The pounding storms that rocked our island last week have given way to lots of sunshine with some scattered showers and heavy trade winds.  Emergency work on the Hanalei River started Friday morning for the repair of a breach in the Hanalei River bank upstream of the China Ditch intake that resulted from last weekend’s flooding.  Water levels have subsided in Hanalei. On Sunday we had a rainy morning that cleared to blue skies and the ”TriKauai Triathlon” was in full swing at Poip... Read Full Story

Stubborn Storm System Pounds Hawaiian Islands We’ve had a storm that has been trapped by a low pressure system thus allowing it to circle the Hawaiian Islands and giving us tremendous thunder, lightening, rain and unstable conditions.  Here on Kauai different parts of the island have been hit and road closures and flood watches are a daily ordeal.  It seems Hanalei took the brunt of the damage and got news coverage state wide with footage of people kayaking in the streets and water up t... Read Full Story

Alaska Airlines is adding three new flights to Hawaii this week.  On November 9 Alaska will operate four weekly flights between Oakland and Maui and on Nov. 10 Alaska will begin thrice-weekly service between Oakland and Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. Oakland officials said Alaska’s announcement underscores a growing demand for leisure travel via the airport as the grip of the recession loosens.  “It’s a good sign that things are coming back,” said Rosemary Barnes, an airport spokeswoman. “... Read Full Story

The extension and expansion of the homebuyer tax credit is the pending business in the Senate. After a long week of negotiation on the credit, an agreement on the scope of both expansion and extension has been reached. The extension is part of a larger bill that has not yet gone to a vote, however. A Senate vote on the underlying bill will occur in the Senate during the week of November 1. The package will then go back to the House. The House is expected to accept the Senate amendments, vote ... Read Full Story

Real Estate Update The National Association Of Realtors (NAR) and the Hawaii Association of Realtors (HAR) are lobbying to extend the $8,000 first time home buyers credit on into June of 2010 and the HAR wants to extend it to all home buyers, not just first time home buyers.  The current tax credit has had a fantastic impact on the housing market and the nationwide numbers show it.  In November of 2008 nationwide we had a 10.6 month supply of housing inventory; a healthy market is a 6 month s... Read Full Story

CoCo Palms Tour Our group enters the back entrance to the dining area. (My husband in the foreground) CoCo Palms has been closed since Hurricane Iniki hit the island September 11 1992.  Since that time it’s been under 5 different owners with some of the owners taking a run at reopening the resort and all plans have been met with heavy opposition and much public controversy. The current owners of the property are under an obligation to open the resort up to the local residents an... Read Full Story

Hot!  Hot!  Hot! This past week has been scorchingly hot and relief finally came on Saturday when the heat was broken by rainfall all night long and finally on Sunday the trade winds came back!  We are now back to our normal weather.  A low pressure system had kept our cooling trades away for the entire week and not a palm frond was moving on the entire island.      Continental Airlines Starts New Routes To Hawaii Starting March 7, 2010 Continental Airlines is adding three new flights between... Read Full Story

General Excise Tax Information! Do you file your own GE payments?  The Department of Taxation now requires that the due date for GE taxes is the 20th of each month instead of the end of the month.  Example:  August GE taxes are due by September 20.  Effective date for this new policy is July 15, 2009 but the department is not penalizing people who get their payments in by the end of the month up to Decmeber 31, 2009 which is the date that this transition period ends.  For more information go ... Read Full Story

Western Region Out Performs National Home Sales Figures Nationwide The new-home sales had a gain of 0.7 percent last month; this figure missed the expectations on Wall Street. This was the fifth-consecutive month of increased sales. The good news is the western region, which includes Hawaii, enjoyed a 12.1 percent increase in new-home sales last month compared to July — and a 30.4 percent gain from August 2008. The West was the only region to report an increase nationwide. Where To Retire? MS... Read Full Story

American Airlines is reinstating flights between Chicago and Honolulu in 2010, no start date was specified for the flights but only that it would be in the summer of 2010.  Additioanlly  Hawaiian Airlines is expanding its service to California with the addition of three daily flights next summer as they are getting two new A330 aircraft which will seat 294 passengers and they want to capitalize on one of the busiest travel seasons that Hawaii has. Two of their new daily nonstop flights will b... Read Full Story