why & how: I bought real estate in Hawaii at 25

Hello, um, my name is Kristin. Welcome to the YouTube channel. Um, I did— oh, kitty! You, Maui, you want to say hi? This is Maui. This is my kitty. She's— can you hear? She's— what do you call it? Purring. Oh, the nurse Oh, Kai, come back. This is Kai, my kitty. He's not purring, his heart is just beating. He doesn't like being held that much. Okay, go jump down, Kai. He does love snuggling. Go! Anyways, and welcome to my little vlog. Um, today Okay, maybe let's look at the kitties. The mama. Ooh, Spider-Man. Anyways, so, um, yeah, if you have any questions on the stuff you want, want me to talk about, I can, um, basically I'm 26 years old and I'm running a registered Airbnb business here in Hawaii, and I am also running a car rental business as well. And yeah, so, um, if you have any questions on this, then yeah, let me know. I, um, cut. Hello. Um, anyways, back to the story. So basically how I got here, um, I Well, back when I lived in South Korea, um, I left South Korea in 2021 when I was 23, 24, maybe. Maybe I was 24, I don't know. Anyway, so back then, um, when I lived in Korea, I knew I wanted to buy property. Like, I was friends with a lot of business owners and stuff in Korea, and I saw like, you know, it'd be cool to do like real estate and maybe operate my own business from somewhere that I own. And yeah, I had some friends who own businesses and they were trying to get into real estate in Korea— Korean friends— and maybe they already did. But anyways, so then I was thinking, well, I was creating my own business in Korea and had an entrepreneurial visa awarded to me by the Korean government there. And yeah, I was like starting to establish my life. And then even when I just like casually, you know, would visit the countryside or like beaches and beautiful places in the countryside in Korea, I'd be like, "Oh, this would be like a great place to like get like, you know, a tiny house or a house or just like a plot of land by the ocean." And but then I heard that it was mostly like just like, you know, rich people coming in with like a bunch of cash that could just buy, you know, like stuff with cash only, like without a mortgage. In Korea, like As a foreigner, that would be like— that's like one of the few options that you could do. I could get established into the country and go through like their like kind of real estate system. But yeah, it would take like some time to do that. And anyway, since I wasn't one of those like rich, like, you know, cash kind of families or Alighards or whatever, you know, I was— I'm very blessed you know, in many ways. But yeah, I was like, okay, what to do? And then I came to a point in my life where, um, yeah, I was like, it's time to leave Korea, or like move out of Korea. And I had been living there 3 years consecutively and 5 years on and off. I've been in and around Korea since I was like 19. And anyways, so yeah, I decided, okay, I'm gonna move back back to the States. And so I moved back to the States and I had family that I had, like, my uncles lived in Maui and I'd visited Hawaii before and I knew like, oh my goodness, it would be so amazing to like live in Hawaii again. So I went, um, by myself to go live in Kauai in 2021, like at a point when I came back to the States, and I rented a tiny home there. Like, I just found the tiny home like off Craigslist and it was in the middle of COVID so I think it was like $700 a month or something. It was like super cheap for Kauai, and I had like a tiny home, so it was tiny but it was like my own space and like 12 minutes Uber from the airport. So like all these things worked out, and then I was like really seriously thinking like, I want to buy a property. Like some of my family friends like had owned property, like several, 3 different properties in Kauai, and like I just got to like know more property owners even in Kauai, like my landlord and his wife, their family. And yeah, so I started seriously looking into properties in both Kauai and Big Island. And then like, yeah, people— yeah, anyways, so then I was like, you know, I could like, you know, get property one way, or I could like my mom works in mortgage, so maybe I can save up money and then talk to my mom about like how I can get a mortgage. And so that's what I did. I ended up— I left Kauai, went back to Maui, and then decided— I was kind of like split, you know, what I'm gonna do. But then I decided at that time to go back to the mainland, or like God brought me that way. To go back to the mainland, and I went back to Park City, Utah, and I just worked there like all the time in the winter season and, um, as much as possible. Like, it was basically back to my college days. Like, in college I had like pretty much just like worked and I went to school, and I didn't like party or like hang out with friends much because I just want to graduate, and I graduated college in 3 years. So I kind of got back into that same mindset Yeah, after living in Hawaii and stuff and— oh, meowy again. Meowy wants to say hi. Oh, baby Garfield wants to say hi. This is my special needs kitty. Beautiful baby Garfield. Oh, baby Garfield is purring. Okay, anyways, so yes, my mom's like, okay, you have to save up cash because like if you're gonna get a mortgage, you have to put down like earnest money and a down payment, and like that you can't get a mortgage with. You just gotta put like hard cash. So yeah, I worked for that whole winter season, so like, I mean, plus fall and like springtime of 2020 to— wait, no, it wasn't 2020, it was 2021 to 2022, and that winter season, I just, yeah, just worked, worked, worked. I, in 2021, I don't know if I'll talk about my testimony sometime, but I decided to, well, um, rededicate my life to Jesus. I went through like kind of this like epiphany experience kind of thing. And yeah, starting to change my life, you know, one by one. Never going to be perfect, but just, you know, little connections here and there. Anyways, so