THE OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT Kona Coffee farmers is yours on Thursday. Next to tourism, Kona Coffee is our best known commodity. For many, it is what puts Kona on the map. The Kona Coffee Farmers Association is greatly concerned about the possibility of genetically modified coffee destroying their very valuable industry.

ON NOVEMBER 13TH, 10AM TO 6PM your testimony is requested at the Kona County Council office located behind Big Island Grill or the council office in Hilo. A County Council 9 to 0 vote to ban GMO Coffee & Taro on Hawaii Island was vetoed by Mayor Harry Kim. The purpose of this meeting is to override this veto. Six votes are required. This is an urgent matter.

YOUR TESTIMONY MAY BE SHORT, just ask to have the veto overridden.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS and other issues concerning Big Island farmers at Kona Coffee Farmers Association  http://www.konacoffeefarmers.org

Joyce Murphy, RB Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC

808-443-4302 e-mail me@JoyceMurphyRealtor.com

www.GourmetCoffeeFarms.com and www.KonaBigIsland.com

 Click REOs@JoyceMurphyRealtor.com and type “Send REO Updates”

Because these properties are not listed by Hawaiian Isle Real Estate, I can work as your Exclusive Buyer’s Representative to prepare your offer.

Joyce Murphy, R(B) Accredited Buyers Representative

 REO listings on 11/9/2008

South Kohalo – North Kona – South Kona

21 listings represent most but now all REO’s currently available

Copyright 11/9/2008 by Hawaii Information Service MLS Provider

Most, but not all of the repossessed properties currently on the market on the west side of the Big Island are listed here. These are REO, Real Estate Owned by banks NOT SHORT SALE properties. Replies to your offers usually come within a week and contracts are not typically subject to third party approvals.

The Selling Banks have their own agent. I am therefore free to represent you as the Buyer’s Agent negotiating on your behalf in transactions involving any of these properties. Over 20 of my 30 plus years in real estate were spent representing real estate investors.

 Put my experience to work for you. I’ll walk you through the process. Click HERE to see the value added services I offer my clients.

Joyce Murphy R(B) Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC

e-mail  me@JoyceMurphyRealtor.com 808-443-4302

Licensed Broker in Hawaii and Florida

Broker/Owner Luxury Real Estate Florida, Inc.

68-1991 Papakonane Ct. at Mauna Lani Point

Now Reduced $2,000,000 to $1,600,000

LUXURY HOMES located in world class resorts, like this Mauna Lani Point home, top the list of bargains showing up as REO (Real Estate Owned) property for sale in West Hawaii. This Papakonane Ct. house has been available for a year now.

WHY IS IT STILL on the market? Most people don’t think to look for bargains in this price range. Buyers in Kona are reluctant to make an offer if they think the asking price is high. Most banks develop a strategy for selling REO’s that works well across the country on average priced property. At $2M this is not an average property and Hawaii is unique. In West Hawaii, most $1M+ homes go under contract within 45 days of the last price reduction and sell within 94% of the asking price.  Some banks, however, don’t seriously review their price until they have an offer.

SOMEONE WILL STEP UP for this house sooner or later. I expect they will get a real luxury bargain and I would like to be the agent who represents the buyer. For more information e-mail   MaunaLani@JoyceMurphyRealtor.com and type in “Send Info”. I will send more photos, a complete description, historical data from the public records and a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis).  All the REO properties on my list are easy to see immediately.

FOR REGULAR UPDATES on repossessed property for sale on the Kona side of the Big Island, e-mail REOs@JoyceMurphyRealtor.com and type “Send Kona List”. NOTE these are NOT Short Sale Properties! Currently the list offers 19 condos and homes priced from $109K to $599,900. Most are located in Kailua-Kona.

I AM FREE TO REPRESENT YOU as your “Exclusive Buyer’s Representative” and negotiate on your behalf to purchase these properties because none are Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC listings.  Twenty of my thirty plus years in real estate were spent representing residential real estate investors. Let me put that experience to work for you. I will walk you through the process of buying an REO property.

