Living in Kailua, Hawaii | Oahu Circle Island Tour

I feel like there's a lot of like little day spas you know for people to get get their goddess on. Like I don't know I just saw the word goddess there so I'm like it's totally totally the vibe. Welcome to episode three of our Circle Island tour. We just finished in Waimanalo. Today we're picking up in Kailua. Now I know we've done Kailua videos before. If you've been on our channel before maybe you've watched them. If you're new here and you're interested in Kailua we've got some other videos on that so check those out. But today we want to drive through some neighborhoods that aren't typically shown. Kailua is known as a beach town. Most people who are interested in living here are interested in the areas by the ocean but there are other beautiful neighborhoods throughout Kailua that really depict what Kailua living is all about. Today we're starting at the Royal Hawaiian Golf Club. Heck no I'm not going to golf here because this course is hard but it's very beautiful and as you can see it's very lush in this area. That's a lot of what you're going to see today so thanks a lot for watching. I'm Myla with Dwell Hawaii. I'm a real estate agent with my nephew Kola Cassidy. If there's anything we can do for you by way of real estate and you want to have a conversation with us get in touch with us the links in the description box. Like I don't want to golf anymore. Like I don't even know why I try. How'd you do today? Beautiful course. Isn't it so beautiful? It's the most beautiful ever. It's like Jurassic Park. Kailua. I feel like everybody I talk to wants to live in Kailua. Myself included. I love Kailua. Kola has a couple of houses here and whether it's local people or if it's people calling from the mainland looking at moving to Hawaii it kind of always starts with Kailua and anytime somebody gives us criteria it ends up at Kailua and then we get into prices and then we get into what Kailua really is and then usually the locations shift. Everybody thinks of Kailua as a beach town. They think of Lanikai. They think of Kailua beach. They think of Kailua town and how cute it is with all the foot traffic and being able to ride a bike and go to all the cute coffee shops but Kailua is made up of like 20 different neighborhoods and the beach neighborhoods really are only a very small part of Kailua. Now even though you live in someplace like Mauna Wili which is where we are now back by the mountain you're still you still have proximity to the beach very easily but it's a completely different world up here. I mean it's super lush it's like Jurassic Park but it gets a lot of rain so even though the beach may not be raining up here it could be a completely different experience. So we're going to drive through some of the different neighborhoods that aren't often featured on videos. Mauna Wili, Enchanted Lake, Keolu and here's the other thing about Kailua. So the neighborhood itself or the city itself is amazing. It's 40,000 people but what we find is is like people want to be here but they want to like either bring their house from the mainland because when they see the houses here and that they're one and a half million dollars or more it gets a little bit discouraging. People love Kailua because it's a beach town and it's it's everything when they dream of living in Hawai'i. I believe this is what they're dreaming of. A mixture of nature, good eateries, being able to walk places, being able to walk to the beach, being able to go to a beach year-round that is swimmable. Like if you live on the north shore you really only can enjoy the beach like sitting on the beach and going in the water like from April until about October and then after that it's winter and it gets quite rainy up there. The waves are like too big to swim in, too big to surf in unless you're a skilled surfer. So Kailua just gives you that like very peaceful consistent experience all year long. Look how beautiful Mauna Wili is. Oh my gosh. Okay so a little bit about Mauna Wili. Kailua as a city the median home price is like 1.65 million and our median home price on O'ahu is about 1.1 million. Inventory here is usually pretty sparse. Homes go under contract quickly but right now we're in January of 2025 filming this video. I looked this morning and there's 50 active single-family home listings and most of them have been on the market for three to four months. That's quite a long time. I kind of think people are still pricing their homes here in alignment with what they experienced back in 2020-2021 and that's just the market right now too. The market's kind of at a stall. Affordability is such a crisis. Interest rates are 7.125% today. I think they came down a little bit but they're just hovering around there and then prices haven't come down so it's just making it that much harder to afford whereas before people would just be like oh my gosh give me anything in Kailua. I want it and I'll pay overpay for it because interest rates were so low. So we're seeing a much more stable market here. Mauna Wili which we just left is a place of there's agriculture lots there. Lots there are a quarter of