Property Management in Hawaii with Duke Kimhan

Who is Duke Kimhan?

Duke Kimhan was born and raised in Honolulu and grew up in Manoa Valley. He took up culinary in Kapi’olani Community College. He was first a Restaurateur before delving into the world of Real Estate. He was Chef/Owner of a Fine Dining Establishment in Florida. As a real estate broker, he specialized in investment properties, condos, military relocations, 1031 tax exchanges and commercial properties. He is currently the Principal Broker of HIPacific Property Management.

Hawaii Pacific Property Management is a full-service property management company serving the island of Oahu including Ewa Beach, Kapolei, and Honolulu managing more than 1000 properties and providing services to Owners throughout the island of Oahu. It was originally founded in 2013 and have experience managing property in Hawaii. The team understands the local rental market and guarantees that they will fill vacancies in a rental space within a short time. There are ONLY two reasons to hire them: To protect your home and To put money in your account.

To reach Duke Kimhan, you may contact him in the following ways:

Phone: (808) 445-9223
Email: Info@Hipacificpm.com
Website: https://www.hipacificpm.com/

Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE:
gave it to me. Welcome back, and thanks for listening to the Team Lally real estate show home of the guaranteed sold program. Oh well buy it. I’m Adrienne. And I’m Attilio and if you have any questions, just give us a call at 7999596 or check us out online at Teamlally.com.

ATTILIO:
Our guest today was born and raised in Honolulu and grew up in Manoa Valley he took up culinary school in Kapiolani community college he was the first restaurateur before delving into the world of real estate. He was the chef owner of fine dining establishments in Florida.

ADRIENNE:
As a real estate broker. He specialized in investment properties, condos, military locations, 1031 exchanges and commercial properties. He is currently the principal broker of Hawaii Pacific Property Management. Please welcome our guest, Duke Kimhan. Hey, Duke.

DUKE:
Hey, guys. Wow, that’s quite the resume. Who is that guy? That’s you? Well, I

ADRIENNE:
know. I know. There’s so much more. There’s so much more to that. Oh, there is?

DUKE:
Pretty a lot. Yeah. And travelled around to see what not to do in this world.

ATTILIO:
Yeah. So you’re taking all that to come home? Yeah, only to come home in Hawaii to experience and share with all these real estate owners.

ADRIENNE:
Yeah, we’re so happy that you came back. Yeah. So you were in Florida. And then like what what called you back to Hawaii from your your Florida experience.

DUKE:
Divorce. That was that was the key, and then going through the hurricane down in Florida losing, you know, all of our real estate holdings that we had. So basically, you know, being a successful realtor in Florida, and then having eight properties. Seven of all my lost in a hurricane. It was quite the experience to get to know what the FEMA system is like, and how the people that are just got in Fort Myers, they just went through that. I know exactly what they’re going through. Yeah, it’s terrible. It’s horrible. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Yeah, that’s the worst thing that can happen to us, you lose your home. You have to go through and file insurance claim and your mortgage payments, keep going. And then you have to wait for FEMA to come in and claim it a disaster. Yeah. So yeah, the systems we have in America right now are good and bad, in a lot of ways. But, you know, that is an experience that you just don’t want to go through.

ATTILIO:
Well, the system goes through as you moved. He moved. Yep, you moved.

ADRIENNE:
And then. But in the process of you moving back home, do you have like a unique story how you met your wife, coming back to Hawaii. Tell us that before we get into the real estate. I love this story.

DUKE:
There are a lot of people who know the real story, but I’ll tell you the half of the real story is I was flying home because I had to bring my truck back to the the Long Beach port to ship back to Honolulu and I had to wait till Thanksgiving Day. Actually, it was the day before Thanksgiving to get on a plane to come back home to Hawaii 13 years ago, 14 years ago. And on the way back. I forgot how friendly Hawaii people are so on the plane one way trip on the flight attendants were all huddled in the back after they did all their service and I went back there to talk story and use the restroom and stuff. And you know, the first thing they asked you is, hey, you know what high school did you go to? And that started the whole chain of events that led me to meet my future wife, who is also a realtor but was a flight attendant on that flight for Delta. Yeah, so

ADRIENNE:
happily marry All right, many, many years later,

DUKE:
she was going through, she just completed a divorce and I was going through a divorce and a bankruptcy. So that’s God, that’s got to be the worst guy to meet anywhere. The guy that’s going through a divorce that’s going through a bankruptcy.

