MLS Market Snapshot - Get this Week’s Local Market Conditions February 28, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : General, Market Conditions, Real Estate FAQ, Resources , add a commentI’m pleased to announce another complimentary service. If you’ve had any of the following questions about local Big Island real estate, check it out:
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How do actual selling prices compare to listing prices in the area?
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How are homes within a 5 mile radius selling?
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Unsold Homes in the area? Time on the Market?
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Where can I get answers to any pressing questions I may have?
And … receive automatic periodic updates.
http://kmoran.topproducerwebsite.com/get-snapshot.asp
February Newsletter Published February 28, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : Newsletter , add a commentThe February Newsletter is published.
View the February Newsletter here.
View the Current Newsletter here.
Sign up to receive future Newsletters to your email box here.
HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND: Attack of the Carnivorous Caterpillar February 28, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : Big Island Hawaii, General, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND , add a commentHere on the Big Island - Attack of the Carnivorous Caterpillar
Wait - that’s not a horror-movie. But it was filmed on the Big Island.
The carnivorous caterpillar is the common name of a singular creature that most certainly does attack its prey. And where was it first found? Why, right here of course!
The early Hawaiians must have overlooked it, for there was no known Hawaiian name for it, nor was it mentioned in chants or myths. But it’s not easy to spot. It’s small, dull green and brown, like a little twig; it keeps very still when larger creatures are around; and it metamorphoses into an equally un-glamorous moth.
People have studied caterpillars for millennia, and the silkworm has long been domesticated. But until this member of the Eupithecia family was seen in action, in the 1960s, caterpillars were considered to be vegetarian. Other Eupithecia caterpillars, elsewhere, eat only flowers and fruit. In Hawaii, they eat fruit-flies.
Subsequent field-studies around the world have now identified carnivorous members of other caterpillar species. So entomologists assume that each evolved from a plant-eater in a local, relatively isolated habitat, where there was an open ecological niche for a small insectivore.
At first sight, you’d think it was an inchworm. It advances along a branch by humping up in the middle and hoisting its back end forward. But when it does, you can see that it has legs only near each end, not all along the sides. When it senses prey, it clutches the branch with its rear legs, lifts its head, and snatches the passing insect with its forelegs and jaws.
What happens next is rather like a man eating corn on the cob . . . .
Here are two links for video of this remarkable Big Island resident.
Just Listed! Prime Building Lot in Sunrise Ridge Above Hilo February 20, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : Featured Listings, General , add a commentPrime building lot on Lahou Street in Sunrise Ridge above Hilo. This is a quiet, safe and upscale residential neighborhood conveniently located to shopping, schools and major access routes.This 10,000 
square-foot lot sits at the top edge of this quiet subdivision and affords an unobstructable view of Hilo Bay and the Pacific Ocean from the second story. This neighborhood has high quality homes with underground utilities, sidewalks and a pleasant ambiance. Hilo’s early morning sunrises are incredible to behold from this property. At approximately 300 feet, the relatively low elevation avoids much of the rain frequenting Hilo’s higher elevations, yet with no worry about tsunamis.The lot is located just 1-1/2 miles above downtown Hilo, less than 1 mile to the University of Hawaii at Hilo, and only 1 mile to the Puainako Road Extension for access to Saddle Road which will quickly take you up to the Mauna Kea Observatory or over to Waimea and Kona. Hilo Hospital, an extensive medical office complex and astronomy centers are located nearby.
This fairly level lot is nestled against a lush greenbelt area at the rear of the property. It is far away from the main streets so that traffic noise will not disturb the quietness and privacy of everyday living. The neighborhood, largely occupied by professionals and retirees, is accessible from two streets along which pleasant-looking custom homes reside. A private park at the end of a cul-de-sac is only footsteps away. The Hilo airport is only 5 miles away but the flight corridors steer clear of Sunrise Ridge and the skies are serene. Hilo has a small town atmosphere with plenty of aloha and friendly people.
Directions: From Komohana Street, go up Kukuau Street into Sunrise Ridge Subdivision. Turn right on Ohukea (the first street). Turn left on LaHou and lot is halfway down on the right side. Look for sign posted, just after two story blue home.
For a virtual tour, images and additional information Click Here
HERE IN HAWAII - Hawaii Musics (Plural) - Part 2 February 19, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : Big Island Hawaii, General, HERE IN HAWAII, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND , 3commentsHawaiian Musics (Plural) - Part 2
[Click here to first read “Part 1″]
In the first two decades of the 20th century, paralleling America’s fascination with the ukulele there was a craze for pseudo-Hawaiian “novelty” songs. Some featured nonsense words, like “Yakka-Hula Hickey-Doola.” Some were risqué ditties, like “They’re Wearin’ ‘em Higher in Hawaii.” Others were vaudeville numbers built on ethnic jokes, like “O’Brien is Tryin’ to Learn to Talk Hawaiian.” You probably won’t hear those songs in public today.Few composers on Tin Pan Alley had ever been west of New Jersey; but their songs did help to get Hawaii’s visitor industry going.
Fortunately, by the 1930s, songs combining proper Hawaiian and English words had become hits on the radio, and are still in the repertoire of local musicians. Known as hapa-haole (half-Caucasian) songs, these include “On the Beach at Waikiki,” “The Hawaiian Wedding Song,” and “My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua.” (You know that one . . . it’s “where the humuhumunukunukuapua’a goes swimming by.”)
