. Because a salesy guy, a salesy person, they might take that stance. I used to be at a place where the real estate coach guy, sort of mentor of the brokerage would be like, what do you say when they say, so douchey. What do you say when they say, how's the market? You say, it's great. What are you looking to do, buy or sell? It's great for buying, it's great for selling. And it's like, well, no. It could be okay for selling and buying. It could be great for selling in Manoa and bad for selling in Ewa Beach and good for buying in Ewa Beach. But to say on the same home, yeah, it'd be good to buy it. It'd be good to sell it. It's just, people don't want to hear that. And I think that's why people on this YouTube channel or out in podcast world, go to coreteamhawaii.com and fill out the contact form. But what are the reasons why I think that I'm not worried about 2026? Let's talk about Derek and Derek's balance sheet and Derek's profit and loss statement. It matters to me how the market's going to be because if the market's bad, I have a lot of expenses. I pay a lot in expenses running this team. And if the market's going to be bad, it matters. And I'm not concerned. The only concern I have is that maybe we get so busy that me who's like relief, I'm like the floater. I only do so many clients per year, just me. Usually it's like my hand Aiden and then I'm also coming in when needed. Or it's Kenny and I'm also coming in when needed. Or it's Aiden and I come in when it's needed. If it gets to the point where we're so busy that even I'm stretched thin, that's a good problem to have, right? But real estate is a hard thing for us to scale up to in a week. All of a sudden we have 27 escrows and we need more agents. You can't do that overnight. So then we have to be very honest with people. They're like, hey, need to have a two-hour conversation with you, Derek. And I'm like, when are you buying? When are you selling? Oh, not for a year. I'm just going to be very respectful and transparent. I can't anytime soon. We need to get through this. I'm going to have to schedule you next month for that conversation. Or it's we're buying, we're cash and we know the house we want. Okay, let's prioritize this. We have the capacity, but we only have that capacity because we're very honest about the people who are two years out who want to talk to us, et cetera. I'm concerned about that. I'm concerned that that could happen this year. And here's why. At best or worse, depending on what cap you have on. And by the way, if you're out in podcast land or on YouTube land and you see me dress pretty casual. One, sometimes I am just casual to show you the real human me. And not just the Aloha shirt or dress shirt guy. But also it's holiday season. You know, it's the last one of the year. And my son got me, we got matching shirts. My son and I like to match. And it's like a father-son thing. And I got this one. So shout outs to my boy. At best or worse, like the most aggressive outcome might be that we get a new Fed chair. So this is the meat and potato. Like we get a new Fed chair this year for sure. Trump wanted to push Jerome Powell out sooner, but we get a new Fed chair in May, right? I believe now this is complicated. I don't know that everyone fully, like fully understands this. I actually have to get refreshed on the principles of how that works. The Fed chair, so Jerome Powell doesn't say, nation, I want lower interest rates. So I have said, I've put out a tweet. I've put out a memo on a government sealed letterhead that I want you guys to lower rates. That's not how that works. The rates follow the overnight and the 10-year mainly, 10-year treasury rate. So when rates were really low, and again, I only have a loose grasp of these concepts. I'm not an economist. I'm not a loan officer. And even the people who really understand how this functions, doesn't make them a great predictor of future outcomes too. So I'm okay admitting my ignorance to this, but the rates and the bankers follow the 10-year and even the overnight rate a bit. And so how has that affected? It's like, how has that affected in COVID? Well, the US started buying back all the bonds. They're buying bonds, buying bonds, buying bonds, which affects the 10-year. And so then the bankers can go, oh, it's a sure thing. We're in a market where lower rates to 2%, two and a half percent, 3%, because the US, the Fed is propping up the economy by buying back bonds. Now, if anyone's in the comment section, like Derek, you're a little off there, whatever. Hey, I'm open to that feedback. But I just talked to someone transparently to prep me for this conversation. And that's one of the conversations we have. So does Trump's appointment of the new Fed chair directly cause that person to say, go lower rates? No, but could they quantitative ease and buy bonds and buy back debt and stuff? Yes, they could have a cause. There's a cause and effect. Rates could get a lot lower. And if they did, even if rates, if we saw 4.9, we'd be in a crazy market. We'd be in a COVID-esque market if we saw 4.99. Even 5.6 on VA rates, we've just seen more confidence. And so, yeah, the most outrageous thing that happens next year is we get a new Fed chair, we get lower rates by certain things happening. And the reason why that's bad, and I'm not just saying it's good, is