PUHI — Even if her new home hadn’t appreciated in value by $100,000 before she even got her loan and moved in, Carol Curran would still be very pleased with what she calls the last home she’ll ever buy and
PUHI — Even if her new home hadn’t appreciated in value by $100,000 before she even got her loan and moved in, Carol Curran would still be very pleased with what she calls the last home she’ll ever buy and live in.
One of the new residents of Villas at Puali, off Puhi Road, Curran, 62, said she loves the fact that she is a charter member of one of Kaua’i’s newest neighborhoods.
“I’m tremendously happy with the whole situation,” she said. “I’m ecstatic to be in my house. We have a beautiful view, lots of new neighbors.
“Everybody’s been so nice,” said Curran, who, after completing rehabilitation following upcoming knee-replacement surgery, will launch a new business, Staged Homes Kauai.
Through that business, she will help other Kaua’i homeowners prepare their homes for sale in order for them to get the best prices.
Her half of a one-story Villas at Puali duplex, with three bed-rooms and two full baths, which she purchased for $330,000 including certain upgrades, was appraised at $430,000 when she went to get her mortgage loan. “So, I think it’s a good investment,” especially since it’s the last home she’ll buy and live in, she continued.
She likes the fact that her new home is close enough to shopping and other Lihu’e draws, and likes the fact that the neighborhood is filling up with an interesting mix of new neighbors of varied professions and family sizes, including several members of the Kaua’i Police Department and Kaua’i Fire Department.
Still pinching herself on occasion, she said she considers herself extremely lucky to have been chosen to buy one of the units in Villas at Puali, as over 400 people applied for the right to purchase one of the 104 units in the project.
Her friends in California could not believe that she could have purchased a three-bedroom, two-bath home on Kaua’i for just $330,000, she said.
Conditions of purchase include her having to live in the unit for at least seven years, and if she decides to sell before that, representatives of the county and developer, in that order, have first right of refusal to buy her home from her, at whatever the home’s value would be figuring on 3 percent a year appreciation, she said. If both refuse, she is free to sell the home on the open market.
About the only thing she doesn’t like about her current home is that she isn’t allowed to rent it out, and that concerns her in the event she becomes incapacitated and can’t make a living here, she said. That issue hasn’t been resolved, Curran added.
The owner of an apartment at nearby Halelani Village at Puhi, which she bought for $120,000 (some units in that complex are now selling for more than she paid for her Villas at Puali unit, she said), she is now renting out that Halelani Village at Puhi unit, and plans on selling it in around three years, and using the proceeds to pay off her Villas at Puali mortgage, she said.
Lots of Halelani Village at Puhi owners or renters bought units in Villas at Puali, she said.
She lives with Christie the beagle and Freddie the lhasa apso, and Curran and Freddie are part of the Kauai Humane Society PALS (Pets Are Loving Support) volunteer program. They regularly visit patients at the Kauai Care Center in Waimea.
