Selling Your Oahu Home? Get a free home value report
Buying a Oahu home? Search all homes for sale
Today I'll be discussing how to buy or sell a home in Hawaii. The rules are different than what you would find in the states, and this is due to the rule of King Kamehameha. Originally, he owned all the land in Hawaii. He leased parcels of land to people around the Island, and eventually these lands were purchased.
This purchased land is called fee-simple land. We now have fee-simple land with condominiums and homes, but there is also leased land around the islands that have properties on them.
There is also home land, which is still technically owned by the monarchy and managed by the state of Hawaii. This land is all leased, and it must be owned by native Hawaiians. These people can sell their homes on the land, but they cannot sell the land itself.
The same thing goes for condos in Waikiki. Sometimes a person will own the land and the property on it, and sometimes a person will only own the condominium.
Sometimes this is confusing for home buyers and sellers on the island. Hopefully this has cleared things up a bit, as it sometimes creates problems for us in our transactions.