housing prices will go up, unaffordability will worsen, inflation will happen, and the American dream will get even further away. I don't think it's healthy that we do that. Now, a lot of people are like, I'm waiting for rates. In my experience, being the agent on or the team leader managing, overseeing, and my team and I selling six, 18, like, I don't know, we're pushing 300 million in sales. The person who is waiting because of rates is likely not gonna end up buying when the rate's lower. Either because they were always afraid, and their psychology is such that buying and accruing debt is bad and scary, and they just have that mindset, and or they would be willing to buy once rates lower. But if they didn't do it immediately, they're gonna get priced out of the market. And then they may never get back into the market until they move to Vegas. That's unfortunate. But the person who is waiting, they're probably not gonna buy anyway. That's just, yeah. And so I actually hope that doesn't happen. I hope we don't see like a 4.5% VA or like a 4.7 VA and a 5% conventional. Now, if you own a lending team, it'd be a great time for me to open up Core Team Hawaii Lending and start doing refis because a ton of people are gonna need to be doing refis. It would set the lending business on fire because all these people acquired their loans at six and at seven over the last three years. We saw those rates would be good for certain people. It'd be good for us. It'd also be good for you if you own a home. I wanna explain something about inflation. Quantitative easing, inflation, yes, but more specifically quantitative easing or printing of money, basically. If when there's QE, when there's quantitative easing, it's like there's money falling from the sky. So there's all these dollar bills just floating in random paths in the sky. And in order to catch it, you need a bucket. You need a bin, a tub of some sorts. Well, that bin, that tub, that bucket is the house, is the assets that you own. Because yeah, when it's really inflationary, the rich can get richer, but the poor are effectively making the same amount of money, but everything is less affordable, right? You need to catch the inflated dollar, the inflationary dollars falling from the sky, the QE. You need a house or a business to do that. If you don't own a business, you need to own real estate, commercial building, land that truckers use, land that people camp on, a house that you live in, an apartment building, being a partner in an LLC where five people buy 100 units. You need something if we're gonna have that time. If you go back to 2020, when COVID happens, what would you do? You would be in position to buy all the real estate that you could, because we did 20% a year for almost two years straight, like a 20% appreciation rate, which is ridiculous. It's not healthy, but too much. But if that were to happen next year, you'd be happy that you bought real estate, whether it be in December of 25 or February of 26, whatever. But if after we got the new Fed chair, we got super QE, super quantitative easing and inflationary, you'd be happy that you bought a house. You'd only be sad that you didn't buy two. So that's the worst, best slash worst case scenario. But trying to go on the negative side, we still have a housing supply. Even Jerome Powell just came out and said, we have a supply shortage of housing in this country. We have a lot of people and we don't have enough homes. And that's nationwide macro principles. On a more local level, Hawaii, Oahu has a housing shortage. You have more people that want to live here, and holding my heart, more people that want to stay here, then we don't have an excess of homes for them. And that's why home prices here are pretty resilient. Now, where are you buying though? I said this earlier, but I'll repeat myself. A market that I'd be more careful in, if I'm making short-term decisions, is a market that does have more inventory. So I just talked about how supply is the reason I'm not worried about the market because we have a shortage of supply. But can we look around and find an excess of supply? I'm going to go to my... Oh, shoot, I thought I was on my map. I'm going to go to my map here on Google for those who are watching at home. And I'm going to zoom out and look at the island of Oahu. And when I look at it, and this is just sort of generally speaking, I'm oversimplifying, but where do people want to be? And is there not enough land to build more homes? So I always talk about Manoa, just because it's a very sought-after, very finite area. It's right near towns, so traffic, culture. Character, like Manoa is just it. And so if I'm buying a home in Manoa, do I think there's... Am I personally worried about it going down in value in 2026? No, I'm not. It could. Who knows what will happen? Maybe North Korea sends a bomb at Hawaii and they target Manoa. But I don't think so. If I had to try and be scared and be a bear instead of a bull in the Oahu housing market, it's an easy choice. I either go further west where less outside money wants to be. I'm just going to say that. I don't want to get into details on this one. And or I go leeward, which is leeward is a way for us to say west, but we reserve west side for past Coahuila. You go Coahuila Lagoons and go past it. That's the west side. But