Huge Price Reduction on Favorite Kukio Home For Sale

Last year at the time of the Concierge Auction on a luxury residence at Kukio on the Big Island, I picked another property for sale as a “best buy” alternative to the buy-it-now price of the Kukio home being sold at auction. My favorite took a rest from listing, and then came back on the market about four months ago. This week it had a million-dollar price reduction to $7,950,000.

Photos do not do justice to this Kukio home, for sale at reduced price $7,950,000 (MLS# 257923)

Reasons to Love This Kukio Residence For Sale

Kukio Phase 3 South Lot 6

Here are some of the features noted in my earlier blog post that makes this Kukio residence stand out in our minds:

Sheer “wow” factor. We see a lot of properties with exquisite finishes, panoramic views, big pocket doors opening up to the pool area for indoor/outdoor living, and multiple private guest suites. This home stood out from the moment we walked across the entrance bridge flanked by waterfalls cascading down to a lower level.

72-3040 Maniniowali Dr.

Distinctive floor plan. Sometimes “distinctive” is a euphemism for eccentric in an unfortunate way. In this case, what we mean is no one would ever mistake this home for a cookie-cutter spec home (and yes, you will find those even at Kukio). Single-story homes are in fashion at the resorts, and this property could “live” perfectly well as a single story, but the home theater and guest quarters on the lower level of this residence are genius.

The home theater with its comfortable seating is flanked by the “waterfall lounge” on the entrance side and the “pool lounge” on the other. Yep, if you are bored with the film, you can watch the waterfall…or an aquarium-style view of whoever is swimming in the pool! 

My point is, there is another house at Kukio at a similar asking price that also has a home theater (MLS# 253888)…but it is right in the great room, so I wonder how that works if you want to watch in the middle of the day while others are splashing in the pool.

Home theater looking towards waterfall. Entrance to the home is a bridge over the water feature.

$1 million price reduction. Add to the list of reasons to love this Kukio home: the million-dollar price reduction!

Did I mention the home has 7,699 sq. ft. of living space? That makes the asking price work out to $1,032/sq. ft. As a metric, in the first 45 days of 2013, two residences have sold at Kukio and two homes at Hualalai Resort, and the average sold price works out to $1,286/sq. ft. A front row Ka’upulehu property (that’s the far side of Kukio) sold for just over $1,500/sq. ft.

How to Pick a Favorite Home at Kuki’o

There are an even two dozen residential properties listed by Kukio Properties, and at the moment only two listed by outside brokers. There are also spec homes for sale at Kukio that do not appear in the MLS.

In fact, it used to be that neither Kukio Properties nor Hualalai Realty participated in the MLS, but sellers understand that even luxury market real estate buyers begin their search on line, hence the impetus for their joining the online marketplace. Looking through the listings, it seems they still don’t really leverage the power of the MLS listing, which syndicates out for search on all the real estate websites.

Hence the buyer in the market for real estate in a community like Kukio or Hualalai is at a disadvantage unless they happen to be on Island. My business partner, Pam Deery, and I decided to create a gallery of what we call our Big Island First Class Property Collection.

We don’t claim this is comprehensive, as we only include homes we’ve actually seen personally – and of course it reflects our personal taste and preferences as well as client feedback. Contact us if you are in the market for a first-class resort property and you’d like us to create a gallery based upon your criteria.

A hui hou,

Beth Thoma Robinson R(B)
Direct: 808.443.4588
Email: beth@hawaiilife.com