Kailua Kona Real Estate Blog

Buying a Home In Kailua Kona Hawaii – Steps to a Successful Close

Kailua Kona, Hawaii Part 1

You decided to buy a home here in Kona, Hawaii, but are the steps to buying in Hawaii the same as they are at my present location?

Today I am going to save you some time, stress and headaches and walk you through each step to successfully purchase a home here in Kona, Hawaii whether in person or sight unseen.

This will be a 2 part series, where the first part is finding your home and the second part will be going over the escrow process prior to you moving into your home.

Before we get started, let me introduce myself

Hi, I am Stephen Proski a Real Estate Broker with CoLdwell Banker Island Properties here on the Big Island of Hawaii and I love helping people buy and sell real estate. 

If you have any question or just want to talk story, feel free to reach out to me anytime, I am here for you.

So let’s get started.  Okay you are ready to purchase a home here on the Big Island your first step.

Find a Realtor.  You want to work with someone who is knowledgeable, someone who knows the market and of course someone you can trust.  Not all Realtors work the same way, so I would suggest you ask loads of questions before you commit to working with a someone.   You can ask for a referral from someone you know on the island, or say a coworker who had a great experience working with a Realtor here.  You can go to Realtor.com, Google, Yelp. But make sure you find someone you like who will be looking out for your best interest.

If you don’t want to do a whole lot of research, I would welcome the opportunity to represent you on your home purchase.  Just make sure you connect with them and you agree on the forms of communication you like and your expectations through the entire process

The next step would be to find a mortgage lender if you are obtaining financing.

There are Mortgage bankers and Mortgage brokers and I would recommend you work with a mortgage broker who can shop out the best possible rates and terms for your home purchase.    Not all mainland lenders will fund here in Hawaii, so you might want to consider getting a local lender here in Hawaii and your Realtor should be able to recommend several options for you.   Most Mainland lenders are not familiar with some of the nuances here in Hawaii, but that is not to say you can not find a lender who will loan here on the Big Island either.

I would however you stay away from some of the online lenders, they can be difficult to work with here

Now that you found a lender you want to work with, get yourself prequalified.

  This will help you streamline the process.  

You will be required to fill out an loan application and supply your lender with 2 years of tax returns, 2 months of income statements, bank statements and maybe a few other documents needed to get the process rolling.  It could take a few hours or a day to know exactly what you are qualified to purchase.   This my friends is a key part of the buying process

Make sure you want your downpayment requirement will be, ask about prepayment penalties, origination fees, discount points and buy down rates.   Yes, these are important parts of the mortgage process and can save yourself some dollars if you know what to ask about.

Now that you have your Realtor and your lender, you know how much you can spend for a property, now you are ready to begin your home search.

Step #3 Searching for a home.   You can use online portals like, Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com or even ask your Realtor to set you up on a drip campaign and they can start sending you homes that meet your requirements directly for the Multiple Listing Service.  Since we have a few different types of properties fee simple and lease hold, some of the online portals may not have the information and you could be getting excited about a specific property and later find out it is not a good fit.

Your Realtor can tailor your search to be very specific and could save you time and effort and let them do the heavy lifting on your home search.  Additionally, we have a preview status here on the Big Island that does not go out to the online real estate listing services and that can be a big game changer when it comes to finding your dream home here in Hawaii

Step # 4 Viewing Properties.

If you are not on the island and still on the mainland then you will be shopping virtually.   Over the past several years with Covid and other things, this process has become very normal if you trust your Realtor.   

I have been showing properties to my clients either via FaceTime or going to the properties and doing a video of the home and sending it to then with my comments. We use a sight unseen addendum form here with our purchase contract to address this issue.  If you can afford to hop on a plane and fly over, that would be the ideal situation because the online photos sometimes don’t match up with in person viewing and would hate for you to be disappointed.

With my clients I am brutally honest and will tell you want you need to hear, not what you want to hear, so if there is a dope house across the street or abandon vehicles, I am going to tell you whether you are shopping virtually or in person, I want you to be informed.

And Step #5 Submit your Offer

You found your dream home and you tell your Realtor that you want to submit an offer.   They in turn will put together all the required documents to include purchase contract, prequalification letter and go over those with you to explain some of the unique items we have here in Hawaii.

Once completed they will forward your offer to the listing agent and generally give the sellers 24 to 48 hours to respond.  Hopefully there is some negotiating that takes place and the sellers will either, accept your offer, decline your offer or counter your offer.  Once you and the seller can agree on all terms a conditions, the purchase contract is then accepted by all parties and you will need to need to Open Escrow.

So at this point I have addressed part 1 of purchasing a home here in Kailua Kona Hawaii and will discuss the Escrow process in our next blog

Again if you need a Realtor, I am available to assist you.  Thank you for watching and hope to see you next week when I explain the entire Escrow process before you get your keys to your home here in Paradise