leeward, so anything kind of... You know, the Department of Education considers pro-city leeward. Kenji, do you consider pro-city leeward? No. Central stuff. Yeah. Central. Yeah, yeah. But you can see how people get them to pro-city. But even IEA or not, yeah, like now you kind of... Even though IEA and pro-city are connected, it would be too much of a stretch for you to call IEA leeward. But pro-city, you can. But anyways, leeward is typically anything Waipio and south, maybe. Maybe as north as Waipio, but not further. But Waipahu and west is leeward to include the west side. But we're talking Ewa. And why Ewa? Because you have supply. Like, look at this. Thousands of homes. I don't know how many there are, but homes, homes, homes, homes, homes, homes. And if you're listening at home without the visual, I'm just pointing on the map, just homes everywhere. All of this farmland, homes, homes, the builder. You have D.R. Horton, which you don't go to their website because you go to coreteamhawaii.com so we can help you and, you know, help you navigate and watch out for red flags at your home inspector, even when you're going into construction. You go D.R. Horton, Gentry, they're all building homes. Gentry is actually building more over here. But in any case, you have a supply issue here. If someone wants a three bedroom, two bath, 1,800 square foot, little garage, little yard, there are just so many of them to be had. And builders are releasing new ones. If they're not releasing them right now, they'll be releasing them soon. And so why? And so there's a supply. And when you look at supply and demand, I'm in the business selling watermelons or apples. And I have only 10 apples left, but I have a hundred buyers. I can market up the farmer's market. A hundred people want these 10 apples. Shoot, I might start auctioning them. I got an apple going. That's the free market. And that's basic economics at play. But if I have a hundred apples, but the farmer's market's shutting down, I start to pay two for one, three for one. You want an apple? And so Ewa Beach is more of that situation. You have excess supply. Now, am I saying don't buy in Ewa? No, I'm not saying that. I would consider still buying in Ewa. However, in fact, I just bought in Merirani. And while Merirani is finite, there's still Core Ridge. Core Ridge is being developed. It's developing 10,000 people are going to move into this area. So I don't know how many homes that is, but developing a lot of homes near me. And I ain't scared. I ain't scared. But in Ewa, you may have bought 24 months ago and your home still kind of be worth, especially if you're buying in Ho'opili. So they call it East Kapolea, which is weird to me. But you're buying in here. You're buying in the new construction and your exits are short term. Well, someone should have went over that when you bought it, right? It's like, it's hard for your home to go up in value when they're making more of them, right? It's hard. 67 Camaros, 67 to 69 Camaros. Are worth so much because they don't make them anymore. Only so many left. But if there were an excess of them in the market, they wouldn't be worth as much. And so you could find yourself where there's more pressure against your home. When I talk about, so I had a conversation about this last night. This was last week's live. Should I sell in December? Should I try and time the market? Well, I would rather sell in December and list my home on Christmas day when no one's paying attention to the MLS and be the only version of my model. So there's like four models in the community. I'd rather be, you know, model A, the only model A or the only one in the community selling period out of models B, C and D as well. Then wait until June or May and there'll be two model A's, three model B's, four model C's. Even there's more buyers, you really like, I'd rather sell in December and be the only game in town. Likewise, I'd rather be in Manoa and there just is not another one of my home and there never will be and the land is finite than I'm in Ewa. Even if I'm the only one selling right now, there will be a hundred more of basically my same home, just different roof. And so to round this up, I'm bullish on next year. The way I'm budgeting and planning my business, I don't think we're going to have any less of a year than we've had the last three years. And uniquely Core Team Hawaii has done about 64 million each year for the last three years to include 25. So 23, 24 and now 25. We're actually going to do slightly less this year because I believe two or three escrows are getting pushed from December to January. And so instead of 64 million, we might end up at like 62 or 63. But basically the same exact thing, three years running. I don't think that the fourth year of that big run, actually we had healthy years prior, prior to that was 54 and then 24 million. And we've been doing good for a while. We'll continue to do well. But I don't think, I think next year is our biggest year ever. I do, I do. I think that 26, we go north of 64 million. That's my prediction. And here's the thing, we aren't going to do a ton different. So I'm not going to start buying leads and ads and I'm not going to buy my face on a bus stop bench and start to, I'm not going to join a country club for the purposes of getting clients and start to