an acre usually or more and the prices there go from one and a half million for a fixer-upper or an older house and most of the homes are older unless people have knocked them down and built new and then otherwise the homes go up to like two and a half million. So this is for people who like those big estates you know want to be able to farm and grow things or just have space. Right now we're driving down the Pali and we're going to head into Kailua town and grab something to eat at a very favorite local restaurant here in Kailua called Cinnamon's. There's a lot of places to eat in Kailua. Lots yes there's um and there's a good variety in Kailua like you've got your local food but you've also got like there's a barbecue place called Easy Q and oh my gosh one of my favorites and then you've got like a couple of Mexican restaurants like we don't even have Mexican in Hawai'i. Like that's the one thing I would say that really differentiates Kailua from Hawai'i is it's sleepier. There's not a whole lot to eat. To my left is Castle Medical Center so this is the hospital that serves the entire Windward side so that's nice that you have that health care here but right over the Pali that puts you kind of right into metro Honolulu and you'll have Straub, you'll have Queens Medical Center, you'll have Kapi'olani which isn't very far away. So accessibility to kind of everything in Kailua like even though Kailua is removed from Honolulu and it is one of the most beautiful drives whether you're taking the Pali or the H3 you're removed but you're still not like it's not like Ewa or Mililani where you're like sitting hours in traffic needing to get to the things that you need for daily life. That's the thing about Kailua you've got everything like from hiking trails to golf to ocean, wind surfing. On a very calm south wind day you'll have a break out at Flat Island which Kailua is not known for surfing but it is known for being able to just get in the water and enjoy the beach. So now we're heading into Kailua town and it's quaint but it does get a little busy in this area like I feel you got all the intersections with the stop lights and people kind of coming and going quickly. There's a few homeless people that live along Oneava which is the main street through the town. They'll dance in the intersection every now and then. One lady likes to undress every now and then. So that's the interesting thing about Kailua is that although it is one of the more prestigious neighborhoods prices go from one and a half million all the way up to 50 million. So you've got some of the most expensive real estate on the island but you still have a little bit of homeless in certain areas that you've got your good parts and bad parts. It's not all just high-end real estate. Actually most of it is not high-end real estate but the high-end real estate affects all of the prices so even a fixer-upper now is going to be 1.2 million to one and a half million depending on the lot size and depending on the size of the house. Yeah this area kind of reminds me of like Orange County a little bit like when you get into like Newport maybe Laguna. That's new. Bottleheads. It's a new little little bar. We're gonna stop at a favorite local restaurant here in Kailua called Cinnamon's. Locally owned. Kailua born and raised. They have the most amazing guava chiffon pancakes. It's lunchtime but I'm going for the pancakes. Can't wait to share. Okay awesome thank you. Who? No just me. Yeah okay thank you. Sure I'll have a coffee and I know I want the guava chiffon. Yes oh there it is. Oh gosh I'm so excited. The famous guava chiffon pancakes. I mean I just love how there's this little dollop of whipped cream on the top to like offset the pink colors. Like it's just such a nice detail and Auntie Cricket was the one who came up with this and just a wonderful lady of somebody big in the community in Kailua raised her family here and she made my wedding cake almost 20 years ago. My gosh. I feel like you're always eating pancakes. I do too. I love pancakes. Oh my gosh but these are so good. Like I forgot. So Auntie Cricket used to make the most amazing cinnamon rolls but nobody's been able to do it so instead they came up with a cinnamon roll pancake and I hear it's a winner. Let's see. Oh my gosh it's got some crisp to it. I feel like I'm on a food show. I'm not on a food show. This is a real estate channel but we we help you to understand all the good stuff in the neighborhood and I cannot say enough about cinnamon and this is amazing. Wow. All right. Older side. You don't have a lot of choices of condos or townhomes. Now there are some smaller units, two bedrooms in Kailua town, places like Windward Passage. Gosh I'm forgetting the names right now. There's another one called townhouses that are around 1,100 square feet. Newer construction closer to the beach like right in Kailua town like next to um Target so it's super convenient. No amenities but yeah that so anytime people are like interested in Kailua and asking what about townhouses and what about condos there's not a whole lot available and even um you know your condos or townhomes are going to be like 