Smart Money Hawaii

It is Sunday afternoon, the signs and balloons are on every street corner - time to head to open houses! You walk into a freshly air-conditioned home, the smell of vanilla candles, light music playing. It is easy to get distracted by the glamorous staging and cute decor of the home. But don’t be so easily fooled. You want to look beyond the surface of the home’s appearance to determine if it will be a good match for your needs. If you plan on looking at more than one open house, take lots of notes to make sure you remember what makes one home stand out more than the next. Write down both the positive and negative thoughts you had while visiting the home What details should you be looking for as a home buyer at an open house?  -        Floorplan - Is there a good flow to the home? Is there ample space for your lifestyle - play area for kids, a spare room for the office, enough storage space? -        Look up! - Check th...

     It’s official! The first half of 2022 is now behind us. The current zeitgeist in the housing market mostly relates to inflation. This reminds me of a book I read a few years ago called The Tuttle Twins and the Creature from Jekyll Island. This is just one book of a series that are meant to teach kids about the principles of a free society. This book talks about the Tuttle twin’s grandparents taking them to a movie. They overhear grandpa complaining about how expensive everything is and how movies were 50 cents when he was a kid. Grandpa talks to grandma about the creature from Jekyll Island stealing his money. The kids overhear them and are worried about this monster. Long story short, grandpa and grandma are on a fixed income, and the creature from Jekyll Island is really a representation of a group of people that control the money supply, which in turn affects inflation.       When the money you make doesn’t outpace inflation, you become poorer ...