Joyce Murphy, Realtor Broker BIC
Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC and Luxury Real Estate Florida, Inc.
“In Real Estate, Experience Counts!”
808-443-4302
www.LuxuryRealEstateHI.com

Aloha Divers,

WELCOME TO WAYNE’S WORLD! If you’ve spent any time diving in Kona you may be familiar with Wayne Burger. In fact if you’ve taken dive classes at Jack’s Diving Locker, he may have been your instructor. Wayne is “out of the water” now, but his love of Kona’s beautiful underwater world has not changed. In fact, I think you will enjoy the unique re-creations of the photos he has taken over the years. See the message from Wayne below…..

Hi all…

I’ve been working on a new business name and web site.  While the site is still a work in progress, it is to the point where I am not embarrassed to share it. Take a look if you have a few minutes…I’d appreciate any comments and/or corrections. For those of you in Kona…I’m pleased to announce that some of my work is showing at the Shelly Maudsley White Gallery for the next couple of months.  Shelly is a wonderful artist in Kona and has been very kind in offering me wall and floor space in her gallery.  Her address is 76-5933 Mamalahoa Hwy in Holualoa…322-5220…open 10-5 Tues-Sat. 

Thanks…

Wayne Burger    PacificFineArtPhoto.com

 PADI Advanced Diver

“In Real Estate and Diving, Experience Counts!”

Joyce Murphy R(B) Joyce@KonaBigIsland.com
Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC and Luxury Real Estate Florida, Inc.
808-443-4302 www.KonaBigIsland.com and www.GroumetCoffeeFarms.com

I’m so excited to have won and to have an autographed book by Baron!  I just loved Ruby Tuesday and (Roadhouse) Hard Days Night.  Can’t wait to read this one.  No need to waste the postage, I’ll stop by your office to pick up my prize.  Baron can address the book to Kimberly Gillaspie.  I  would like the Quinn’s gift certificate please. Thank you so much, it was fun and a unique concept…congratulations for being so innovative!

Kimberly

John Sevick was the winner of the drawing for the first week held on Sept. 19th. 

… thanks for the delightful news.  If the Costco card is still available, that’d be great.  Their regular gas is “ONLY” $3.969 per gallon this morning … 

Mahalo nui loa!  John Sevick

If you’re asking, “What contest?”, you haven’t been listening to LAVA 105.3 radio. The contest introduced my  latest celebrity listing, KAMAHALE at Ohai Estates.  CLICK HERE and follow the link to my web site to enter. It is not too late! You still have a week to win. The last drawing will be held at midnight on Friday, October 3, 2008. It is really easy to enter now that this amazing listing, KAMAHALE at Ohai Estates, has been released for sale. The prize for the last drawing will be a $100 gift certificate from Jack’s Diving Locker (known as Jake’s in the Mike Travis Books), an autographed copy of “Angels Fall” and a CD of Music from The Red Bar.

Baron is also a gifted musician and The Red Bar is located in the kitchen of KAMAHALE.Baron has confirmed that Snyder’s, which serves as something of a second home for his central character, Mike Travis, is modeled after Quinn’s, located across the street from the King Kam Hotel on Palani St. Lolo’s is Lulu’s. Jake’s Diving Locker is really Jack’s Diving Locker, world renouned amoung scuba divers. Read his mysteries carefully and you are likely to spot many friends and acquaintances from Kona as well as places in his books.Birtcher’s home,

KAMAHALE at Ohai Estates, takes its name from the fictional family name of Mike Travis’ mother. It also represents hale for house and kama for a place of birth. An apt name for the home in which Birtcher’s characters were conceived and evolved. All his books to date have been written there. The next book will hit the shelves in 2009.

Want to know more about Baron Birtcher and this celebrity listing? Contact me, Joyce@KonaBigIsland.com for a complimentary edition CD of Music from the Red Bar, complete with a custom insert that tells you about Kona’s Mystery writer and his talented wife Christina - a celebrity in her own right. Also available on DVD, a slide show tour of this unique Kona home.A Hui Ho!

Joyce Murphy, Realtor Broker BIC
Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC and Luxury Real Estate Florida, Inc.
“In Real Estate, Experience Counts!”
Phone 808-443-4302 or E-mail Joyce@KonaBigIsland.comMore Kona Real Estate Information at: www.LuxuryRealEstateHI.com

Licensed Real Estate Broker in FL and HI

Baron Birtcher is the author of ’Angels Fall’ and ’Ruby Tuesday’.  These two mysteries novels are set in and around Kona. His central character, Mike Travis, was born - so to speak - in the office of his Kona home, Kamahale. 

