Hawaii Local Developers is owned and operated by Koliah Sebring-Ramirez. I, Koliah have been working on new construction projects since 2022 along with re-development projects on the Big Island and Oahu markets. I worked as a commercial electrician for 4 years and kept researching and learning more and more about real estate while working on commercial job sites. Eight to ten hour days listening and learning value add real estate, buying at a discount, utilizing hard money, private money and cash out refinances.

I was raised on a little three acre property called Wood-n-horse ranch on 8 road in Hawaiian Acres near Mountain View. Surrounded by the country, three horses, eight dogs, a pig, ducks, chickens and now goats and donkeys. No education or information about debt, taxes, income, employees, businesses, how to buy a house conventionally, how to save correctly and how to build wealth. This is something never taught throughout school. It’s all self education, it’s only when you find good mentors, see examples through people that have done it, is where you really begin to see it right in front of you and implement anything they share. I worked for a business in Haleiwa for 5 years before being an electrician.. Being so young starting in high school and spending time there for so long I didn’t ever REALLY see what was going on. Blind work. There was value on the shelves, and I was helping consumers with what they want. I learned everything on how to operate that business with the team and eventually worked up to the manager position that knew how to operate everything in this million dollar store/business. This store would make up to $500,000+ gross a month in certain months. One location. With a great market share.

Again, at this time I didn’t see the business working around me. I was still in the employee mindset. I started at $8 an hour and worked my way to $13 after those 5 years.. I moved away to a small ski town and worked a winter on a ski resort in Snowmass for 6 months. I didn’t need money, I’m from the country! I worked as a ticketing cashier and snowboarded almost everyday of the winter season. Being from Hawaii, it’s so different. Culturally, physically, and being with different mindsets. Being from Hawaii and never leaving until 21 years of isolation is a weird shocker. We are blessed to experience where we are from, Hawaii. Great weather, great people, paradise to say the least. It’s all perspective. So, that’s what I found out. I need to be in Hawaii!

So there’s my new plan, to get back to Hawaii. What am I gonna do? What’s my career? Where am I going in life? All I knew was I need to make it back home. I made a few calls to some friends back home around the same age as me. This is an example of environment. The people I knew when I left were still doing what they were doing when I left. Tradesman, Construction workers. So that’s the career I went with, what my previous environment does. I became a first year commercial electrical apprentice and started going to trade school. For starters I worked on a 20+ unit nursing home in Honolulu, then Kaimuki High School auditorium, then got into government work on Fort Shafter, and multiple projects on Schofield Barracks. Journeyman electricians at that time are making over $75+ an hour on prevailing wage government jobsites. That’s the dream for me as a first year! Grind for 10,000 hours and get to $75+ an hour! While growing up, your “hourly” wage is your “success” meter. $2000 a week net. What you put your mind to, you can get. Within two years, and my work ethic with the people I learned from, I got to that hourly wage and thought. Hey, if these guys have been electricians for 20+ years where did all of the money go? Then I learned more and realized, shoot, all these middle class people have liabilities and little to no assets. No cashflow other than their time. House rich, cash poor. Just facts! Nothing wrong with that, but the system set us up this way. They will keep you in their grasp!

As a 23 year old young adult. I didn’t have any liabilities. Again, I guess I did grow up learning about debt.. Debt is bad! I never really took a car loan, never used a credit card, never took out a personal loan. So here I am, making great income and no idea what to do with it? With no liabilities. So I started to learn about “assets”. When you play the “cashflow” game by Robert Kiyosaki. The point of the game is to create enough passive income to cover your expenses to then “exit” the rat race and fast track your way to your real goal/dream in life. Now at this point, I’ve always kind of been a little entrepreneurial. I once had my own clothing brand where I sold tee shirts, bought and sold surfboards, help distribute bodyboards and DaFins throughout the islands. Now, I wanted to buy rental properties!

I learned all about this BRRR method from Bigger Pockets and Brandon Turner and thought this is what I need to do to evenetually have a retirement plan being an electrician. Then I learned about equity in assets/real estate. Wow! Equity can grow over time, you get debt serviced by a renter and get debt pay down, the value add cash out refinance method (BRRRR hype) lets you hold a 20-25% equity position if done perfectly and on and on. I wanted to net cashflow $200-$500 a month and get 20 properties! That was the idea. That’s $10,000 a month, it’s depreciable because it’s real estate. Also as a W2 electrician i’m gonna be in a high tax bracket and be stuck in the middle class so I needed to learn how to pay less in tax on the income I made, then build up this passive income over time and then be in a good enough position to be financially free. But is real estate really about cashflow ? Actually, first, how am I gonna get the money to buy these properties? I’m a noob, I haven’t done the concept before. I’m just sideline thinking about it!

