Kona Kohala Blog

What can you buy for under $350K?  Actually, quite a bit.  Recommended buys would be Waikoloa Colony Villas at the Waikoloa Beach Resort or Fairway Villas there.  If you're looking in North Kona, try Kona Sea Villas.

Waikoloa Colony Villas are well constructed units with all the amenities.  Inside is granite and large tile along with well built cabinets, nice fixtures and their own one car garage.  These condos are well below their peak prices of just a few years ago and are a bargain today.  The maintenance fees are still high but not as high as they were; now they run about $630 and up.  The complex has a solid association so the fees may come down even more as they tighten their belts like bundling their cable and phone along with their internet provider which cut costs recently.  Prices in there are from $285,000 to $349,000 for 2 and 3 bedroom units.

Kona Sea Villas are up above Alii Drive on Kuakini Highway.  This is one complex where ample space was allotted for the buildings.  Unlike the complexes below on Alii Drive, Sea Villas is spread out giving a feeling of roominess and openness, a real contrast to the cramped conditions felt below.  There are just 4 units for sale right now ranging in price from $199K, a short sale with an offer in, to $587K for what they're describing as a penthouse unit.  In fact it's a two story corner with very nice ocean views.  The maintenance fees range from $550/month to $1,045/month for the "penthouse".  These also include garages and there have been only 2 sales in the last 12 months.  This is also a bargain compared to 2006 prices.

Contact me if you're interested in either place and I'll get you detailed information.

Now for the good news, credit card debt is down for the second straight month.  March is down 4.5% and February was down 8.4%.  This is after 22 months of job losses so people are putting away the plastic.

The bad news, they may have put away the plastic but there's more than one way to go into debt if you're determined to do so.  Auto, furniture and consumer electronics debt is up 3.9% but still outweighs credit card debt decreases.

Credit card debt totals $852.6 billion which works out to $7,271 per household.  Non-revolving credit like those cars and Blue Ray players total an incredible $1.59 trillion or $13,447 per household.  Instead of abbreviating that number it's $1,590,000,000,000.00, a bit more than most of us will make in a life time.  Okay, more than any of us will make in a life time.

This spending is attributed to the "Frugality Fatigue" we talked about yesterday, people feel the need to spend once in a while, after all, we worked for it long and hard, darn it!

This is good in one sense, since consumer spending makes up 70% of our Gross Domestic Product, spending helps the economy.  Hopefully, you'll let others go into debt to grow the economy and you'll continue to get rid of your debt, pay off credit cards and buy cars and trucks you can afford.

The problem with redistributing the wealth, as Obama would have us do, is that it's all going to go back to where it was eventually.  It's been studied and stated that if all the money in the country we gathered up and equally spread among the people, within 10 years we would be back to where we were before it was shared equally.  It's all about habits and if you don't have a savings habit getting a bunch of money won't change that.  So all those who love to spend go to it, spend away and help our economy.  The rest of us can save our money, live within a budget and once again in the near future be able to capitalize on the frivolity of those who love trinkets and things.