Aloha, Nancy. I see that your question is about Kaneohe on Oahu and I'm the Broker-in-Charge for Hawaii Life Real Estate Services on the Big Island. In the state of Hawaii it is a huge ethics violation to not make the land tenure (fee simple or leasehold) hugely apparent in all forms of advertising. You want to look for the initials FS = Fee Simple (meaning you own the land and can convey it to your heirs) or LH = Leasehold, which is nearly the equivalent as a long-term rental contract (you don't own the land).
I can't say for certain about Kaneohe property, you say that prices are "all over the place" - here on the Big Island, you will find the prices for leasehold property are 30-50% of the prices for fee simple property, so if you're seeing a huge swing in prices, you probably can guess the ones that seem like they are "too good to be true" are most likely leasehold property.
If you don't want to buy leasehold, then be sure to talk with your agent at length, but don't discount leasehold properties all together, as in some cases it's possible to "buy the lease fee" which means for additional money, you can buy the leasehold AND the fee to convert the property from leasehold to fee simple.
We have a great website for browsing - it's fast and will give you all necessary info such as FS vs LH...
http://www.hawaiilife.com. Good luck to you in your search!
warm aloha,
Katie Minkus, R(BIC), katie@hawaiilife.com
- Wed Jul 8 2009, 10:03