Is Your Hawaii Home Ready for Hurricane Season? Realtors Explain

Are we taping up the windows? Are we putting cardboard up? Are we putting sandbags down? How we're gonna prepare our homes when we have a hurricane or we have a storm rolling in. Hurricane preparedness, the type of real estate, being ocean side, mountain side, all of the things you would think when you think hurricane in Hawaii and real estate. Floods, hurricanes, tsunamis. No, no, no. Mainland people think about volcano too. Is that all gonna hit your house? See what's happening inside? Let's go. Toilet paper, paper towel, spam. All breaks, no gas. A hurricane is coming across the islands. We figured we'd come to Costco. This is the busiest Costco on the island. Not that Costco is ever not a nightmare here on the island. When we have weather rolling in, it's like a whole nother thing. Why is it toilet paper? Anyway, we're gonna get into that. Toilet paper, paper towel, spam. Water, lots of water. Uncle had Folgers too. Pretty much everybody coming out right now has water and toilet paper. See what's happening inside? Let's go. Thank you. Wow, I haven't been to this Costco in years. You guys ever shop this Costco? Not really. The parking lot is crazy over here. Where's the paper towel? Back. It's surprisingly not too bad inside, but you know the reason for that? Well, because it's middle of the day? Because there's only so much parking. Only so many people can make it in at a time. We didn't park at Home Depot to come in here. Because you shouldn't and you're not supposed to, so don't. Don't. We spoke too soon. I know. Here's the chaotic section. The way out is this is where all the food and all that stuff is. Thank you. What is that? I'll take a liquor ID. Thank you. She's like, I'll take an electrolyte. One electrolyte. Everybody loses their minds in Costco. Nobody knows how to act. Just today. Everybody just does whatever they like. That's my cart. Just pickled garlic and 100 lau laus. And Greek yogurt. I think they might be covered all set for the storm. This has nothing to do with the hurricane or hurricane preparedness, but just to show you a little Hawaii culture. Cheeseburger in Paradise, which I don't know if that's Hawaii culture, that's more tourist, but Young's Fish Market, Jen or Gen, I think that's how you're supposed to say it, Korean barbecue. I bet you if you're watching on the mainland, they don't have this in your Costco. You know what I always get from Costco? What? Is the car wash card. Oh, because you never signed up for the monthly membership. What? It's like $50. So if you only go twice a month, the card is better, yeah? Yeah. I'm a consolidated guy. No Regal for me. Is it Mililani Regal? Consolidated. Oh, is it consolidated? I'm like whatever. The popcorn's not as good, and they won't give you like a second container for the popcorn refill. You have to go to your chair, eat it, and come back. If I don't see people dancing hula on the screen before, if I don't hear a conch shell, then I'm not going. A whole pizza for $10. One chicken wing, four bucks. One turkey sandwich, $7. You get a whole pizza for $10, and then food for one person is seven. That hot dog's still $1.50 with the drink though. You think natural disaster in Hawaii, I think one of the first things we think of is Costco. People in the mainland might think, oh, volcano and hurricane. Let's get into the real estate. When you're thinking of hurricanes or natural disasters involving water, it's natural to think, oh, maybe I shouldn't be near the ocean, but also maybe think about where you are on a hill. Now here in 2026, it's a good time to be buying because these homes, assuming they disclose properly, they went through the Kona Rose in March. Yes, that just happened. So if any home is gonna be prone to flooding, this year would have been the year for us to find out about it. And so with this hurricane approaching, of course people may make extra preps and put some sandbags and whatnot. Probably this hurricane is not gonna be as bad as the Kona Rose storms in March. If you are buying on a hill, just make sure that not only do you read the disclosure statement as you should with any home, but ask questions. Make sure, pay attention. Sometimes people don't tell the truth. And so you see that looks like it was water. There's a lot of spalling in this concrete. Be more likely to get a foundation inspection if a home is post and pier because water runs down, causes erosion as it goes under the house. Pay more attention to gutters, things like that. Have you ever been through a hurricane? A real hurricane? No. You're small when Iniki hit, but Oahu never really get hit too hard. No, we didn't. And do you even remember Iniki? I remember, yeah. But what'd you guys do? Just kind of