****Hawaiian Airlines Makes Changes*****
Hawaiian Airlines announced Wednesday that they will charge and additional $15.00 for the first checked in bag on their mainland flights, the second bag already has a fee of $25.00. This is for tickets purchased after August 1, 2008. There will be no charge for the first piece of luggage on the interisland flights. They will also adjust their frequent flyer program so now more miles are needed to get an award ticket; this will take place after September 1, 2008. The minimum miles needed for a free flight is 10,000 and it will be increased to 15,000. Hawaiian Airlines said the last time they raised their mileage program was 14 years ago. Also in the news for Hawaiian Air: Mesa Airlines, the parent company of Go! Airlines settled with Hawaiian on a lawsuit for $52.5 million dollars. This lawsuit settlement allowed the company to have earning of $54.3 million for the last quarter. Compared to the quarter before which had the airline at a net loss of $3.9 million. Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian Airlines President, said “The net beneficial impact of our competitors collapse and our raising of air fares offset by the costs of more expensive jet fuel was to leave us at roughly break even.” So why the baggage fee instead of a fair hike? According to Dunkerley “If we add $15 to our fares, bookings would slow down dramatically because online shoppers pick their tickets based on the lowest price.”
*****Hawaii Information Service Gives Kauai Market Update*****
Hawaii Information Service is where we Realtors put our listings and document our sales. It’s also where we go when to do market analysis when representing Buyers as tracking past sales, price reductions, days on market and current inventory is a huge key to making an offer. Hawaii Information Service is a non-biased information collecting tool. Here is what their data says about our Kauai market “Sales activity for single family residences, vacant land and condominiums are down 39%. The combined median price for single-family residences, vacant land and condominiums are exactly the same as they were last year. For sales activity in July 2008, median prices for single-family residences on Kaua’i are $655,000. Median sales price for condominiums are $569,000 and vacant land is $617,500″ We had another healthy week for closed transactions, for a full excel spreadsheet go to my website: http://blogs.alohaliving.com/kauai-home-sales/
*****Hawaii To Test 4 Day Workweek*****
In an effort to cut back on expenses of keeping government offices open Governor Linda Lingle is testing a 4 day workweek for the next 3 months. Employees will now work four 10 hour days Monday through Thursday. On October 31 the State will evaluate this change to see if this change has made a difference and if they will continue. Additionally Oahu’s Mayor Mufi Hannemann is ordering all city departments to cut their budgets by 2 to 3 percent and the city will also suspend job fairs and will delay filling vacant positions. This all comes as a result of a decline in tax revenues.
*****What do people look for in a home?*****
Did you know there’s an internal clock that you have when looking at property to decide if you like the place or not? It’s true! According to the National Association Of Realtors (NAR) when people are viewing photos of a piece of property online they will decide if they like it in 3 seconds and when they are looking at a piece of property in person they will know in 30 seconds. So what are people looking for in homes these days? Currently here are the top ten things: -Central air-conditioning -Garage (2 or more spaces) -Walk-in closet in master bedroom -Backyard play area -Cable/satellite TV-ready -High speed internet access -Separate shower enclosure in master bedroom -Patio -Fencing -Home less then 10 years old
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