Kawamoto, one of Japan's richest men, said he plans to open eight of his 22 Kahala homes to needy Hawaiian families. They will be able to stay in the homes rent free. He has been criticized for evicting tenants of his rental homes on short notice so he could sell the properties, as in 2002 when he gave hundreds of California tenants 30 days to leave. Two years later, he served eviction notices to tenants in 27 Oahu rental homes, mostly in pricey Hawaii Kai, saying they had to leave within a month. He said he wanted to sell the houses to take advantage of rising prices. He has said he tried to pick working, single mothers. Some neighbors are unhappy with Kawamoto's plan, speculating that he is trying to drive down real estate values so he can snap up even more homes. One man suggested that the Waianae Coast a heavily Hawaiian community on the other side of Oahu that has been hit hard by homelessness, would have been a better place to carry out his charity work.
I smell a land grab.
2007-03-23 04:50:04 · 5 answers · asked by dougie 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Renting & Real Estate
Do you think the people could afford to pay property taxes and uitlites on these multi-million dollar houses? That's what they would legally be responsible for if they actually owned them. To actually give them title to the houses would be no charity at all. They would be back on the street and homeless in just a few months. By letting them live in the houses, rent-free, he's giving them a chance to get back on their feet.
2007-03-23 05:02:11 · answer #1 · answered by ? 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
2
2016-09-10 07:05:52 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
even if he is doing this for more land, for 10 years some native hawaiian families, bob knows one of them, the lady has 5 kids , no husband a full time job and used to live in the homeless shelter, are now living in ******* kahala, bob doesnt know anybody who could go and live in kahala even if they wanted to. After reading this bob is not sure if he was really doing it out of the kindness of his heart and jsut for more land, but still no matter how greedy his intentions hes actually doing something good in the process, plus that area is basically owned by rich white and japanese people, half of which just have the houses to own real estate, such as himself or just have it for a vacation home. Plus the area is so ritsy pretty much no working middle class family can afford to buy the property there.
as for the waianae thing, it would kind of defeat the purpose because the houses in waiane are MUCH more affordable and reasonable for say a working middle class hawaiian family to buy then say a kahala mansion worth millions. so if he bought like 20 houses in waiane, those houses would probobly have gone to hawaiians in the first place.
what he did was buy up houses in a rich expensive, white neighborhood that nobody in their right mind could afford and put hawaiians inside.
so bob guess its bitter sweet, he is doing a good thing, but possibly for the wrong reasons.
2007-03-26 17:04:19 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
sounds suspect to me, specifically the part about them having to pay the utility bills,if these are truly mansions well how can any homeless person afford utility cost given the size of the properties. He is a savy real estate tycoon and there is no logic to this, even in the name of charity. He would have better served the homeless by subsidized housing. I'm not buying it either.
2007-03-23 05:09:07 · answer #4 · answered by runwaywear 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I sense ulterior motives too. I guess when you have the power to do something this drastic, you implement it into your strategy.
2007-03-23 05:02:28 · answer #5 · answered by themligroup_com 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