What’s the Right District for You to Retire in Hawaii?

You’ve got lots of luxuries in retirement, however time is not one of them.  Pick the wrong district to live, and you’ll end up wasting years of your life only to have to move again. Pick the right district, in Hawaii, and you’re in heaven.

I go through the 4 most important things you need to consider when choosing the right district in Hawaii for your retirement and here’s a sneak peek: budget is last on the list.

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Transcript:

so you’ve got hawaii on your list of
places to retire
maybe you’ve been here a bunch of times
so you want to live here you want to
retire here
good
where
where in hawaii do you want to retire
can you tell me for example
why you’d want to live on the windward
side of the island versus the leeward
side of the island or can you tell me
why the only place where you could be is
urban honolulu picking a district to
live in hawaii it’s a big deal
big deal especially if you’re going into
your retirement years
because you don’t have a lot of time to
make mistakes so in this video
i’m going to go over four big
questions
you need to be able to answer
to help you find the right district for
retirement and we’re gonna go in reverse
order the least important will go first
[Music]
aloha
i’m peter k
and i have been living the dream in
hawaii since the 80s and i connect with
people that want to live in hawaii so if
that’s you
this is your channel you want to click
on subscribe and get that notification
we turn out videos every other week okay
this video is part of a longer playlist
i put together for those that want some
uh information about retiring in hawaii
so i go over all kinds of other topics
related to retirement so you want to
check that out so the question is what’s
the right district for you to retire in
in hawaii man i’m in this great spot
right now look like right behind me
right behind me is like a beautiful
ocean
i’m at mauna lua bay on the eastern part
of oahu
a beautiful place to go a lot of fishing
boats go back there
one of the most amazing things about
hawaii
is how completely different
the districts can be from one another
it’s like a different world all inside
one island now you really can feel
you’ve gone to like another planet
depending on what part of the island
that you’re on so let’s start the
countdown with the four most important
questions you need to ask yourself and
understand
so that you can pick the right district
now i’m not going to tell you what
district to go to because everyone’s
different but i am going to tell you the
questions you need to answer to help you
find the right district number four
the least important question
what’s your budget
now that might seem counterintuitive but
stay tuned you’ll understand why why
isn’t budge the most important thing
well the reason why budget’s not the
most important thing
is because if you make it the most
important thing i will almost guarantee
you’ll pick the wrong district almost
every district in hawaii across the
state
has homes
in most of the available price range now
it doesn’t mean you’ll find a home for a
hundred thousand dollars in every
district in fact
according to the median prices in 2022
you won’t find a home anywhere for a
hundred thousand dollars but that’s
beside the point but it does mean that
if you’re in the market
and can pay a median price for a home
you can find one in virtually any
district you choose it’s june of 2022
the prices are where they’re at homes
for example right now median price
hovering around a million 1.1 1.2
million dollars on maui and oahu condos
our last six hundred thousand seven
hundred thousand but again ignore the
price that doesn’t matter what matters
is if you can pay the median price it
means you can find a home in any
district that you want so again this is
why price and budget is last so really
the takeaway here is
you got to find the district you want to
live in first and then find something
that fits your price
what district is that
well again not going to tell you the
district other than take a look at that
deep blue ocean straight ahead of us i
love this drive we just passed up
hanauma bay very famous
attraction on oahu and straight ahead is
that beautiful ocean never get tired of
this view there’s another view right
around the corner here stay tuned this
beautiful coastline this is the kaivi
coastline right down there it is
absolutely awesome and then right up
here is coco head another great hike a
great view it’s a beautiful place i can
never get enough of it i’ve been driving
it since the 80s and i still love it
every single time i go down this drive
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sign up you can unsubscribe anytime you
want all right the third most important
question about finding the right
district
how remote
can you be
how remote can you be from major
population areas it means
how far can you be from utilities
because you can’t live in the middle of
nowhere in hawaii how far do you want to
be from any kind of town
how far do you want to be from shopping
areas those are all important questions
you need to ask yourself how far away do
you want to be from you by the way look
at this ocean
i just love this color
it’s just a such a fabulous place
yeah
and uh
i know this will pick up on the camera
but right down here is an awesome beach
called cockroach cove it’s from where a
famous scene of the movie from here to
eternity was filmed right in that beach
down there it looks rough but it’s
really really cool it’s a great beach
beautiful place
so in hawaii you can live off the grid
in hawaii and by off the grid i mean you
don’t have access to anything
electricity water sewage none of that
and the question is do you want to live
that way
now
you know a lot of people are enamored
with the idea of oh i want to live off
the grid and i want to have solar panels
and
all that stuff but you kind of really
don’t know what that means for example
you may like the idea of living on solar
panels
uh-huh
yeah what do you do when it’s cloudy
