5 Things You MUST Know About Wholesaling Real Estate in Hawaii

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If you’re new to my channel my name is RJ Bates III. Myself and my partner Cassi DeHaas are the founders of Titanium Investments.

We are nationwide virtual wholesalers and on this channel we share EVERYTHING that we do inside our business. So if you’re looking to close more deals - at higher assignments - anywhere in the country… You’re in the right place.

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Over 10 years in the real estate investing business
Closed deals in all 50 states
​Owned rentals in 12 states
​Flipped houses in 11 states
​Closed on over 2,000 properties
​125 contracts in 50 days (all live on YouTube)
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Chapters

• 0:08 Welcome to Wholesaling in Hawaii
• 1:39 The Cultural Barrier for Mainlanders
• 5:38 Exploring the Big Island Opportunities
• 8:24 Oahu: Where the Real Money Is
• 12:05 Construction Challenges and Higher Costs
• 14:49 Pros, Cons and Final Insights

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to Wholesaling Around the World the Hawaii edition, the Aloha State, one of my most favorite locations in all of America. But I have to tell you guys, it's also, quite frankly, the strangest state to do wholesaling real estate in. Now. Hawaii has a population of 1.44 million people, ranking it 41st in the United States as far as population goes, but it is the fourth smallest state as far as land volume and it comes with a lot of unique traits. So I'm going to try to get all these out in a short time frame. What I will tell you is that we have done deals on three different islands. Okay, now, this is important because I don't know if these are the only islands that you can do deals on, but we were fairly well known back in 2018, 19, 2020, 2021. We were doing significant volume. People knew us. Our website was ranking over there. We were doing a lot of fix and flips. We even owned rentals over there and we never really got opportunities outside of these three islands. So I'm assuming these are the only places that really wholesaling exists in. But we've got the big island, we've got Maui and then we've got Oahu. Okay, now what I will tell you is the big island is more like country. It's more rural and the price points are much lower than the rest of Hawaii. And then you've got Maui, which is kind of known as a vacation spot Very, very quiet though. I actually spent some time on Maui and it's almost eerie how quiet it is. A little bit more jungle-esque than the Big Island. Price points pretty high to get significantly high over there. Lower volume than the Big Island and then the highest volume for us is Oahu. Obviously that's where Honolulu is, it's where the University of Hawaii is and we'll talk about Oahu, but that's where the vast majority of our deals are done. From what I've seen as far as wholesalers go, a lot of people attempt to wholesale on the big island because of the price points. There's a little bit more vacant land that's available, so I see a lot of people trying to wholesale out there in the countryside down near the volcano and then that vacant land, but really the spot that you're going to make your money is on Oahu.

Speaker 1: 3:02

Now, before we get into the specifics about those areas, one of the things that I want to establish about wholesaling in Hawaii is what makes it difficult is not necessarily a real estate thing. It's the fact that if you don't understand the Hawaiian culture or if you are not based in Hawaii or if you don't have a connection in Hawaii, it's really difficult to be accepted over there. And I really struggled with this because I feel like one of my superpowers is connecting with individuals, like understanding what they're going through and then offering a solution. By understanding what they're going through and then offering a solution. And there was times where, just by not living in Hawaii and by being considered a mainlander and at times even being called like a Howley, it was really tough to acquire deals and try to get people to want to do business. Now, at the time when we were doing business in Hawaii, I actually had a business partner, elijah, who lived there in Oahu or on Oahu, and that allowed us to do business, when otherwise I didn't have that connection. There was absolutely zero opportunity for us to even be able to have a conversation about buying their house or hiring them as a contractor or even doing a wholesale transaction. I want you to understand that that is a hurdle that you have to overcome that really doesn't exist, at least in my experience so far, anywhere else in the country. It's basically its own little individual country. It's just a part of America and, honestly, as Americans we're not really welcomed very much, especially as mainlanders. And there's a lot of conversation about are you trying to take my land, are you trying to come over here and take Hawaii away from us? And so that is a hurdle that you need to expect if you attempt to try to do business in Hawaii. So just keep that in mind Anytime you see a lead pop up or you're trying to pull a list or do cold calling and you want to explore into Hawaii. That is a hurdle that you have to overcome.

