If you live in a multicultural area, like we do in Honolulu and mostly all of Hawaii, it’s good to know where the different ethnic populations tend to lay down their roots. Knowing the geography of your demographics can help when it’s time to sell your house or when you’re analyzing investment properties to buy. You may find that some ethnicities have larger family sizes and therefore are more likely to buy properties — and pay a premium — with 4 bedrooms. Just the other day I visited a townhouse in Pearl City that had almost 8 people in its 4 bedrooms. You may find other groups to be more ‘investment savvy’ — if so, spend some extra effort marketing to them if you’ll be selling positive cash flow property. Many people would consider the local Chinese population as such a group – maybe you should brush up on your Mandarin….
If you’re an online investor with a web presence, you might want to have some translations on your website (ahem, I know — it’s coming). There are some plugins for WordPress sites (such as this one) that are supposed to work, but they haven’t done the job yet for my site here. Still, you don’t want to exclude potential buyers, sellers or investors just because they can’t read your material.
Another tip here is to broaden your marketing to other foreign nationals. As currency rates are constantly changing over time, so too does the profit potential of investing in Hawaii real estate for holders of foreign passports. China and Canada come immediately to mind. Right now our local real estate in Hawaii is considered ‘cheap’ to some. Well, instead of arguing or debating the point, reach out to those folks and add them to your buyers list. They may waiting for just such an investment opportunity.