Blog 6 Time for Plan B

My hot lead on one company from whom I was expecting an offer soon cooled.  Further, it was beginning to look like the market for M&A types was becoming saturated with recently out-of-work Investment Bankers (e.g., Lehman Bros.) also looking for work.  So at that point we firmly shifted mentally to relocating to the Big Island.

We also decided to get serious about the possibility of buying a B&B and began reading everything we could get our hands on.  We even looked into attending B&B seminars, but couldn’t get the scheduling to work out.

Meanwhile we also had a California “bucket list” to slim down which we did by taking trips to Yosemite and to Mammoth Falls as well as to one of our staple California spots, Carmel. We had lunches and ball games to attend in the city too. 

Our California realtor agreed that we needed to fix up our kitchen before putting the house on the market, so we had new cabinets installed and did some painting etc. We made plans to return to Hawaii in August and to put the California house on the market in early-September. 

Blog 5 We Think About Buying a B&B

Kelly also took us to a Bed and Breakfast (B&B) named the Log Cabin Inn and yes it was made of logs.  It was upcountry somewhat at about 1,100 feet and if you awoke there, Hawaii would probably be one of your last guesses as to where you were.  The Big Island is extremely diverse in climate, vegetation and life style.  For instance, near this B&B is one of the largest cattle ranches in the country.  Who knew….in Hawaii?

The B&B idea really intrigued us.  My wife’s interest include cooking and my background includes finance, so we thought perhaps we could be a formidable combination in running a successful B&B that we could sell later and then buy a house similar to the “wow” house we had seen.

The "WOW" house

Blog 4 How We Found a Home

Devany had a connection through an online group on the Big Island that recommended a realtor to us, Kelly Moran, principal broker of Hilo Brokers, Ltd.  We were staying in Puna on the southeastern coast of Hawaii (the Big Island’s real name, not to be confused with the state name), but agreed to meet Kelly some 75 miles north in a town named Honokaa on the Hamakua Coast which is basically on the northeast side of the island.

Devany had communicated via email with Kelly previously about our tastes, preferences, price range, etc.  Still largely in a vacation mode, we were taking this as something of a lark at this stage and still expecting I would find a position back in the Bay Area.

What surprised me after seeing a few homes was that they were houses that could be anywhere.  No thatched roofs, no pounding surf, but just plain, ordinary dwellings like ones in suburban Illinois perhaps.  Where was the “wow” factor?  Well, we soon found out when Kelly took us to a house in Hilo right on the ocean – naturally, out of our price range.

We met up with Kelly another two times and probably viewed over 25 houses from Puna in the south up to Honokaa in the north.  So we pretty much traversed the entire eastern part of the island during our visit.  Kona is on the other side of the island, and although the resorts and beaches were fantastic, it did not appeal to us, primarily due to the “vog” (a smog-like condition in the air caused by volcanic eruptions from the active Mona Loa volcano – it reminded my wife of growing up in Los Angeles.)