By now, show-bar and luau entertainers have gotten hundreds of thousands of people - maybe even you - singing along to “Pearly Shells” or “The Hukilau Song.” Hapa-haole songs are still being written; and in a delicious irony, there is now a rendition of “Little Grass Shack” sung entirely in Hawaiian!
Just as on the mainland, there was a folk-music revival here in the 1960s and ’70s. Young local musicians sought out obscure, older musicians in rural places, and got them recorded. Among their traditional and vintage songs, in both Hawaiian and English, many were accompanied by slack-key guitar, a style that local guitar players immediately took up and celebrated.
As the two generations played and recorded together - almost always acoustically, not amplified - new popular songs were composed in both languages. A burgeoning interest in “world music,” since the 1980s, has stimulated interest in Oriental and Polynesian musical styles, particularly in drumming. And Hawaiian songs have now been cross-pollinated with the Reggae rhythms of another famously musical tropical island - Jamaica - to produce the sound known here as “Jawaiian.”
You can hear the music of the islands on Big Island radio stations, but bear in mind that our huge mountains block the signals, so most stations broadcast from the east side can’t be heard in the west, and vice versa. KHBC in Hilo (1060 AM and 92.7 FM), KAPA (100.3 FM in Hilo, 99.1 in Kona — website offers live streaming radio broadcast), and KWXX in Kona (101.5 FM) have Hawaiian music formats.
HERE IN HAWAII - Hawaii Musics (Plural) - Part 1 February 19, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : About Hawaii, General, HERE IN HAWAII , add a commentHawaiian Musics (Plural) - Part 1
There’s a Grammy Award given for “Hawaiian Music,” but that’s just one category. And as most local musicians and enthusiasts can tell you, there are many varieties of “Hawaiian” music in Hawaii.
More often than not, that Grammy goes to a “slack key” artist, whose finger-picking guitar style involves loosening one or more of the six strings. So, there are dozens of slack-key tunings, some of which originated 100 or more years ago, when players who did not know the instrument’s “correct” tuning began to invent their own.
Slack key may be widely recognized - and rewarded - but it is not the Islands’ only musical style. The earliest Hawaiian music comes from their oral tradition of aboriginal chants, known collectively as mele.
These include invocations, prayers, rituals, and mythological stories, usually sung unaccompanied or with gourd drums or rattles. Mele are widely heard, today, especially in official or public events and dedications, and as accompaniment for traditional hula.
During the 19th century, haoles brought Old-World music to Hawaii.
It was immediately popular with the ali’i (royalty), who set Hawaiian poems to Western-style melodies, with harmonies they’d learned from singing Christian hymns. By the 1880s, King Kalakaua had a royal band, and his bandmaster had set the monarch’s poem “Hawaii Pono’e” to stately music. You hear it now, as the State anthem, typically sung at the start of a public event. At the end of that event, however, many people will spontaneously sing “Hawaii Aloha” - the beloved though unofficial anthem, written around 1860 by a commoner, Makua Laiana. And by the time she was deposed, at the turn of the century, Queen Liliuokalani had written dozens of popular songs, most famously “Aloha Oe.”
But most of what people call “Hawaiian music” today had its origins in the 20th century. I’ll tell you about that in my next column.
HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND - Read All About It February 4, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : About Hawaii, Big Island Hawaii, General, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND, Hawaii Travel, Resources , add a commentRead All About It
Newspapers have been published on the Big Island since the mid-19th century. Most have been in English, though there were Hawaiian language papers here until the 1920’s, and Japanese language papers (the largest was the Hilo Times) until the 1980’s.
Two daily newspapers circulate here now: the Hawaii Tribune-Herald covers the whole island from Hilo, while West Hawaii Today, focuses on the Kona and Kohala districts. Both are owned by a Mainland chain called the Stephens Media Group, headquartered in Las Vegas, NV. Being the only local dailies, they run nationally syndicated news, features and columnists, but also cover Big Island politics and issues, and provide extensive coverage of local sports. And both run a list every day, of islanders who have been arrested or charged.
The dailies are delivered to subscribers’ homes throughout the island, and can also be purchased from coin-boxes in commercial areas, alongside boxes for the two Honolulu dailies: the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin, which are home-delivered only within Hilo, Waimea, and Kailua-Kona.
Two tabloid-size newspapers also serve the Big Island, and while they can be subscribed to by mail, they are free of charge in boxes around the island, and so are mainly picked up that way. The feisty Hawaii Island Journal, published every two weeks, is owned in Honolulu by the publishers of the city tabloid Honolulu Weekly. The Big Island Weekly, though owned by Stephens Media, is editorially quite independent. Both are “alternative”
papers: staunchly pro-environment, giving plenty of “ink” to counter-cultural topics, and intensely supportive of Native Hawaiian issues.
Both also run a column locally written in “pidgin” English.
To be fully informed, it’s worth reading at least one daily and one alternative paper regularly; and all four are available online, at:
While coverage of local issues may not be as comprehensive as some readers would like, the Big Island is about as good a newspaper market as you’ll find in any rural American county that’s 200 miles from the nearest big city.
