Kona Kohala Blog

April 22nd is the day the new EPA lead laws go into effect.  Why is his important?  Probably the most compelling reason is that if you are found to be in violation of this new law, you are liable for fines of up to $37,500 per day.

The law states that any renovation, repair or paint in a home or building built in 1978 or before requires that the contractor be certified "Lead Safe" by the Environmental Protection Agency.  You can go to the EPA web site for a list of contractors in your area who have gotten the Lead Safe certification.  Please note that even painting an older home requires this if there's a chance old paint would be disturbed.  I haven't read the entire article so I don't know how they address owner builders or owner painters.

Prices continue to level off in North Kona and South Kohala while activity levels are still robust.  I believe this is one of the many bump ups we will see as prices continue to decline, albeit at a slower pace, drawing more people into the marketplace.  We're seeing more condos in both North Kona and South Kohala, especially in the Waikoloa Village area, priced under the one hundred thousand dollar mark.  This is a great opportunity to get into a rental property to start balancing your investment portfolio.

I can provide you with an Investment Spread Sheet that will give you some valuable data to take to your financial planner or tax consultant to see if this is right for you.  Contact at Robert@FerrariPacificRealty.com or call my cell at 808-896-0661.  I'll prepare one for you on each property you're interested in.

Most of our activity growth for Single Family Residences (SFR's) in North Kona are in the $401K to $500K price range.  The next hottest range is $900K to $1.5M.  The area between $501K and $899K is the slowest area in terms of sales activity.

Interest rates are staying low since there's still no sign of inflation in the Consumer Price Index released today nor in the Core CPI which came in a 0.1% as predicted.  Keeping the listing side full is the slow release of "shadow inventory" the banks are releasing as properties sell.  Since these timed releases will continue for the foreseeable future, only an interest rate increase or a price increase will interrupt this bumpy recovery and I use the term recovery lightly.  There will be no sustained recovery until we see jobless claims make a serious move towards growth.  With all the new taxes being placed on small business from obamacare, don't expect that soon.

More independent analysts are now saying that obamacare is going to actually cost the taxpayers money rather than saving money as the administration would like us to believe.  An example is a client with a small company, about 130 employees, who announced no pay raises this year due to the increased cost of health care with obamacare.  His employees aren't too happy about it but he showed them the numbers from accounting and there just isn't enough to go around even though his company continues to expand even in this economy.

Watch for a government take over of the banking industry just like we saw in the auto industry and the insurance industry.  This demonizing of Wall Street has a reason, pass the new regulations allowing government into the financial sector; strange when you consider that Wall Street donated huge amounts of money to the obama campaign.  Goldman Sachs gave $994,975, Citigroup gave $701,290 and J.P. Morgan Chase donated another $695,132, wow.  All this legislation is about controlling the lives of the American people and has nothing to do with what's best for the American people.  There's no way the obama regime can get us anywhere near out of debt by taxing the wealthy.  Some say they don't want us out of debt but that's for another day.

Bottom line is if you taxed those making over $250,000/year at 100% you couldn't raise the money to pay off the trillions we're now in debt for.  Somebody's gotta' pay and if it's not the rich who do you think it's going to fall upon to cover the tab.

Keep in mind that the obama's reported over $5,000,000 in income in 2009 and paid just over $1M in federal taxes, about 20%.  How many middle income earners pay only 20%?  Your time is coming unless we make some changes, changes that will guarantee a little more balance in the executive and legislative branches of our government.  November will be that opportunity, vote, let your voice be heard.  Change is imperative in order to slow the gutting of America.