hunker down, play Uno? I mean, we set everything up, but I think we watched the storm from our carport. I was born in Florida, Pensacola, Florida, and I went through one hurricane where everything's crazy and then the eye of the storm passed over us. Yeah. And it was sunny like this, but calm and just peaceful and serene. It was perfect. That's freaky. And then Hurricane Katrina, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, I was living in Hawaii, but I had flown back to visit my family and I flew from Tampa, Florida to Pensacola while Hurricane Katrina was in the Gulf. So we're, do, do, do. We probably, it was like borderline whether we should even fly. And then I remember watching Hurricane Katrina, which was close enough. Knock on wood, we get really lucky. We got threatened with a lot of weather. But it never happened. I've been through hurricanes. I'm just, we're just barbecuing this Saturday. I'm not really too worried about it. What made me think of that is overhead power lines versus underground. You live in a community with overhead power lines. I mean, it's pretty obvious, but you may not think about it because you live in a place that never gets hurricanes. Yeah. These guys are more likely to lose power than the people who have underground power lines. But when you're buying real estate and you're buying it in Florida or in Louisiana or whatever, these are more paramount questions. Here, eh. If I were going to buy up in Wilhelmina, after what happened with the Conolos, the things that I would ask are, because I'm not necessarily worried about standing water and my home flooding because the water is filling up this way. It's just how is the water running down the hill? It is a very steep hill. Depending on how much energy we get and how much water is coming down, like it's going to be important to know where on your property that's flowing through. Is your neighbor wall right above you? Do they have like all their weep holes right by your bottom floor in their retaining wall? Is that all going to hit your house as it goes down to the side? Is your slope of your home appropriate to push that water away? I'm not so worried about it like staying and living, but where is that water flowing through your property? We're in escrow right now where there is a point where it definitely collects water. And we all know that. That along with some other things, we're getting a credit so that the owners can install a drain that's going to require cutting concrete, et cetera, and do some foundation shoring. It all depends. And that's why you go to coreteamhawaii.com, go to the bottom of the page, fill out the contact form and hit us up. Just another quick day in the life. This is our condo that we showed two weeks ago or so. We're already in escrow. Everything else in this building takes a long time to get into escrow. Credit to our seller for doing a good job, making it nice. Prep, presentation, and price made sense. So we're in escrow already. We just had to stop by, run a quick errand, and then back to the video. I know we talk a lot about how condos are not for everybody, but in a season like this, it might be the better option for people who don't want to get ready for all of that. So if you live in a condo association, you're already done. The prep is done. You don't need to worry about anything. You just watch the news. You just go upstairs, watch TV, and look out the window. Our clients, Christine and Ben, the last tsunami warning. So when we have weather, we have tsunami warning, a hurricane warning, all of these things. They're like second row in Hoard Village, but all the way up on the top. So they don't have to do nothing. They're just cruising. They're cruising. They're totally fine. And everybody else is stuck in all on a ramp at the parking lot for four hours trying to get to higher ground. Capital expenditures. That's a real estate term for these damages that might come to your home that you have to budget for if you own a single family home. So maybe the roof's damaged. Maybe there's flooding and part of the concrete gets messed up or whatever. You pay that maintenance fee in that building. No need to worry. No worry, beef curry. This applies to hurricane preparedness, et cetera. But in general, you're not budgeting for a roof. You're not budgeting. You do that by way of your maintenance fee. And so there is value to having this fee. In fact, when I first bought, I wasn't going to buy single family. I was going to buy the townhome that I lived in if the guy would sell it to me. And I had some comfort level, especially at the time. Some comfort level and I don't have to worry about exciting flying off or things like that. It was just not my concern. Like if a hurricane rolls through and all of the townhouses, the