what are you doing there’s no sun
rain overcast
going to go without electricity
oh you say batteries okay batteries
batteries ain’t going to last through a
week of rain
a rainy week
battery’s not going to make it so you
need to think about those things what
about water
there are places on the big island where
there is no running water
how do you get the water
you catch it from rain water
rain water goes on your roof goes down
the gutter and gets stored in a pool
and then you draw from that pool
it’s called catchment so if you’re gonna
have catchment
simple question how big should the pool
be what is the size of your family and
what are your usage patterns normally
like you want like a 10 000 gallon tank
like you can go down to like seven
thousand but if you go down to like five
unless you’re in a really rainy area
that rains a lot um you know you wanna
be able to make sure that you know if
you got 30 days of no rain that you’re
going to be able to to survive that
sometimes you take for granted
you say oh cool up i’ll catch rain water
all right
what about fire hydrants
um hey
where’s the fire hydrants
there’s no such thing there’s a thing as
fire hydrants you know and so into your
point scott and dylan you know if you’re
going to have a catchment system yeah
that that water that’s that’s that’s
sitting in your in your catchment tank
is going to potentially be used to put
the put the fire out uh of your house if
your house catches on fire and if you
don’t have running water which means you
gotta use catchment what about
wastewater
there’s no uh there’s no county sewage
so you have to have a septic tank and if
you don’t have a septic tank on the
property you’re gonna have to dig a hole
in the ground and put one in there
see there’s all kinds of things that we
take for granted what about trash here’s
a good question
hey um
what days does the garbage truck come by
to pick up the trash and and they said
well uh well you can go and and take out
the trash any day you want i’m like
really it’s like yeah yeah you have to
put it in your car and drive like you
know 20 miles down and and dump it off
at the thing like
okay a lot of things we take for granted
a lot of things we take for granted and
it’s just like you know normal normal
country living that’s right
makapuu beach
greatest place in the world right down
there
that is my favorite spot man
love that place
try to go surfing there twice a week
great ritual
love it okay we talk about how remote
you can be
how far can you be from any kind of town
see on the mainland
you could live sort of a hundred miles
away
from a town and you would be kind of in
the middle of nowhere
and be about an hour and a half drive
right but in hawaii
there’s no such thing as 100 miles away
why
100 miles away is another island
and you can’t drive to those islands you
got to fly there
and if you got to fly there
that means you got to fly there you got
to rent a car there you may have to rent
a hotel there so which means if you have
to fly to the other island
it’s going to be expensive look at this
water here i love
love love this view
it’s just beautiful
so for all practical purposes
it’s not realistic to think
that you can easily
fly to the other islands
technically you can
but it takes a lot of effort time
planning and expense you’re gonna be
the island that you live on is where
you’re going to be spending the majority
of your time and you only be rarely
flying to the other islands so the take
away with this
is that
you can’t make up for long distances by
just driving there’s a limit in hawaii
it’s really about 50 miles or so beyond
that you’re really talking about almost
a different island so how far away from
a town can you be and by town i mean a
place where you can get you know basic
groceries and you know fuel for your car
what this comes down to is
how far do you want to drive to pick up
a pound of hamburger you could live in
but it may uh but you don’t want to be
driving for an hour
just to put some gas in the tank i love
this view right here look at that
turquoise green blue water
it’s so beautiful this time of the day
when the sun’s overhead
this is waimanalo beach
it’s a big huge long stretching beast
that goes on for miles
you know in the walks of your life here
beach walks like you can’t believe
so
how far can be from a shopping district
so let’s say you found a place that has
a convenience store only a few miles
away what about when you need to go to
the supermarket for costco or like a
hardware store or like dylan says
you know sometimes people just like to
go to target and browse right and if
that’s an hour and a half away you’re
not going to do that very often so
that’s one thing to really think about
is is it worth saving the money on the
house and giving up those other
lifestyle benefits so the good news is
that today in today’s modern times
shopping
options in hawaii are much better than
they used to be there’s a lot of big box
retailers that have come here now you
got costco
you got the big hardware stores it
wasn’t always that way
i love this view man
i love this view like that island over
there rabbit island
just a coolest place and of course we
have amazon
which you know amazon prime man
everybody in hawaii loves amazon prime
we use it all the time although
not everything ships on amazon prime
that you’re used to for example
batteries certain kinds of devices that
have batteries will not ship lithium
batteries blowing up or something like
that a large furniture won’t ship so
but that all said it’s a blessing here’s
the big takeaways for how remote you
want to be number one off the grid
it may sound like a lot of fun it may be
really something that you kind of
fantasize about but unless you’ve done
it you better be sure what you’re
getting into and the other one is how
far really can you be from shopping from
conveniences how far do you want to
drive for a pound of hamburger
how close do you need to be to costco
how long you want to drive for those
basic things you got to consider that
second most important thing districts