ask every attorney in downtown to go to lunch with me and start to build these. I don't, that's not what we do. We try to do more of this and have natural relationships. And so the bigger year, I think will be more of a force of the market than our hunting and pursuit efforts. So that's my prediction on next year. I don't think it goes down. I don't think it goes down at worst. We're somewhere around the same. Ken, do we have comments, questions? Michael Lara, has Ho'opili done well segmenting the developed so no new competing with prior neighborhoods? Nah, I mean, okay. I think that now is a decent time to be selling single family such that they're only releasing the ahakeas, the small little micro homes and they're not releasing larger homes for a little while. But no, I mean, the different neighborhoods are kind of the same thing. That's why I said same house, different roof. So like Kanagani, Ikena, the upcoming community, I'm sure they're all very, very similar. These are track homes. It's a plan master community with track homes. Now, and yeah, probably the worst example on island of you trying to have something unique. Ho'opili and the greater Ewa Beach area. So I kind of answered that more or less directly, but yeah. Lokahi for life says, Derek, do you follow the Japan real estate market? I see people from Hawaii and California buying homes in Japan. If not, no worries. Well, I do not, but we have Kinji-san. Yeah, I do. I follow a few Instagram accounts. Of guys, one is Japanese and another one is, I think American, but they all market lived in homes, which are. But don't you have to be a citizen? How do they buy in Japan? Is there some loophole? There's a lot of new opportunities in the last few years to address the issue of more people leaving suburbs and countryside. So there's a Akiya. Akiya is a word for like empty home. People are leaving their homes for the cities. Japanese have a word for everything. So there's these influencers or, you know, kind of what we do, but at least I follow the ones on Instagram and it's real popular. And there's actually a lot of people from Hawaii. There's a guy from Hawaii, at least one I know of who, that's his stick. They got the suit or no? I don't know, but he like gets people from Hawaii to like buy these like $80,000 homes, kind of a little bit suburbia or beyond. And it's like, they're like, bro, $80,000. You have a little tatami room. You got a little this. It's like, especially if you compare it to Hawaii, you're like, what? I get a Koa Ridge for a 10th of the price. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's a lot of caveats. I'm sure they don't lean into in the short form content, but I think it's like the loaning structure is very, I think you got to come in on cash. And also like the only or most of the couples I see who this person helps are like retired. It's not like first time. Well, those are the people that have an opportunity to frequent Japan, right? As retired people. And I don't think they're like Airbnb in it either. I think it was with you. We had a conversation about condos actually being the better investment in Japan. Versus single family. For like appreciation. Yes, yes. Condos in the city versus single family outside of the city. Yeah. Appreciation plays all in the condo. Because in Japanese culture, they'll live in a used condo. You lived in a condo. I'll buy it, and then I'll live in it. But a lot of times out in the country, single family, they're like, I'm not going to live in somebody else's house. Just build a new house. And building it from scratch. Kind of like track homes or like Koa Ridge. You can pick. I want the loft or the fourth bedroom type of thing. It's a little bit more like build it as you want. Modify it. Interesting. Good question. Thanks for the question. G Lee says, what's up, Kenji? Where's Mahe? Mahe's at home hanging with family. It is the holidays. Today is what? The 29th, 30th? Today's the 30th, December 30th. So it's New Year's Eve. You know, an interesting thing is, are there going to be fireworks this year? I've been seeing. Has Honokai been popping? Yeah. So Honokai is my pulse. Yeah. So they're putting all over the news. We will arrest you. One. I had dinner at my mom's house last night. No, Sunday. From like 5 p.m. to like eight. One. But at this time of year and that neighborhood. Already Christmas time should have had. Between Christmas and New Year's. Multiple times a night you're hearing. One over the last. Yeah. And so interesting this side. No, but we. Yesterday we had another meeting. And I just for fun asked the different people. So Mahe lives in a different part of Merirani. Kenny lives in Ocean Point. So the new part of Ewa Beach. Aiden lives in Waipahu. Which is where you. The epicenter for fireworks and. Aiden was like, oh, they're popping. They're out here popping. In Waipahu. Yeah, but I don't know. He didn't live there last year. So I don't know if he has a. He didn't really have like a. Established baseline of. How is it this year compared to last? But they are still popping in Waipahu. But Ewa Beach. Kenny is like, no, hardly. I've heard like one or two. Which usually you hear a lot more. And then Mahe is nothing in Merirani. I've heard nothing in Merirani. So, yeah, I think people are concerned that. You know, they're going to