Christina Birtcher is a highly sought after interior designer and Re-Designer. Together they built a beautiful home in Ohai Estates that celebrates the seamless indoor/outdoor lifestyle we enjoy in Hawaii. Killer Coffee and Tropical Noir are the names of their private label 100% Kona Coffee.

You now have all the information you need to correctly identify my next Celebrity Listing and enter a contest to win the prizes listed on my web site.

TO ENTER THE CONTEST CLICK HERE

Joyce Murphy, Realtor Broker BIC
Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC
Luxury Real Estate Florida, Inc.
In Real Estate, Experience Counts
808-443-4302 / 808-327-1155
More Kona Real Estate Information at:
www.KonaBigIsland.com or contact me Joyce@KonaBigIsland.com

I have a hunch my grandmother would not have died for your right to vote!

Controversy is not the aim of this blog, but since Sarah hit the scene, a lot of e-mail from other women my own age has been finding its way to my computer.  The Alaskans I know seem to love her.  But, it would appear that women of my age group don’t consider Sarah much of a woman’s woman. This election does have us thinking about how far women come. 

As a teenager my grandmother amazed me when she told me that she voted in the first election in which women were ever allowed to vote.  The concept that women had not always possessed all the same rights as a men was just beyond me then! It appalled me when Granny said it is a woman’s responsibility to vote the same way as her husband.  So, I guess you can imagine how I reacted when, at age 19, I was told a guy with half a brain got the promotion I wanted because, being male, he would eventually have a family to support.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the progress women have made during the past 30 years. My generation wonders if young women know how recent and hard won their equality is. We perceive human rights, civil rights and women’s rights at the heart of  today’s international cultural conflicts.  

The photo and story below was sent to me by a friend. I hope you will consider sharing it with your daughters and sons.

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE?

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.  Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ’obstructing sidewalk traffic.’

Thus unfolded the ’Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms. 

(Lucy Burns) They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. 

(Dora Lewis) They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

(Alice Paul) When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf 
  
So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient. My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was–with herself. ‘One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,’ she said. ’What would those women think of the way I use, or don’t use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her ‘all over again.’

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies  and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order. It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’ 

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

 

AS REQUESTED, I AM LINKING directly to Baron R. Birtcher’s* official web site where you can find sources for ”Angels Fall” and Killer Coffee online.  My diving friends from are Alaska report that Birtcher’s books are in short supply. I’ve noticed Boarder’s Bookstore in Kona is nearly sold out too. So I contacted my new favorite mystery writer, and fellow diver, Baron.  He offered THIS LINK to his web site where you can find on-line sources for the book.  More important, he promised Mike Travis will soon return in his next Kona adventure.

ATTENTION DIVE BUDDIES!  Those of you who dive regularly with Jake’s*, I mean Jack’s Diving Locker.  Keep your eyes open as you read.  One of the characters in “Angels Fall”* is a boat captain you know.

IF YOU LOVE KONA, don’t miss this book. Here’s what critics say:

 “Baron Birtcher’s* Angels Fall is a taut and evocative thriller set in the lost paradise of Hawaii. The plotting is tight, the characters are vivid and there’s a sense of longing and loss that accompanies the action. Birtcher is a fine writer and you will enjoy this book.” 

—T. Jefferson Parker

(Edgar Award winning author of The Fallen and Storm Runners)

“Baron Birtcher ruined my whole work day. I kept trying to set Angels Fall down to do my own stuff, but couldn’t stop turning the pages. It’s stylish, fast, soulful and has an indelible—and rare—sense of place. You want to read this book, then you want to live in it.” 

Joyce Murphy, R(B), BIC, ABR, ALHS
Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC and Luxury Real Estate Florida, Inc.
“In Real Estate, Experience Counts!”
808-443-4302 / 808-327-1155
More Kona Real Estate Information at:
www.KonaBigIsland.com

Joyce@KonaBigIsland.com

 ATTENTION TO DETAIL STARTS AT THE TOP! In Hawaiian homes, when I say at the top, I mean it starts with the ceilings. This exposed wood ceiling is very typical in today’s medium to high priced homes. Sometimes we see pickled or painted wood. That lightens the room, but look at the room light solution incorporated into this nearly new Puu Lani Ranch home.