Speaker 1: 5:32

Now some of the advantages of doing business in Hawaii for one, the time zone. That, like business was still carrying on in Hawaii at nighttime here in Texas, because there were sides where I could basically handle my Texas business during the day got to handle my Hawaii business at night. It just kind of allowed us to have more of an opportunity. I've always talked about leveraging the time zones and listen, 5 pm over in Hawaii is basically 10 pm here in Texas, depending on time zone where we are daylight savings, but normally 10 pm here in Texas, and so a lot of business could take place during those later hours, whereas over in Texas things start shutting down. So that's one of the advantages. The other thing is the price points are so high, especially on Oahu, that you can make a lot of money on less deals. Now there are, just by nature it's, like I said, the 41st most populated state. There is just a lot less opportunity in that regard.

Speaker 1: 6:48

Now what I want to do is I want to bring up my map here and show you guys, let's talk about the Big Island first and foremost. First and foremost, probably the most common places to do deals are over here. Listen, what we did here was this is an Airbnb, and then this was a flip that we did, kind of lower price points. I actually had vacation here as a kid. Um, the volcano. Funny enough, this house right here was on volcano road and the volcano started erupting after we per right after we purchased it. Um, I was very worried. You know, just hey, is the volcano actually going towards our property there? Like I said, a lot of people anticipate that they're going to be able to do business here, but it's going to be lower volume. We did do one property here on Maui. Maui is a little bit weird. It's a different animal than Oahu. It's difficult to find contractors. It's difficult to find almost everything on Maui, so just keep that in mind. This house is basically in the middle of a jungle and it was difficult to find help.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Now let's talk about Oahu, where I, if you want to get into doing business in Hawaii, this is where I believe you should be doing business. Now, if you were to fly into Oahu, you're going to land right here in Honolulu. Honolulu, pearl Harbor, all of this Pearl City. This is where a lot of the population exists. This is where a lot of the population exists. Essentially, if you're here in Honolulu and you want to get over here, you're going to drive basically through a mountain, and it's a completely different style island over here. We did a lot of business over here.

Speaker 1: 8:58

This is, to me, the nicest part of oahu. Okay, I love is the I don't want to say the wrong term, but I believe it's like the wet side um, it's more green over here, and yet one of the things that you have to pay attention to in hawaii is, uh, the roads like the. How how can you get to the property itself? Because there are mountains right, and so if you're starting in honolulu, you go here to get over and then if you go up north, you're basically on this highway that's just right on the water and it will circle all the way around and then it kind of stops. You can't get to the west side of the island going around the north side. You basically have to go around the Dole Plantation and come back down to then get over. But from Honolulu you can go around and then this is the more affordable side of Oahu.

Speaker 1: 10:04

So these were actually the first flips that we ever did. We up here. This is Kapui Street was the second one we ever did. Water Street was the first one. So this is the first deal that we ever did. We made about $100,000 on that Symbol flip. We got one street over Kapui Street. Those are the first deals that we ever did. I believe we purchased those at the time. This is back in like 2018. We purchased those for like $200,000 and then flipped them for like $400,000, right, something like that.

Speaker 1: 10:41

Much more affordable, where, when you're talking about over here, these are like million dollar properties, maybe even multimillion dollar, especially in Honolulu. Here, some of these, you know, we were purchasing in the five, six $700,000 range, and then the ARVs are in the low $1 million range, where this is where you can make a lot of money, right, and then even down here we never really did deals because this is where it gets like ridiculous and this is also touristy a lot of the resorts and whatnot the price points can get astronomical. And you have to really pay attention to this when you're underwriting a deal in Hawaii, understanding like, is this even in an area where an investor would want to come in, because can they even afford it? Right, If you're taking out a hard money loan, the holding costs could be significant on these properties. And then also there is a lot of really poor construction in the state of Hawaii. So if you are anticipating what the rehab budget like, something that would be a $40,000 or $50,000 rehab in the state of Texas is easily going to be $100,000 to $150,000 rehab in Hawaii.