800,000 starting. Maybe you'll find some older ones closer to 700,000 but with that with the older buildings you're also going to have higher maintenance fees so you can usually count on maintenance fees there being about a dollar ten per square foot so if you have an 800 square foot two bedroom you're going to be paying like eleven hundred dollars per month roughly. Houses in Kailua. So right now we're driving into Coconut Grove which is the neighborhood that's pretty close to Kailua town still a little bit congested the lot sizes are smaller it's R5 zoning meaning you can have one house per every 5,000 square feet so if there are lots that are like 10,000 square feet they're usually going to have two houses on the property and then they're going to put like an ADU an accessory dwelling unit so you have a lot of multi-family living in this area people who rent out little studios that are added on to their home most of these are single level and single wall construction carports rather than enclosed garages this has a very beachy feel in this neighborhood the house we're going to kind of do a quick drive by is actually Koa's rental it's next door to a house that he actually used to own and he well he still owns it but he used to live in it and raised his daughter there. Coconut Grove is your least expensive neighborhood in Kailua you can still get a house here for like 1.2 million something on the smaller side something that's maybe not really oh that's not history sorry something that's not renovated um sorry I totally missed the charm what's new what's new yeah oh I feel like I haven't been here in a long time it's making me feel a little bit nostalgic so this is Koa's house uh next door that's also Koa's house and both of these he renovated we used to spend a lot of time here doing family nights this house for example it's that post foundation single wall construction it's a three bedroom one bath right now if I were to guess it would probably be listed around 1.3 million I would imagine something like this would get a lot of interest would get multiple offers um and this is just that prime example of if you're in love with Kailua and you want to live in Kailua and you have a budget of one and a half million dollars this is really something that you could expect you could expect it to be here in Coconut Grove um where again there's really no garages this one doesn't even have a carport plenty of parking though um and then you'll also see kind of a lot of cars along the street but again a great example of you're not living in Hawai'i because oh my gosh my house is so amazing but it's like oh my gosh I live in Kailua I've got the mountains behind me and I've got the beach just a couple blocks away we are headed out of Coconut Grove now we're gonna head back into Kailua town we're gonna stop by Hawai'i VA loans which is actually where I used to work I worked there before I decided to hang my real estate license although I was already licensed and one of the guys the branch manager actually was born and raised in Kailua so I thought it'd be fun to get his perspective and just pop in on them and say hello it's kind of nice to be in Kailua today on a cloudier day because we always aim to show neighborhoods when it's like blue sky and just perfection but it's not the reality although it is it has been an amazing winter one of the complaints we get not complaints but comments that we see on our videos especially when you fly the drone overhead is look how close those houses are to each other and you see that definitely in Coconut Grove here in Kailua it's congested yeah you definitely don't want to get on the wrong side of your neighbor no first day you move in but some neighbors don't even have a right side so unfortunately there's not a lot you can do about that but I do feel that that that exists here neighborhoods that have lots that provide space I know I always go back to this neighborhood and it is where I live and I seem biased but Hawai'i Kai does offer more space I feel slightly bigger lots and not everything is a CPR where like in Ewa and Kapolei and Mililani it's a lot of CPR or condominium property regime is what that means mainly what it means is that a master developer came in and developed the entire neighborhood and so they bought like you know big parcels of land and then they were able to sort of chop them up into smaller parcels of course it's master plan so they're all very square and your property lines are obvious usually there's a small maintenance fee or association fee in neighborhoods like that it will feel more spacious simply because the lots are clearly drawn as opposed to like Kailua it's kind of like oh sure you want to build a house right next to your neighbor go ahead I mean there are setbacks and there are um some parameters in place that that keep things to code but I will say with all of like the ADU additions and the multi-family living it can feel more congested and feel like you're closer to your neighbors and you're hearing everybody yell at their kids and there's that in Waianae too. Do you want to eat first? Okay we're at Hawaii VA loans I used to work here this