ADRIENNE:
Well, you know, though, like, look how far you

ATTILIO:
know, you’re gainfully employed, and you have an 800 credit score.

DUKE:
You know, it’s funny, because when you go through all that you go through success, and the world brings you a setback like that you know exactly what you need to do to get back on top again. And, you know, it just took me a little bit of time to rebuild everything. But that FEMA thing, Oh, my God, it’s terrible. And I don’t mean to talk bad about the government, but they got to have a better system for Yeah, to get you back to not having to make payments for a year before FEMA comes in and says, yeah, that you lost that in a hurricane.

ATTILIO:
They should just, like, huge resorts in Vegas when there was a hurricane. Everybody goes to Vegas for about two weeks.

DUKE:
plays with credit, right? Because they don’t have any money.

ATTILIO:
Monopoly money, they give them food, air conditioning drinks. Two weeks,

DUKE:
most people play with Monopoly money when they’re in Vegas anyway. Yeah.

ATTILIO:
So chips and stuff. Yeah.

DUKE:
You know, property management has been very good to me and my family, and to my partners. And so talking about property management in Hawaii, the market just made a huge turn. The market just made a U turn in a cul de sac, and came back out a different person. Yeah. So now what’s happening is, you know, just four or five months ago in April, well, maybe that was six months ago. Now. In April, I was begging people to sell me their houses. I couldn’t buy a house for market price. Because everybody was trying to buy everything when the interest rates are 3%. And the investor market was just nuts. It was nuts, nuts, nuts. And so everybody was buying investment properties, calling me up saying, Hey, I just bought this property. I close. You know, today. Can you manage it? That’s the market six months ago. Yeah. Now, we have people that are trying to rent out their places because they can’t sell them. Yes, that’s totally a U turn. Yeah, just six months ago. So the interest rate is over seven now. No investors are buying unless you’re buying cash, or their 1031 thing, which is that code where people use all their investment money they sold, and they get it back into buy another investment property. So we get calls, but not like before? Yeah. But our investors would call and say, Hey, I’m 1030 wanting this house? What will it rent for? You know, because they have their pick. They can pick any house on the market today. Yeah. And just six months ago, you couldn’t buy a house.

ATTILIO:
How the tables have turned sounds like the market. dresser, it went in as, as, as one person and came out another?

DUKE:
Yes. And so what’s happening to the tenant now is the tenant has more choices, because homes are sitting longer on the market. And a lot of these people that were trying to buy were right on the edge. It could buy, they could probably afford a $700,000. Home in Hawaii or even six. Now they can’t, because now you get 25% less in the Hawaii market for the same amount because the interest rate in the Vegas market, which I also own in you get 20% less. And so now they can’t buy that house, they can’t buy that investment property. They can’t sell their houses. Now they’re renting out their houses because they can’t sell them.

ADRIENNE:
Yeah. So how many homes do you guys currently have available? And what’s a typical amount that you guys carry? So

DUKE:
so just six months ago? Of course, we’re going into the busy part of the season in Hawaii, because it was PCs season for the military. Yeah. And that turned because the all the military now that we’re going to sell their houses couldn’t sell. Well, a lot of them couldn’t sell. And so our inventory has increased to a point where I’m a little concerned. Yeah. So we normally at this time of the year would have 20 or 15 properties that weren’t rented at the end of PCs season which is in August and September. Now we have 37 close to 40. And it’s

ATTILIO:
though, sounds like the owners are gonna have to bite the bullet and just lower the rents

