New benefits for members of the military and certain other federal employees:

    * Members of the military and certain other federal employees serving outside the U.S. have an extra year to buy a principal residence in the U.S. and qualify for the home buyer credit.
    * Thus, an eligible taxpayer must buy, or enter into a binding contract to buy, a principal residence on or before April 30, 2011. If a binding contract is entered into by that date, the taxpayer has until June 30, 2011, to close on the purchase.
    * Members of the uniformed services, members of the Foreign Service and employees of the intelligence community are eligible for this special rule. It applies to any individual (and, if married, the individual's spouse) who serves on qualified official extended duty service outside of the United States for at least 90 days during the period beginning after Dec. 31, 2008, and ending before May 1, 2010.

 Are you looking for a unit in Nanea Kai?  It's been several months since a 3 bedroom unit has been for sale there.  I know of one  about to
come on the market Thursday.  A friend of mine is the listing agent, and nobody else knows about it. 

It is a
corner unit about three buildings from the post office. 
The seller says it is in excellent condition.  Square Feet is about
1,582, with 1-car garage plus the lanai.  Listed for $595,000.  

Interested?  Let me know fast! It's going to have multiple offers, guaranteed!

PBN reported today that Visitor spending in Hawaii increased 12.7 percent year over year to $874.2 million in March, thanks to across the board gains in visitors from Hawaii's major markets.

Air arrivals were 596,969 in March and cruise ships brought in 10,740 visitors.  Maui led the growth in visitor spending with a 25.2 percent increase to $257.7 million thanks, to a 14.2 percent increase in arrivals.

HTA said the strong gains on Maui were a result of new air services added in March from Edmonton, Calgary, Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose and Sacramento, along with other new routes to Maui that began in late 2009.

More good news for tourism officials: Hawaii saw increases in arrivals from Korea and China, two markets that the state is counting on for future growth.

Year-over-year results from the top visitor markets for March:

• 9.2 percent gain in arrivals by air (230,065 visitors) from the U.S. West;
• 7.9 percent gain in arrivals by air (148,774 visitors) from the U.S. East;
• 6.5 percent gain in arrivals (109,339 visitors) from Japan;
• 17.3 percent gain in arrivals (50,745 visitors) from Canada.

I recently referred a client to a loan officer, and before he would call the guy he said, "Is this guy with a reputable company that is with and not some fly by night place?"

My response: "Reputable?  You mean like Countrywide?  Lehman Brothers?  Or maybe AIG?" 

We both had a laugh and of course he realized that no matter how big or reputable a company may seem to be, there is no way to know if the company will be around very long.  But one thing I have noticed is that the good loan officers who have done a good job for the last 10 years are still around. They may have gone from one big bank to another, to a small broker, to a consolidated lender - but they are still there.  The bad ones are now waiting tables. 

I know one lender who went from Finance Factors to First Horizon home loans to Met life bank to American Savings Bank.  And she is still doing a great job and hasn't dropped the ball once.  Another loan officer I use has gone from Countrywide to Bank of Hawaii to Wells to Honolulu Home loans.  And he is still the same reliable guy. 

The lesson here - you can usually trust your loan officer even if his or her company fails.  It's not the company you're most concerned about, it's the actual loan officer.  the LO is the one who mostly determines your fate.  The rate, points, terms, etc., are mostly determined by what the LO can do with your information. You can almost always trust a good loan officer no matter where he goes. 

The opposite is also true - if you get a bad loan officer (there are many!) then it doesn't matter how good the company is and how long they are around.  A shark is a shark in any waters.

Lesson for my clients - don't just call some huge company or credit union and expect to get a good deal.  Find a good loan officer and stick with them.  

The beautiful condo I posted yesterday for $650k has already sold at full price, in less than 24 hours.  That's just the market right now.  The condo was listed at about noon yesterday, and by 11pm I had received an offer, several phone calls, and tons of other interest.

In this case, the buyer was very wise - he acted quickly, didn't low ball, and presented a very clean offer.  I can guarantee that if all those things didn't come together, he would have been waiting around all weekend to see if we got other offers, which I'm sure would have been the case. 

My sellers also acted wisely - didn't price too high, didn't wait around to see if other offers came in, and didn't counter offer.  Sometimes sellers want to counter even higher than their asking, which just makes a buyer mad. I've had good offers fall apart because sellers got greedy. 

In this case - both parties were very smart, not greedy, and everyone ends up happy : )

The Advertiser reported today on the housing stats that were released by the Board of Realtors this week.

"O'ahu's housing market appears to have established a firm footing toward recovery, with sales activity in March marking the third consecutive month that single-family home median prices rose over the same month last year."

"However, some observers wonder whether the improvements will continue after federal tax credits for home purchases expire at the end of this month, which is keeping some leaders of the industry from proclaiming that the market is rid of weakness in home prices."

The median price of single-family homes rose 4.2 percent to $599,000 from $575,000 a year ago. 
The number of homes sold was up 32.1 percent to 251 in March from 190 a year earlier.

 Just listed this morning, an 11th floor ocean view condo in Makiki.  The best thing about Makiki of course is location, and as the best high rise in the area, Mott-Smith stands out among most in Honolulu.  The unit comes with assigned parking for 4 cars (or 5 small ones). There is a beautiful pool, hot tub, tennis courts, meeting room, and bbq areas. 

This great 3bedroom 2bath condo with 1167sqft + almost 200sqft of lanai will sell quickly!  The closest available listing in the building is nearly $80,000 more for the same unit on a higher floor!  

Mott Smith is a great building with security guard, full time management, and well kept amenities. Don't  miss out!  Everything is selling fast these days!