get. Arrested for fireworks this year. And find thousands of dollars. And on one hand, this is good, right? You have Kupuna and people. With respiratory problems. And there's some people. That don't live here. Or they leave the island. In a large part, just because. Leave the island at least for a while. Because of the smoke that. New Year's causes. And so in a way. If you're putting your old hat. Your old man hat on. And this is good, right? The good enforcement. But could we get this kind of. Intensity for other things? You know, there's probably. A lot of other things. Society that we would. You know, child trafficking. Being one of them. And we can go that serious. Or we can go less serious. But this is a very polarized. Thing right now. Fireworks and so. So, yeah, the days of the. The best days of fireworks. Are probably behind us. I would assume. Oh, yeah. Especially with that. Iliyamanu. Yeah, so one person's. Geely says. They can't arrest everyone. We'll definitely be there. To watch the fireworks. Best fireworks show ever. Yeah, that's how it goes. Look, he said. A foreigner in Japan. Has to pay full cash. And then earlier we had. Look, I was like. Mahalo, I've been busy. Yeah, I guess that's it. So if you guys have any. Last minute questions. Questions or. Comments you want to throw. And we'll acknowledge them. But that's my prediction. For next year. I think we have. A market that is. At least as good. Oh, you know, one thing. I didn't mention in that is. It's good for us to reflect. On how did last year go. We got a new president. We were slow. We didn't have like. In this office. Or in this podcast studio. I should say. And amongst ourselves. And our business partners. There were times. Where we were trying to. Figure out what happened. To the market. Why is it so slow? Especially in a time. Where in a time. Where we. Historically, we're busy. So the spring. And the summer. Why was June so slow? We were trying to sell. This one townhome in Milani. And it was. It was tough. And we listed in June. And you need a little. Hindsight in real estate. So you need like. You can't have data. Until the thing has happened. Right. And so. After a couple of weeks. We started assessing. We started like. Pulling our hair out on. Which I don't have much left. But we started. Pulling our hair out. I'm like, what happened? Why is the market. Dead in the water. In the summer. And I think a part of that. Was a Trump presidency. Tariffs. And just overall. Confidence lowering. You also saw. A bear market. I don't know if it's officially. A bear market. Because there's parameters. That you know. Make it an official bear market. But. We saw a slowed. Stock market. And just a slowed economy. Because of the tariffs. In the spring. And so then. You have that trailing effect. Into June. Right. Not only myself. But Kenji. And I were just discussing. Another agent. In the industry. And I've heard this. From multiple others. The second half of the year. Was stronger than the first. And usually for us. We've made our year. By summer. This time. I don't know the exact numbers. But we. Summer was concerning. And then September. We picked up. In October. November. December. Were some of our busiest months. And that's not typically. How that goes. And I think. That has to do. With settling. Into a Trump presidency. Whether it's. As you know. Some sort of. Sense of restored. Confidence. And accepting new normal. And people saying. Okay. Now we'll make this decision. My 401k dipped. But now it's kind of. Kind of back to where it was. Or. I can see that. I'm not going to lose everything. And now I'll buy a house. Or now I'll make a big decision. To sell a house. Or whatever the case may be. So. Anecdotally. I think multiple agents. Have that experience. That I think the industry. Kind of had that experience. Not just in Hawaii. But nationwide. And so going into 26. I mean. Is Trump going to tweet. Sure. Is he going to. Threaten. And sure. I think people are ignoring. Or accepting. At this point. And. And by the way. I'm not. Those. Those aren't political views. That's just objectively. Acknowledging that. Trump. A Trump presidency is wild. If you're in. If you're an investor. If you're a comedian. If you're a Republican. If you're a Democrat. It's just a different time. Than we've had historically. It's not Obama. It's not Bush. You know. It's not Clinton. It's not Reagan. It's it's. It's different right. We all can agree on that. And so. A little more volatile. But. People are settling into it. And so if people started to settle in. At the end of his first year. I think the second year. Will feel even more stable. To the consumer. And then you get a new. Fed chair. And you have this president. Who wants a roaring economy under him. He seems to be less. Concerned about inflation. But he does want kind of a. Booming economy under him. And so I think that that. Correlates into the housing market. And we have at least. The year that we had last year. If not a stronger one. And so. I like. He came in with a question. Dang. Sorry monster. Well we were late. So. Yeah. We were late too. He said. Dang. I'm late again. Can't be more safe. And convenient. Than home. G. Lee says. Or. Glee. Taiyaki. With China. Restricting the sales. Of rare earth minerals. Like silver. Gold. Lithium. Etc. Do you foresee this. Affecting