You have 2 or 3 couches, a refrigerator, 1000 books, clothes, cars, desks, lamps, dogs, etc. etc. How do you get all that stuff to Hawaii? First of all, you should know that people do it every day, literally every day. You pay about $10k for a 3 bedroom house full of furniture, including 2 cars, if you're coming from California to Honolulu's port. Hire a mover that will come to your house, pack all your stuff into a giant truck, and put it on a boat that will take about 3 weeks to get to Honolulu's port.
Certain aspects of Hawaii are different than any other state in America. In fact we sometimes joke that Hawaii seems like a third world country now and then. That's a gross exaggeration, but there are some things that you need to know before buying a house in Hawaii. Talk to a local lender. Lending, like everything else in Hawaii, is different here. We do land surveys on almost every house, we don't use lawyers as in east coast states, and our loan limits are way higher. A local lender will know things that a mainland lender won't, and those little things can cost you money or even blow the whole deal for you.
For most tourists, Hawaii means staying within the gates of a resort, never seeing the neighborhoods where residents live. So when a person is transferred here, (usually to Oahu) often they have no idea where in Hawaii they will live. Where you choose to live on Oahu will determine a lot about your lifestyle. Even though Oahu is only about 65 miles across and 111 miles around the perimeter, each section of the island has it's own personality and quirks. A demographics study of each zip code can be found here.
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