hold lifestyles so what does this mean
for you it means
you’ve got to pick the right district
because like scott says i mean districts
to me come down to the lifestyle that
you want do you want to be in the
country do you want to be in the city
the district comes down to the lifestyle
you want so one of the many great things
about this incredible diversity
this incredible geological diversity
that we have in hawaii this climate
diversity we have in hawaii one of the
great things about hawaii
is the geographical climate that you
want
is a short drive away do you want wet
rain forest
you want to live on the windward side of
the island
you want dry
desert like you want to live on the
leeward side of the island you want flat
plains live in the valleys you like the
cooler high altitude
live up in the mountains you want modern
urban life
with all the creature comforts of the
big city
honolulu you like the small towns
plenty of them
you want the middle of nowhere there are
remote places of almost all the islands
the only thing you can’t get in hawaii
is tundra
frozen ground doesn’t exist dylan
explains why some of the biggest
mistakes that retirees make is they
prioritize budget and low-cost housing
over desired lifestyle and that’s why i
have budgets last because you can get
pretty low-cost housing on the big
island but there’s a reason why the
properties are so low in cost they’re in
the middle of nowhere and for retirees
what dylan says is that i’ve seen a lot
of times retirees get bored or they feel
lonely because they’re kind of isolated
they’re far away from everything you
know there’s there is community there
but it’s not like where you’re in a town
like hilo or kailua kona where you’re
going to have more activities and
gatherings and groups and clubs and
things like that
so what you don’t want to have happen
is you don’t want to live in a district
that doesn’t support your lifestyle
because after a couple of years
sometimes after a couple of years you
know retirees feel like well you know i
mean to sell and move to a different
area because this doesn’t afford me the
lifestyle that i that i desire so so
whatever you may have think you saved in
the housing you’re going to spend all
what you saved and more to move again
to find a district that fits your
lifestyle and you could avoid it all
that in the first place
another great ocean view here
love this ocean view this is the sandy
beach area
we’ve got some pretty good-sized surf
today because the last thing
you have to waste
as a retiree is your time
you don’t want to waste a few years
living in the wrong district
only to have to pick up and move again
to a new one and make new friends all
over again and this is why
you can’t let budget decide you got to
pick the district first because what’s
the point if you save money and you’re
unhappy
especially when you’re in retirement
you’re supposed to enjoy it remember so
what’s the takeaway here
be clear on the lifestyle you want
and pick the district that fits the
lifestyle living in the right district
will be the number one influence on your
quality of life and because you can’t
easily change your district you have to
be confident you’re making the right
choice
the number one most important
issue
when retiring
in picking the right place to live
but first look at this great view man
ocean view here
mountains up there
can’t beat it
okay
the most important
aspect the most important consideration
in picking the right district for
retirement
is healthcare
healthcare options
healthcare needs this obviously
overrides everything
and healthcare options
do vary
dramatically on each island
like scott says if there’s health issues
and health needs we obviously have to
address that so look in some ways hawaii
is really no different from the mainland
when it comes to health care
availability
the big hospitals are in the big cities
small towns have country doctors
same thing in hawaii it’s nearly
impossible to get specialists in rural
areas on the mainland
same thing in hawaii but in one huge way
it’s completely different so for example
let’s say you need a heart specialist
you’re living on kauai guess where the
heart specialists are they’re not on
kauai
they’re on o’ahu and you can’t drive
from kauai to oahu that means every time
you got to see your heart specialist
you got to drive to kauai another great
view look at this view one of my
favorites
you’re driving over we just passed
hanauma bay we’re over the hill and
we’re looking at the
mauna lua bay area that’s diamond head
way in the distance over there another
beautiful view i have a lot of friends
that live on the other islands and they
do have to fly to oahu to meet with
their specialists
big surgeries you gotta fly to oahu
because there ain’t no specials on their
island so your takeaway here
is you have to be very clear in
understanding your health care needs for
many retirees
this is the end of the story right here
because you’re gonna need health care
and of course as you age you’re going to
need more health care you want to be on
an island that’s got
good health care systems right now
there’s only one island in that game and
that’s oahu so make sure you’re clear on
what’s available on the other islands
and what you’re going to need because
practically speaking
the hospitals the specialists are on
oahu if you’re going to be retiring and
living on other islands
make sure you’re very clear on what kind
of health care is available so let’s
kind of summarize everything
to what you’re going to need to know
when you pick the right district to
retire in hawaii first
healthcare overrides everything second
pick the district that matches your
lifestyle third
be clear on how remote you really want
to be and finally
once you’ve gotten all that out of the
way
find the right price all right you got a
question for me
i got a link in the description click on
that to the forum fill out your question
give me your name and where you’re from
so i can give you credit i’m peter k
and i have been living the dream
since the 80s in hawaii
i love it here
can’t get enough of it
what about you