1. Deluxe

Landscape &

Hardscape

ANSWER: Beautiful. Professional. Tropical. Lush yet intensional. Automated. Flexible. Carefree.

QUESTION: How would you like your yard’s landscaping, hardscaping & infrastructure set up for you?

Thank goodness that gardening is a fun, rewarding, evolving, creative, and empowering hobby because eye-popping residential landscapes don’t just happen naturally. Which is a relief because we like making choices about the blooms we cultivate and the foods we grow. PLUS, like you, we evolve with time & experience. Experimentation with new things is one of our joys in life.

Still, we were thrilled to discover the glorious and exhaustive landscape-watering infrastructure that’s already installed at this home. We love things that support and simplify our landscaping goals, especially when life gets busy. And hey, how nice is it to start with an established, cultivated landscape? That’s what you’ll find here. You jump in with changes you’d like to make after you’re moved in and ready. In the meantime, the sprinklers are on a timer; the drip irrigation is present in virtually every pot, planter, and planting bed. It’s even in both water fountains. The Christmas, foxtail, and pygmy date palms are mature; the pink and yellow hibiscus are flowering (at the time of this writing). The lawns are just large enough for kids or pets but most of the lot is hardscaped and xeriscaped to limit evaporative water loss. So smart. So durable. So efforless.

Oh! And for the foodies reading this, you’ve got a worthy start on both an edible garden and/or food forest of sorts. Walking around we found: sugarcane, a bartender’s lime tree, a tangerine tree, oregano, hibiscus, milo trees, and pineapple plants.

Pro Tip 1: Sugarcane makes a great swizzle stick in refreshing umbrella drinks.

Pro Tip 2: Pineapple plants only fruit 3 times. If you don’t get fruit in the first year, it’s time to replace them with a new pineapple crown -or- simply enjoy the plant for its tropical beauty.

[Open the Full HD Gallery above to see the image at full resolution.]

Would you be over the moon if we told you that the architectural and artistic beauty provided by the hardscape you see pictured here, yes, every pot, planter, paver, statue, and fountain is included with the purchase of this home? You would? Great. Consider them yours.

2. SOMETHING
BORROWED

If you’re feeling kinda married to the idea of being the next owner of this home, we get it. Please allow us to push you over the edge with a couple wedding presents.

Something borrowed — ok, not exactly borrowed. It’s much better than that. It’s two pre-arranged contracts. Intrigued? We imagine so. Here are the details:

Contract #1 is with Sunrun. As we understand it, Sunrun is a photovoltaic (PV) solar panel company, like any other, except in addition to selling PV to homeowners, Sunrun contracts with homeowners who have grandfathered-in net energy metering (NEM) agreements with the state. Since Hawaii doesn’t offer surplus energy buy-back (aka, net metering or NEM) to homeowners anymore, only homes with grandfathered-in agreements are eligible. This home is eligible. Here’s how home sellers explained their Sunrun contract:

• Sunrun “borrows” space on the home’s roof,
• Sunrun takes control of the homes grandfathered NEM (for the duration of the Sunrun contract),
• Sunrun installs and maintains a solar array on the roof,
• Sunrun sells the homeowner deeply discounted electricity (up to 100% of the PV-generated electricity), and
• Sunrun keeps the surplus power they generate.
• In the rare event that the homeowner’s power use exceeds that generated by the PV array, the homeowner draws from the grid and pays HICO (Oahu’s electric utility).

The home sellers report that their electric bill when they bought the home in 2013 was consistently $600-$900 per month. That comports with what we’ve heard from other homeowners that don’t have PV.

After the home sellers contracted with Sunrun, they report an electric bill of only $276/month.

An odd ‘bonus’ is that the current PV array is reaching the end of its natural lifespan and is experiencing an anticipated drop in power generation. This doesn’t benefit Sunrun and they have already informed the sellers that the array will be replaced with next-gen, best-in-class panels as soon as they arrive on island.

So far, even with the drop in efficiency, the sellers report that they do not use more electricity than is generated by the PV array. [Full Disclosure: The sellers, a family of 4 adults, want to be clear that they have, on very rare occasions, used more than 100% of the PV-generated electricity, specifically when they’ve had big holiday gatherings with guests staying at the home.]

Moreover, the sellers say that saving over $4,000/year on their electric bill made all of the energy saving upgrades (above) and their decision to buy a Tesla simple.

It’s a great deal that will be getting even better any day when the new panels arrive.

Side note: Sunrun says they’ll sell the new array to the homeowner at the end of its 10-year natural lifespan in 2034-ish, but we’d probably let them put on the next-generation panels. Might even replace the roof at the same time. 2 birds, one stone.