Speaker 1: 12:00

The cost of materials is more, the cost of labor is more, and then there's also transportation issues. And then, especially down here in the very condensed area like Honolulu, like right here on Prospect Street, it's really hard for you guys to tell, but these two properties that we did basically ran straight down into downtown Honolulu. So this is kind of on like a hill and look at that Where's a dumpster going to go? Like, we're flipping this house right here. Where does the dumpster go here? Where does the crew park? Like, if you're going to have, you know, a couple of drywall guys, maybe a painter, maybe a tile guy, where do they park? Where does the dumpster go? How did we get here? Like all of that adds up in Hawaii where in a lot of other locations it's not as big of a deal, and so it just. Everything takes more time, everything costs more.

Speaker 1: 13:09

So if you're going to underwrite these deals just really if it's your first time, you need to like reach out and maybe even get bids. Talk to other in buyers. I always say like, hey, don't waste your in buyers time. They're asking them what their buy box is. But if you're going to explore wholesaling in Hawaii, you need to talk to them and say like, hey, if it's just a cosmetic update on a 1,200 square foot house, how much is that running you? And don't be shocked when they say $100,000.

Speaker 1: 13:41

Because normally you have to worry about things like termites over there. You have to worry about plumbing issues. You have to worry about things like termites over there. You have to worry about plumbing issues. You have to worry about electrical issues. Permits are a big deal over there as well. One of the deals that we did on Oahu it was a short sale and a foreclosure with multiple liens and unpermitted work it took us over a thousand days to close a deal because of the issues that come along, so it is a very difficult location. However, it can be extremely profitable and we do get paid based off the problems that we solve.

Speaker 1: 14:26

So if you have connections to Hawaii, this could be a great location for you to wholesale, because you can do a lot less deals but still make the same amount of money, or you can make more money just based off the price points and the location. And also there's not a ton of competition and the location and also there's not a ton of competition. Now, due to the lack of competition, there's also a ton of lack of knowledge about wholesaling in Hawaii. A lot of the end buyers don't necessarily know what wholesaling is and the title companies don't necessarily know what wholesaling is. So sometimes maybe they won't do an assignment of contract and you'll have to do a double close or coach them through what an assignment of contract is. The other thing that comes along in Hawaii is there's no regulations on wholesaling, so that's always a big concern. So there are a lot of pros and a lot of cons to Hawaii.

Speaker 1: 15:24

I think the one that you need to pay attention to the most prioritize the fact that do you have a connection and do you have knowledge. This isn't like an area where, hey, I went and got a deal on a contract in Kansas, I'm going to go hire investor boots to do recon and then I'm going to use investor lift to do dispositions. It's a lot harder there. It's not as welcoming, which is hilarious because, honestly, when you're there in Hawaii, the Hawaiian people are some of the most welcoming and nice people I've ever met in my life. But when it comes to doing business and buying the real estate, it just doesn't translate. They're very protective over that. Last thing I'll say about Hawaii is there are certain parts of the state where the real estate is actually protected and if you are not a native Hawaiian, you cannot buy it. Now, I rarely ran into that, but if you are doing deals, you do need to pay attention to that as well.

Speaker 1: 16:24

What else? Listen, there's a lot of nuances to Hawaii. Ultimately, if you do not have that connection and you don't understand what you're getting yourself into, you should probably not attempt to wholesale in Hawaii. That's the bottom line. So for that, it's one of my favorite places that I've ever done business in. It's really awesome to say I've owned as much real estate as I did in the state of Hawaii.

Speaker 1: 16:54

But today, in 2025, I don't really have a lot of aspirations to do more deals there because we've kind of moved away from that back to our hedgehog concept. Yeah, it's virtual wholesaling, but I also know the issues that come along in the state of hawaii. So for those of you that have done deals in the state of hawaii, let me know in the comments how I did, explaining it. I hope I did good. There are a lot of nuances to a state of hawaii. Next week we'll get back to the mainland and we'll talk about a more normal location to do wholesaling. Appreciate you guys, make sure you show me some love, like the video, and we'll see you guys tomorrow.