ADRIENNE:
or, or I think, yeah, you brought up some good optional things that they can do these these moving bonuses tell us about that program that you guys are offering we

DUKE:
started, we started to give owners a choice instead of lowering the rent, right? So people are have a mentality where they think, hey, my house is worth 3500, because that’s what Duke told me. Yeah. But, you know, that was three months ago. And I told him, I said, if you cannot rent your house in 30 days, you need to lower the rent, because you’ll never make up that money, you’re losing even at $100 a month. Right? So I’m going to lower from 35 to 34. But now you’re getting $1,200 less this year, and that’s gone. It’s never to be returned again, until the market changes. But if you lose a month of rent, at 3500, you lost $3,500, or even $3,400. You’re never getting that back, even if you lower your rent. So what I tell owners is doesn’t make sense to lose a whole month’s rent. Why don’t you give them a bonus? A moving bonus. So if you move in by the 10th, we’ll give you $800 off. And they’re like 800 I go? You just told me the Lord $100. That’s $1,200. That’s more

ADRIENNE:
Oh, so Duke how many of these homes that you guys currently have available? Or offering some kind of a bonus? Would you see most of them are half like what’s, how many owners

DUKE:
about 20 25% and the other, the other 65 70% of the owners have lowered their rent, the asking rent. So, you know, the strategy in the rental market is changing too. Because I think for the most part, it’s coming down, the rents are going to come down.

ATTILIO:
You know, they could get good. Yeah, they could give me a round trip tickets to Vegas. You don’t have those books. Yeah. And you know what they do? They say where you want the cash and you end up buying them tickets, you didn’t come to cash, it just grabs their attention in the marketing.

ADRIENNE:
That’s right. That’s good.

DUKE:
Ask, you know, I think you should do that for a roundtrip ticket to Vegas.

ADRIENNE:
And that’s one that’s one thing that Duke and his team. Well, there’s one that’s one of many things that Duke and his team are excellent at it is a marketing. Yes. So talk to us about the marketing of the homes how you guys differentiate yourselves from from the rest? Yeah.

DUKE:
So when you sign up, when Hawaii Pacific marketing is free? You’ll never hear that. Yeah, what do you mean, marketing is free. So we send a photographer out takes about maybe 40 or 50 pictures, takes a walking video, and we put it on the market for free. There’s no charge for marketing. And, you know, we push to about 36 websites, and we give you a handout that says, This is all the places that your home will be listed on. Yeah. And so that’s a big deal. Because in other cases, you have to pay for photographer, you have to pay for marketing, you have to pay to be on these websites today. And with Hawaii Pacific. And so important, marketing is free.

ATTILIO:
Yes, inclusive resort,

ADRIENNE:
you don’t travel. Ah, what I really like is that there’s no like hidden fees, it’s like just is what it is, you know, upfront, there’s not some extra bill that you get later. And you know,

ATTILIO:
what in this market that would that have shifted, what you guys have been normally doing is now much more valuable.

DUKE:
It is and and you know, we’re if you look at our surveys that we get from people, a lot of them don’t even mention that they don’t even mention that the marketing was free that the onboarding was great that we got the place rented in 30 days or less, that everything was flawless. And you know, I asked, I asked some of the owners of like, how how’s your onboarding? And they’d be like, it was awesome. Yeah. But people assume that that’s the way business runs. So in the real estate market when things run smoothly, yeah, people don’t compliment you for that anymore. No, because that’s the expectation.

ATTILIO:
Well, they think it’s like somebody who goes to four seasons and thinks every hotel experience is going to be four seasons. No, it’s not. Right. But when that expectation is set,

ADRIENNE:
well, they’ve had the four seasons experience with Duke and his team. And if they happen to, you know, have an investment property somewhere else. Well, we last or anywhere else. And yeah, then they’re not like, they’re probably Yeah, you’re gonna have very high expectations, because you really set that bar

ATTILIO:
well. And the inverse of that is more true, because Ducato know how many times you’ve been on the show and you’ve told us that you get clients who were just not happy with your existing property management company. Yeah.