Then, I started going to real estate events and local meetups. Met more investors doing the thing! Met the fix and flippers on island and saw this guy “Ryan Pineda” on Instagram. Then noticed there were a few local people on island apart of his network. Then met the WNN group here on Island and noticed there were local people already buying rental properties out of state. Ok, now i’m meeting people and I truly believe the people you meet and network with in business are gonna completely change your business. These are the people that changed my trajectory. I went to a local event on Oahu and I guy I kept seeing at the event owned a business and pulled me to the side outside of the circle. He said, “I come to these events but really, real estate is not about this $500 cashflow a month. My business is for real cashflow, like $50,000 a month kind of cashflow. You need a real business to create you cashflow. But what real estate and the wealthy really do is use real estate as a tax shelter.” Of course that isn’t word for word but that’s the guidelines he gave me. At this time, I was working on my first 2 fix and flip properties because Ryan Pineda also speaks a lot about this. Higher income businesses and then using real estate to defer your taxes. Going to these events sometimes you get that “flip shame” from some investors haha!

What i’ve come to find out especially on the Big Island is. The barrier to entry on the new construction and land purchase prices are real similar and more efficient than fixers. Fixers are all gonna be different. New construction spec homes are repeatable systems you can do over and over again. Nothing really new. You follow a set of plans and build a system and conveyor belt of projects so contractors can actively keep working. Oahu fix and flippers can net anywhere from $50,000 each to $100,000+ on one deal. Let’s say you had 5 rental properties that cashflow $500/month. That’s $2500 a month. So in one year that’s $30,000 for the year. How diligent are you and how long would it take you to get to 5 rentals? or say 10 rentals? If you’re doing the BRRRR method. You are essentially flipping the house and being all in for 75% of the appraised value or less. Instead of selling you are using the bank to exit and refinance into a 30 year loan which is great. If you’re buying turnkey 20% down you’d need $20k-30k to close one property even at $100,000. What W2 is gonna get you that per year to buy you one or even five each year?

My goal is to always be all in for less than 70-75% so I can refinance if I need to. Every good BRRRR is a good flip and sometimes every flip could be a good BRRRR. But how can I create and find 10 great deals that net say $50,000 a deal and do all of those throughout the year. Could that help me buy more rental properties? Of course! Get the real cashflow first! That will always come from a business. But if I can get the cashflow from a business then why would I need the rental? For cashflow or for a tax benefit? This is my thinking now. Cashflow and active income first, I need to make more than $100k-$150k to out earn my prior career. But see, the other difference is this type of income can be offset and pay less tax. Middle class gets annihilated with hidden taxes. W2 you pay taxes first! Business owners make the income and then pay the tax later when it’s due. I’ll touch up on syndications and the massive tax benefit they could have on your business if you are looking for passive losses or if you’re a real estate professional you have another massive benefit that you’re missing out on. View my website multivaluepartners.com to see more. I learned this from good people. Good investors. My mentors, direct people that implement this. People that are building wealth. This is the true benefit to real estate. They say tax and payroll will always be your biggest expenses. Robert Kiyosaki talks about this over and over again. Is nobody listening? Or does nobody I guess, care?

If you’re reading this, then maybe this can help you or you’re interested in finding a way out of the rat race. I speak on this time and time again and find out nobody seems to listen or care. This information is crucial if you’re gonna get interested in real estate because i’m not going to steer you in the wrong direction. That was a long story, but that’s how I got started and you got a small insight to how i’m thinking. I’ve created Hawaii Local Developers because I love Hawaii, I’m local and I like development projects. Simple enough right? We aim to build projects in Hawaii and be all in for less than 70-75% of the resale cost for safety of investors so we can refinance if needed. I come from a construction background and I think the biggest risk factor in entering the market isn’t necessarily the market, it’s the construction and the all-in number you get before you enter the market. Your construction crew can mitigate your risk. Hawaii alone is a low supply state. We live on islands!

On the Big Island we have all kinds of different price points but we aim to do $300,000-$400,000 price point. Our buyer pool is larger because of the lower barrier to entry. There are pieces of land that qualify for USDA loans which are government loans for AG zoned property that lower income people can qualify for. We strive for a great quality product for all the properties we build. Coming from the trades, I notice all of the little details throughout buildings or houses.

We raise capital from local people and pay an interest rate of 10%-12% annually interest only and return the full principal when a project is completed. I’ll have a ton of information about this all over the website so please dive in and read! I hope you’re as interested in real estate as I am. It can set you financially free. A job is very hard to do that because you would be trading time for money. I believe we need to accumulate money to then have it work for us so we can truly use our time for the things we actually love to do and that means something different to each and every one of us! This thinking isn’t necessarily the “correct” way but it’s the way that has been brought to my attention that I’ve self educated on and I’ve done my own research behind assets and liabilities. You can do it your own way! This is just a part of what i’m working on, thank you so much for viewing this Hawaii Local Developers website I hope you got to hear a little more about us! Message me or call me sometime and maybe we can grab lunch sometime and talk story!!!!!