is my friend Jim he was my boss too and Jim he was the best oh my gosh it's so nice of you I didn't do loans but I you know this definitely got me um educated up on loans so let's start there intro to the real estate world intro to the real estate world for sure sorry it's all your fault I know but uh what you were born and raised here in Kailua you still live here so what are the things about Kailua that like you can't google like what are some things that honestly you could share great for kids like if you grew up here and the reason I know is I lived in Aiea for a little bit when they were little and then when they started to play with balls and ride bikes we were on a hill and the ball would roll down and down and down yeah so Kailua hey no none of that the ball's flat it's flat balls they stay there bikes are super easy it's super bikeable um really easy for your kids to get around and go have a good time get outside and play right it was like I feel like that doesn't happen as much anymore but Kailua's got a lot of parks a lot of green area so super awesome for kids for for like adults there's tons of places to eat grab a drink we were just saying that like there's all these like new bars like it's so hipster like I think of Gabe like Gabe's Gabe's his business partner I think of him you know yes although now I think I get on about more than he does I bet you do that's funny because kids are all teenagers yes and my kids are a little bit older so yeah so free time oh perfect timing what's something you know that's negative about Kailua or how it's changed I can't say it has definitely changed a little more traffic-y yeah but you know if you know the back roads you can find your way around I think the other changes are for the better there's a that's fun that's cool you were saying earlier something about windows being on the windward side of the house yeah yeah so these are all like single wall construction right on the the original homes there's still a lot of those out there and so there's no insulation which you don't think you need insulation in Hawaii but when the sun's beating down on the roof and it's just a single layer it gets hot so I had a home where the walls were on the wind the side with the wind and the carport was there and it blocked all the wind so the hot and like those Kona wind days it was super hot yeah but the house later got renovated windows put in put insulation in the ceiling and so much cooler so there's ways to fix it up but if you are buying a house single wall check the wind flow because if you're the wind basically just comes from the beach right so if that if the beach side of your house has windows you're probably good to go if it doesn't check it out on a hot day and see how you feel such a good tip he should have his own youtube channel oh yeah because nobody I mean yeah hey thanks help me out I'm in yeah um I was like you know west side everybody's got ac right over here very few people have ac you don't really need it I think that's what people love about it like they want to have that Hawaii beach bungalow your house is wide open yeah other bad downside uh because it's beachy and windy don't leave your chips open they get stale really quickly closer you are to the beach the closer they go stale that's true that's so true okay and finally because we're at Hawaii VA loans like what's new in the loan world what would you like to share nothing right we're like honestly I feel this is the longest period that I've known where VA loans haven't had many changes so there's been a lot of evolution I feel like we've got the program right so I feel like there's not a lot of change needed um it's everything's pretty smooth with it right now yeah so yeah so I'm happy and thankful for no changes awesome and I every time I look at the inventory every day I see a lot of homes that are closing with VA loans so still like that's the one that's still a great program yeah yeah especially here in Hawaii right no down payment um it's you know five percent down it's still be pretty pricey here yeah yeah a lot of savings so um yeah it's great program but hey we do it all too I know you guys do all kinds of loans Yossi was asking like oh if they only work with veterans I'm like no they'll they'll do every loan product yeah we'll do it all we'll do it all kind of what they specialize in we specialize this we started this way but you know the mortgage industry as a whole is a little bit slower than it was two or three years ago so hey we're doing it all good yes yeah we love it hawaiivaloans.com they have an amazing website great resources there I still use like the condo check tool to make sure that it's VA approved and it's so user friendly so if there's any VA buyers out there or any buyers in general will put you in touch with people from Hawaii VA loans Jim included yes give us a call give me a call well that was fun seeing Jim at Hawaii VA loans I I forgot I forgot how much I actually enjoyed working there and I also forgot and they reminded me that I wrote their jingle that used to play on community and service friends and family we are all connected here to meet your needs