saved up money. And then while I was working that winter season with my mom and I, we were like looking at properties and she was telling me, you know, yeah, you worked in Korea before, you were like an entrepreneur, like, you know, self-employed and that kind of stuff. So for the mortgage companies, the American banks, they're going to like, they're not going to like really credit me with like what I was doing over there abroad because I was working in startups and stuff. And so it was like money here and there, not everywhere. And so yeah, basically my mom was like, okay, we can both sign on the house mortgage together and, um, yeah, then you'll be able to qualify. And I was like, okay, good. And she knows like I was wanting to try to go into like, you know, be my own bit, do my own business again after getting the house. And that I'd be able to get like, I'd be able to pay the mortgage payment like without her help. But I just like couldn't get banks to sign, like to like vouch for me, I guess, because like, yeah, just being all over the place and I have like Norwegian citizenship and American citizenship and I worked in Asia and like, you know, since I was 21 right out of college. Yes, Kai. Do you want to be? Kai wants to be in the spotlight too. Boop boop. Anyways, so, um, yeah, after I saved up that all the down payment— not all the down payment, but like the some of the down payment cash and stuff. And then I, in March 2022, yeah, I was like, okay, Mom, like, I'm booking it, I'm going to Kauai. I mean, coming here to Big Island because by that time we knew like we had been like, okay, Kauai is awesome, but it seems more like in the price range of what I'm looking for, which I'm looking for like quiet and land is what I'm looking for is Big Island. So yeah, then we got a place here on the Big Island and I can like talk about that whole experience like another time. But yeah, basically I looked with my realtor here like on island. We drove all around the island, like from Waimea to Kona side. And but we didn't get to go down into deeper Puna, like Pahoa and Mountain View. If you're thinking about getting a property here on Big Island, like obviously check, like make sure it's a safe lava zone, but there's some beautiful cheap property and land down there. So my, my realtor didn't want to go down there. So, but in future case scenario, I would have loved to check out some of the properties there. But Volcano is amazing. Like the temperature here is so good. It's like I can live in the mountains here. No need for AC and heating, but I can drive like 30-45 minutes to get to the beach. So for someone who doesn't tan like me, I like living in this like gray Sleepy Hollow area of Hawaii. Anywhoos. So yeah, finally after like we placed, had to place like a lot of offers on a different place on different houses and like a lot of people were coming in with cash and I was like, we were, my mom and I were coming in with like a mortgage, um, to try to buy a house and like so a lot of people just like didn't choose us because they would just rather have like the hard cash wired to their account and not have to deal with like banks and mortgage. Um, but yeah, eventually we stumbled upon this house that I'm in now and that, um, I got to meet the the seller actually in person when my realtor came and I came here to look at the house. And my mom was on FaceTime and my mom was like pleading with the lady like, please, please like accept our offer because the interest rates are also going up and this is like a brand new finished in 2020 house. And so me like not having like a dad around and like I'm kind of like the only like hands-on handy woman in the house. Like I don't know how to like fix a roof and I don't know like how not to get like what do you call it, like scammed out on like a bad price and all that stuff. And it's expensive to get people to work on stuff here in Hawaii. So my mom's like, okay, it's best, you know, us two women going in this, like, that we don't really know how to do a bunch of handy stuff. Let's just get a newer house so we don't have to worry about roof and stuff. So yeah, God blessed us with this house. We bought it for about half a million. And yeah, it's like My mortgage payment, like with utilities and stuff, is like around a little over $3,000 a month. So it's not cheap either. It's— we bought 3 acres here and yeah, I can show more of the house later, talk about it if people want to hear. But yeah, it's possible. And I just like, I have friends that come and visit me here and I really encourage like You know, maybe I don't know anything, but just have like an— like, I just have a feeling it could be good, you know, getting into real estate, um, as in like buying real estate. And like, if that's the case, um, like the sooner you buy it, the better. Because like, say you're like 21 right now, and then you can go save up, you know, to buy like plot of land, even if it's a quarter acre, for like, you know, $15,000 here in Hawaii. Or if you can, you know, save up for a down payment and you have like a good remote job and just buy a place here in Hawaii and just— I— there, of course, you have to follow like local laws and stuff like that. Like for the Airbnbs here, like I live on the premises, so I fall under like a different permit system than people that like come here and they just rent it out like and don't live here. So I'm like here like homesteading and Yeah, like, this is my residence. So yeah, it's really fun. It's basically like I own like an inn, it feels like, and I'm like the innkeeper, but like in this like generation. And it's cool. And yeah, I can— if you have any questions, just let me know. If you want help on like how to get a property in Hawaii or something, just let me know in the comments and I can figure out how to help people, I guess. So thanks for watching! Bye! Oh, Baby Yoda is life, just know that. My friend got me this. Anyways, have a great week and spread the aloha! To be corny. Bye!