the broader market. I can't. I. I don't know. Yeah. I would. I would want to. I know who I would. Ask that question too. And who I will. Ask that question too. So that I can. Have that person help me. Form an opinion. Now I don't just. Simply parrot. I will challenge this person. Who. Who prefers more anonymity. But I will challenge him. And I will say. But what about this. Or last time we talked. Aren't you kind of contradicting this. And then we'll. We'll. You know. Have a good conversation. And so. I don't know. I mean. I don't know. But. What I do know. Is we've seen. China. We've seen the tariffs that play. Some tariff revenue. But also. Inflation. And. China reported their biggest. You know. About growth year. India reported. Seven percent growth in GDP. When in theory. If the tariffs were working. They should. Have a. Reduction in GDP. Right. Maybe. We seeing some strengthening. Of brick. Countries. And so. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not. I'm not educated enough to. To. To answer that question. Ty. But I appreciate it. What do you think. Put it. Put what you think. In the comments. And maybe I'll come back. With a response next week. On that one. Everyone have a safe. And healthy new year. Hope you guys. Had a good Christmas. I meant to ask that. At the beginning. To comment. How was your Christmas. How are your holidays going. I am genuinely interested. How is the. How is it. The new luau. Is ready. In February. Twenty. Twenty six. At the cove. Are they tearing. Everything down. For a do-over. Ken. You would know. Actually. What's up with that. I think it's. I see some movement. By lagoon four. By the old helicopter pad. It looks like. They might be prepping. It up for their. That's where the new luau. I'm just. Speculation. Okay. They're. They're working on that. Lot. Yeah. So. Things kind of line up. That. And also. Moani is like. I saw on Moani. Moani is a local. Kind of bar. They got the contract. For the new luau. As far as food. Really. So. I'm just putting it together. Like. Just for food. For the luau food. Apparently. Moani's. Check them out. Moani's Instagram. I mean. You know. The part where Lil Wayne was like. Shout out Gucci. I guess. I'm like. Shout out Moani's. I don't know how long. The contract or whatever. But. Just putting together pieces. I'm like. I see stuff going on. At the old helicopter pad. And. Paradise Cove. Rumors. So. I don't know. Speculation. Yeah. Interesting question. Thank you. In the rabbit's hole. Thanks for all your videos. I'm moving over from Washington. In a few months. Well. If you. Are going to be buying. Real estate. Make sure to hit us up. And. I hope you have a good stay here. Taiyaki. Appreciate the answer. Anecdotally. Yeah. I don't. I don't ever want to act like I know. Because I don't. We're talking about. I mean. Rare earth minerals. Silver gold. What does that affect? Like iPhones. And TVs. And computers. I guess. And so. Yeah. I don't know. You know. Here's the thing. I find. And Tai. You tell me. If this makes sense to you. I find that people. Who are really educated on. On rare earth minerals. And talking about the cost of silver. And gold and lithium. Etc. Are never bulls. They're never like. Rose colored glasses. Does that make sense to you too Ken? They're never like. But I'm buying Nvidia. And I'm buying this. They're like. Yeah. The people who are aware of those things. Are usually more waiting for the crash. Now I'm not throwing shade or anything. Because sometimes bears are right. But there's a saying. This applies to housing. And this applies to stock. Sometimes bears are right. Sometimes bulls are right. But over time. If you zoom out. Bulls are always right. So on that. I think we'll end this. That is the principle. It's not timing the market. It's time in the market. Sometimes bears are right. Sometimes bulls are right. But if you wait long enough. The bull is always right. The market is up and to the right. And if there is a great depression. Okay. You're right. You're correct. If there's something worse. Then you know. The end of the wrong 20s. And we're. There's just famine in the streets. Okay. You are right. And we're all poor. We're all screwed. But what if there isn't? What about the more probable outcome? What if that doesn't happen? And you should have bought. That's kind of how I operate. And trust me. I am the guy who likes to be right. And I tend to be pessimistic. I'm a pessimist. I'm a. How are they trying to screw us? How can this go wrong? And that's good for you. And the transaction. Right. And you're doing a transaction with us. You want at least one guy thinking that way. Everyone else can be. Rose colored glasses and blinders on. But I. When it comes to making long-term financial decisions. When it comes to me one day. Not being on this earth. And leaving whatever wealth I have for my family. Should I choose to do so? You know. Sometimes bears are right. Sometimes bulls are right. But over the long haul. Bulls are always right. So I buy and I wait. And in the interim. I try to get myself into a position. To either pay down debt. Or buy again. And continue to wait. So those are good principles to live by. Hope you guys have a great New Year's. Hope you had a great Christmas. Love you all. Thank you for watching the channel. And go to coreteamhawaii.com