wait I don't know if that was the right word anyway the brave men and women our veterans deserve a home we're loans we are driving now to Enchanted Lake and Keolu so that's kind of going to round out the video although I will speak to like Aikahi which is the neighborhood that's back closer to the military base and I think as we have just left Hawaii VA loans it makes sense to talk about military presence and you know people utilizing VA loans in Kailua there's a lot and just because Kailua's proximity to all the bases is actually very convenient particularly to the Marine Corps base of course because that's located here on this side but with the h3 freeway it's so easy to get to joint base Pearl Harbor Hickam and even like Schofield really easy and also this is a neighborhood that just appeals to our military clients usually they're coming over here with children or their starting families and so they'll find a lot of community here as Jim was mentioning earlier at Hawaii VA loans that this is a place for kids to throw a ball and a place to ride a bike and relatively a very safe neighborhood but still gives you that Hawaii feeling. The other neighborhood that our military service members really like is Ewa, Ho'okili because the homes there are similar to what they're used to on the mainland with the enclosed garages and the central AC and the double wall construction and it just feels a little bit more plush and the homes are bigger more suburban but for those that are really looking for more of an island Hawaii breezy windows open close to the beach experience that would be this neighborhood Kailua. Keolu, Keolu Hills, Enchanted Lake they kind of get lumped together as the same neighborhood but they're not really. Keolu much like Coconut Grove is one of the more affordable neighborhoods in Kailua not as congested as Coconut Grove although you do have some ADUs multi-family living older homes some single wall construction but then like across the street so we're on Keolu now across the street more inland into Kailua is Enchanted Lake and those homes there are going to have your garages double wall construction they're bigger they're on 10,000 square foot lots and they're like two million to two and a half million whereas across the street at Keolu you're going to find homes starting at like 1.1 and going up to like topping out around one and a half million and the whole city of Kailua is not without convenience like you've got a Safeway here in the Keolu area but then just like five minutes away into Kailua town you have Whole Foods you have Time Supermarket you have Target in Icahi they've also got the Icahi Shopping Center that's the neighborhood that's closer to the beat to the base and you'll have some eateries there and I believe there's a Safeway there as well. Enchanted Lake for those who don't know it's not a nice it's not like a nice lake like it's not like Lake Powell or Lake Oswego or Lake of the Ozarks like it's not like a big navigable lake it's almost more like a reservoir I think well because a lot of Kailua is like marsh or like dare I say swamp maybe I honestly I don't know what the what the deal is with the water in Kailua but Enchanted Lake is a desirable place to live it is a nice pretty fairly nice big body of water you can take a little boat on it it's definitely not like a go swim in the lake no it's not a go swim in the lake type of the lake no like I wouldn't even stand up paddle although I've seen people do it so these houses through here are gonna be like more like one two and up but then as we get further into Enchanted Lake you're gonna see like the 1.8 to 2.5 million and like we're kind of entering that territory now Enchanted Lake is really like cute for trick-or-treating you know it's kind of like this little peninsula in a way yeah so you can drastically feel the difference now like the yards are more manicured not as many cars parked along the street you're gonna see a lot of new house old house older house newer house in Kailua like it's not super uniform in Aikahi the houses start to get a little newer and like even here you don't see post and pier you see concrete slabs through Enchanted Lake and you'll see that kind of in Aikahi as well well we're back up in Mauna Wili which is where we started and I decided to do a little pit stop to this very special place called Ho'okua Aina hopefully we're gonna do an actual video on this place this is a kalo patch and there's a lot of native Hawaiian plants here just a lot of education that happens here as well in the taro patch here and so hopefully we'll get to come back that would be so awesome but like I said at the beginning of this video I really wanted to show a different side of Kailua that isn't often shown on video and we decided to end it here as our next video will be Kaneohe and the Pali Highway is just right outside here and we would make our way on Kamehameha Highway into Kaneohe if there's anything Kola or I can help you with if you want to understand a little bit more about Kailua or anything with regards to real estate on O'ahu please get in touch with us we would be honored to help and thanks for watching