We’re under contract for a new home for our $100 cabinet! About a week ago, Dave discovered a house for sale by owner that didn’t have any pictures uploaded. He checked satellite imagery and online property records, which looked reasonable, so he contacted our Realtor to reach out to the sellers. Amanda drove by it on her way home that day and confirmed that the outside of the house looked reasonable and that it had an epic view of the local surfing beach, Honoli’i. Unfortunately, our Realtor started texting us pictures he received from the sellers and we discovered the interior wasn’t to our liking. Built almost 80 years ago and having clearly gone through several rounds of retrofitting, it was a frakenhouse. At the listed price, we decided to pass.
A few days later, the seller told our Realtor that she was dropping the price by $150,000. We were still concerned that the interior wouldn’t work for us but acknowledged that looking in person is more reliable than deciding based on photos. We, Amanda’s mom (Verna), and our Realtor arrived and discovered what might be the best view anywhere near Hilo. Not only does it have a great view of the ocean (a common sight on an island), but you can watch surfers catching waves every sunlight hour of the day; there’s a sweeping view of the downtown area and the port, where 100 cruise ships dock a year; and straight out from the porch is one of the best places on this side of the island to watch for whales during their annual migration (December to February).
Still, there was the problem of the inside of the house. On the positive, it was a ranch-style house with the main area all on one level, which we’ll increasingly appreciate as we age. However, one of the four listed bedrooms was a hastily converted garage and another is an independent suite that requires walking outside and down a steep staircase. Neither of those appears to be a permitted addition, so they can’t be insured and will make it harder to sell the house to a buyer with a mortgage.
Similarly, the advertised three bathrooms are one real bathroom, one half-bath in the laundry room with only a curtain for dignity, and a bathroom in the under-house suite that’s inaccessible without leaving the house and walking into full view of the beach.
The inside of the house is… brown. It looks like an attempt to build a moderately stylish house for a modest budget from 80 years ago. The ceiling has a style we recognize from old Hawaiian resorts in Waikiki (O’aho), but which clashes with modern furnishings. What we think was originally a secondary bedroom was turned into a new master bedroom by extending it out onto part of the original porch, glassed in, and given a bathroom—a shower and toilet in full view of the surfing beach. If we were to forget to draw the blinds, we could give a couple hundred people on the beach a good view of our marital relations. We think we would’ve preferred the original full-width back porch.
As mentioned in our $100 cabinet story, we wanted at least three bedrooms: one to sleep in, one for Dave’s office and his mess, and one for Amanda’s office and her pretty things. This house had a weird master bedroom we could live with, a guest room (probably original master) that’s actually quite nice, and a walled-in garage that neither of us wanted for an office (storage, sure! Exercise room, great! Office, nope!). Neither of us really wanted the independent guest suite either, it having a lesser view and being detached from the rest of the house’s amenities and human/pet social opportunities.
The house is also three miles outside town, a trivial distance by car but a significant one for Dave, who doesn’t own a car and prefers not to drive.
The view was perfect but the house and its location were not. We were divided. Dave, who is style blind, wanted the house. He works from home and loved the idea of being able to look up from his work to see the sun rising over the ocean, surfers catching waves, cruise ships and working boats coming into port, and mother and baby whales breaching every winter. Amanda, who now wasn’t going to get her own home office and would be in charge of updating the home interior, was much less enthusiastic (although she did also love the view). We compromised by putting in a lowball offer, leaving it up to fate and the sellers to decide our home buying destiny.
Alas, fate and the sellers refused to cooperate with our attempt to dodge a hard conversation about our competing desires. They refused to sell for our offered price but did counteroffer another $100,000 off the original listing price. We now had a price that Dave would be happy paying. Amanda was still hesitant. We talked about it on and off for hours. Dave saw Amanda’s reluctance and suggested we pass. Amanda saw Dave’s excitement and took another look at the pictures to reconsider. Dave had an idea for how to solve the problem of giving Amanda a home office, but he didn’t think it would fly, so he didn’t say anything. Then, Amanda suggested the same idea: starting with a temporary solution, we’d split the master bedroom into two rooms—much like we think it had originally been designed. Dave would get the part with a view for his office. Amanda would then get the guest room for her office. The converted garage would just be a storage space and exercise room. The under-house independent guest suite would be for guests. With our savings from the lowered house price, we’d have plenty available for painting and other livability improvements.
All the major problems were solved, so after a few final negotiations with the sellers, we entered a contract on the morning of Saturday the 18th, with closing expected in 30 days (February 17th). While we waited for them to sign, we visited the surfing beach (Honoli’i), watched the surfers, saw several whales, and occasionally looked up at the home we hope will soon be ours.
Wordplay
The beach beneath the house is Honoli’i, pronounced hoe-no-lee-e. The title of this blog post plays on the similar sound of “hono” to “home”. Hono means “bay” and lii’lii means “little”, so Honoli’i might mean “little bay”. The word for Home in Hawaiian is “hale”, so perhaps we should call this house Haleli’i (our little home on Honoli’i bay).
McHardmahon.com 
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