rafters and all of that gets bussed up or wrecked. What's the non-pigeon version of bussed up? Damaged. There it is. All of the rafters, those things get damaged. The HOA comes and fix that. Not in a single family home. So whether or not you're living in a townhome, condo or in a single family home, these are just the things we think about as we have storms approaching the islands. In our marketing on Instagram and stuff like that, agents, we like to talk about how we have this screaming deal coming and da, da, da, da. And sometimes it's true. Sometimes it's just, it's marketing and it's our duty. However, this is going to be a good deal. It is going to be a good deal. We've fixed the place up and we're pricing it to go. So if you're looking for a condo, Kualukalup, we have one coming very soon. Two bedrooms. New flooring, new paint, new appliances. Tens of thousands below what would probably be the logical pricing. So if anything, it might go higher. But if you're looking for a condo in the three, a little over $300,000 range that was previously selling for over 400,000, I think we're going to price it at 325 and it'll be, it's like right there. That building right there. Pro one. Right there. And this is a cool place to live. You know, in the video you and Kenny shot about our other townhome, which we have to just go turn on the lights and stuff for our home inspection coming up. But there were all kinds of comments like, oh, I lived there for 20 years. I love that place. Living next to Pro Range is a cool thing. It is. And it's going to be a deal guys. We could do it off market too. If you want that, we'll do it off market and it'll be listed in what? Within two weeks. Two weeks. Now's the time. Not so humble brag. We put this into escrow right after the first open house, multiple offers. And this complex had been sitting. We just decided we're going to turn on the AC, turn on the lights and get things ready for the home inspector. They're going to be here soon to do the home inspection. Kenny will be meeting them for the walkthrough and another quick stop filming day in the life of an agent. I would like to take all the credit, but Kenny and I, we coordinate everything with these owners. You got our flooring guy in here with painters in here, coordinating, checking in on the work, sending reports back to the owner who has limited availability to internet and contact and stuff right now. This is actually the first time I seen it because I didn't sit the open house. First time I seen it staged with everything finished and brass thing looks nice. Now I understand why we went into escrow so quick. Credit to the owners too, right? Like preparation, presentation and price. There can be times where this YouTube channel makes a difference and that's presentation. So we're under contract over asking price. Credit to the sellers and credit to our team as well. It looks good in here. Well, when we started doing this video, I thought of a client that Kenny helped. It was a whole family, dad and mom, son and wife. Wife has mainland ties. So then dad from the mainland was contributing some funds and we're managing all of them. Very, very specifically, the mainland arm didn't want to be in a tsunami zone. And I was like, I think if it works out, just buy it. And then they're like, no, no tsunami zone. Not something we really think about so much, but a lot of people do want to live ocean front. And so ocean front's not all it's cracked up to be. We talk about that in terms of maintenance and salt and- Insurance. Property lines. If a hurricane is coming, I would feel more vulnerable, right? I would feel more vulnerable living. There's a storm surge. Have you ever heard of that? Storm surge? No. Florida kid who moved to Hawaii, mid childhood. That's something that's like in the vernacular for if you lived Gulf coast, like the storm surge, like there's the hurricane. And then I was like almost, I don't know, it's like a mini tsunami sort of thing. Just bigger, more water pushing. One big aggressive high tide, you know? Yeah. Oh, a king tide? Like a king tide. Yeah. And so if you live ocean front, that would potentially be a problem. Also hurricane insurance and flood insurance, two different things. And hurricane insurance is one of the things that you can have a hard time getting here. Depending on age of your home, the construction, how it was made, currently if it's single or double wall. And we all know, I mean, maybe you don't, but pretty common knowledge here, especially in the real estate world, that insurance is just a lot stricter than it used to be over the last few years. And hurricane insurance is no different. Case in point, some of our clients have to, depending on the home, like get their hurricane policy here, but then