BRINGING LIGHT INTO EVEN THE LARGEST ROOMS, skylights allow you to keep the natural color of the wood you selected without making your spacious home feel like a dungeon. Strategically placed skylights will brighten even the darkest hallway, kitchen or closet.

THERE IS NOTHING CONTRIVED ABOUT ARCHITECTUAL DETAILS that are the bones of the structure itself. The corner location of this garden tub takes advantage of ceiling details and an outside view to create a pleasant retreat. See how this is example of country casual being built in Hawaii today contrasts with the vintage ranch below.

 GENERATIONS OF LOVE AND CARE come together to create the atmosphere this Captain Cook Bed and Breakfast displays so well. At it’s heart, koa creates the spirit of home. Huge beams support the roof in the gathering room. Koa, one of the beautiful Hawaiian woods now nearly extinct and extremely rare, was plentiful at the time this home was constructed. It was also used for walls, shelving and floors.

FEW HOMES HAVE THE WOW FACTOR you see at every turn in this vintage Keauhou Estates home, known as The Dolphin House. It’s about the sculpture and view. It’s about the water and the sound of water. It’s about the breeze too. The breeze is encouraged by an updraft through the clerestory windows providing both light and air above the enormous sculpture. The Dolphin House in Keauhou Estates was only on the market a short time before it was snapped up by some savvy buyer.

HIGH CEILINGS WITH CLERESTORY WINDOWS create updrafts and encourage constant circulation on warm days. Airflow is a major consideration in Hawaii. Air conditioning systems here are rare because they discourage the Indoor/Outdoor lifestyle that attracted most of us to the tropics.

SOARING CEILINGS AND ARCHITECTURAL DETAIL combined to create interesting opportunities to display art and collections in this wonderful Holualoa country home.  At lower elevations these windows might contain only screen.

THESE COLOR CHOICES were a little unusual for Kona, but this was such a pretty room I brought the focus down off the wonderful tray ceilings so you could see the floors too. This master suite  included a large bath and closet, not to mention the view.

These photos were taken on our Realtor’s KONA CARAVAN over the past year. If you have questions about any of these homes, please call or e-mail me.

Joyce Murphy, Realtor Broker BIC
Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC and Luxury Real Estate Florida, Inc.
“In Real Estate, Experience Counts!”
808-443-4302
www.KonaBigIsland.com

THE VIS WAS GREAT, from 90 feet I could clearly see the second group of divers on the surface and maybe 40 feet toward the shore.  We checked out a Pipefish hiding in a hole with two Ghost Shrimp. A few minutes later the Eagle Ray made a second pass to delight the group of divers too.  We saw an Octopus, a beautiful Flat Worm, Flounder, Golden Gobies and lots of yellow fish too.

LATER IN THE DAY, near the shore it was baby day. There were dozens of juvenile fish. Best of all there was a Whitetip Reef Shark pup about 2 feet long. He’s been hanging out in a low ceiling lava tube for the last week or two, but this was the first time I was lucky enough to catch him there.  Nearby in another hiding hole, I saw my first Sponge Crab. Well, I might have seen one before and just thought it was a sponge.  Just before the dive ended we spotted a pair of Reticulated Butterfly Fish, perhaps the most beautiful of all the butterfly fish. (Pictured Above)

AT THE END OF THE DAY we thanked Captain Paul, and all the Jack’s Diving Locker staff for another great day of diving.  Join us in the water off the Kona Coast when you can.  Feel free to add your dive experiences to this blog. You are welcome to call or e-mail with your dive questions too.

Joyce Murphy, PADI Advanced Diver

“In Real Estate and Diving, Experience Counts!”

Joyce Murphy, Realtor (B)
Hawaiian Isle Real Estate LLC and Luxury Real Estate Florida, Inc.
808-443-4302 / 808-327-1155
More Kona Real Estate Information at: www.KonaBigIsland.com