their homeowner's insurance policy here. Yeah. And so it is a real thing. And you may opt not to get flood insurance if you're not in a flood zone, but you really need to talk to your insurance agent, broker, whoever you go through and make sure, like, but what if there was a hurricane? And then I had water damage and my laminate floor is bust up and I have to cut drywall. That's from the flood, not the hurricane. Now the natural disasters that we think about here in Hawaii, floods from the rain, hurricanes, tsunamis, but really kind of the wildest one. Mainland people think about volcano too. Well, that's what I was just going to say. Actually the most meaningful one that actually means something here because people's houses commonly get damaged from this. Only Big Island though. On the Big Island only. While there are flood zones, there are lava zones. If you're somebody on Big Island and you're thinking about lava zones way more than you're thinking about hurricane insurance. For most of the state of Hawaii though. Living out here in the middle of the Pacific ocean, we don't think about how stranded and isolated we are, but I imagine, you know, travel wasn't as common. Like when TWA Airlines was around and even prior to that, the world wasn't so connected. Pre-internet, pre-ubiquitous travel. You felt like you were out on an island here. The way we don't feel that way anymore. But what is your vulnerability? Your point of vulnerability? What do you, do you ever feel like, oh, if crap went wrong. Are you talking about what natural disasters am I worried about? Or what things in general am I worried about? Either, I guess, I suppose. I don't really ever like worry too much about natural disasters. I don't really think about it. Cause we had an earthquake recently, but it was nothing. It was nothing. We get tsunami warnings. It was nothing. We have rain like once a year that causes some flooding. That's not worthy. That was probably the most eventful thing we've had weather wise. And it was a lot of rain. Tone down the animation with all seriousness. We had the Maui fires. Yeah. But that is not a common thing either. Yeah. So with all these things, do you think, I have two that I'm thinking, but I'm wondering if you think. I mean, I worry about how we're going to get things. So those are the two. I'm a little more concerned that if our president decided to bomb another country, well, a lot of the world, we are the closest point with a lot of military installations. We stand with Pearl Harbor behind us. Yeah. And like a politically volatile environment, I would be more worried about being bombed. When there was a bomb squirrel, I never moved. I didn't move back yet at that time. The missile. But there was the missile threat. There's that. And then the other is the logistical supply chain. We're not really near those kinds of ships right now, but everything has to come in here through the, through ships on the water. And that they say, I forget what it is, but they say if we were to ship stop coming, like we break within days, like oil, all of the gas we use, food supplies, et cetera. We dry up quick if the ships stop coming. Right. So that is the real reason why you see all these people like in their panic mode, toilet paper, going and going to Costco, buying their toilet paper, buying all the canned goods. That's the reason why we have a, a supply and demand nature of our environment, of our economy here, such that if something big were to happen, we get so lucky. Thank, you know, thank, thank the universe. Thank everyone that we don't really have these hurricanes and these tsunamis and in like a big way that other places do. But were those things to happen, we are an Island separate from everything. And it would really be bad news for us. So though I don't always subscribe to the kind of nature that everybody gets, they're all in panic mode. Anytime we have something like this happen, I get it. I understand. When I got solar, I thought the electric bill, whatever. I thought about independence and safety for my family. Where our supply chain is vulnerable. Our supply on Island is limited. If that were to be interrupted, worry about that more than hurricanes. Worry about military threats more than earthquakes or volcanoes. Those are the real vulnerabilities that we have. I'll stand on the, on the up slope. Okay. You gotta have your legs spread out all the way. Cause I'm, I'm trying to. So it doesn't look like you have a limp. I'm goofy foot though. Are you? Yeah. Oh, I am too. I didn't know that. Everybody in my family is goofy foot, except my dad. Did your dad give you a hard time for being goofy foot? Yes. My dad would be like, ah, you should have switched off. Don't teach them goofy foot. I mean, that's just what they are.