DUKE:
And you know, I just had an owner come back from another property manager after leaving us. Yes. So that’s not something that happens a lot. So he was very apologetic, and Bumble. What he said was that he returned, because the treatment he got on the other side was a team treatment, where he never talked to the same person twice. And it irritated him because he had to tell his story over and over and over again. Yeah. So he said, I’m returning, you know, humbled to say, thank you for all the things that you guys do. That is not normal out in the real estate market, in general, for property managers.

ATTILIO:
Yeah, we talked about the show you guys are reducing the friction for people to do business with you. And you know, people don’t miss friction. But when you have friction, oh, they’re all up in your face about it. Right? When something’s our

DUKE:
consumer, yeah, the consumer now is so educated on how to complain, yes. And it’s tough. When there is problems, you know, there’s going to be problems, but how do you fix them? Do you make sure that everybody’s in communication with each other? Do you apologize? Do you do all the things that a consumer would want? If you make a mistake? And, you know, I, I talk to people all the time, I say, sorry, I probably say sorry, once a week for things, because expectation is always different than product that’s written on paper, you know, we, we say, Listen, I It’s all right here. This is all the things we’re gonna do. Oh, I thought you were going to do this. Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s hard to always be in front of what people expect. Yeah. But we try.

ADRIENNE:
I mean, I just I want to compliment you guys, on all of the reviews that you have. I know, review, I would say most of them are the five star and then the ones where people are not so happy are generally disgruntled tenants. So let’s talk about those reviews. And why is that different? Because I mean, I just don’t see any other pm companies that have this amount of

ATTILIO:
close to how many positive reviews you guys have?

DUKE:
Well, you know, we, we do a survey. And we survey all the owners. And we surveyed five owners and five tenants a week. And it’s very eye awakening to see, because people get to talk to the owner via survey. But when people write a review, that’s very different, because now they’re taking their own time to put something on paper and put it out there. But you know, one thing I noticed that our website only holds 150 reviews, and we we’ve had way over 300 reviews in 10 years. Yeah. So it’s, I always ask where does this the other reviews go to? Right? Because these things just fall off your website at some point?

ADRIENNE:
I think I see them. I think I see them on Google Duke. Yeah, Google’s tracking those reviews, Google tracks.

ATTILIO:
And you’d be surprised people like how’d you hear about us? I googled you and I saw your reviews.

ADRIENNE:
So what I what I love that you guys do is this quality control. It’s like you’re being proactive. Proactive. Yes. Instead of reactive.

ATTILIO:
Yeah. Cuz the one star reviews the reactive, right? You gotta go after the surveys is proactive.

DUKE:
Yeah, the surveys mandate, they beat us up pretty hard. You know, they’ll they’ll itemize things that they’re irritated about. And a lot of times I have to talk to him just about this, and that and how that go. And you know, a couple of times people go, you know, sometimes I’m a little too hard. But you asked for my opinion. Yeah. Yes, I Yes, I did.

ADRIENNE:
Like you’re seeking feedback so that you guys can grow and be better.

ATTILIO:
Yeah. And, you know, the real feedback, we should be sure. You know, they always kept me in the loop. They took so many pictures for the marketing. I don’t know what their problem is. The government rents are right away. They documented all their communication. They took care of our tenants when things were wrong. What is the problem with these people? They’re just too on top of it.

DUKE:
So no, we have a maintenance. We have a maintenance department that copies copies me on everything. So if you were having a problem with your microwave, you would just send an email to our maintenance department. And the maintenance department would then forward that email to the owner, to the property manager and to me, yeah. And so what I see going back and forth is you know, the maintenance department would be like, Can you be more specific, your microwave isn’t working? Well, when I push the buttons, it doesn’t really register. So then they send that off to a technician and then they set up a service call. And so there’s an email there. Hey, your technician can visit you on these days which would be better for you. And when the technician goes out, he says, yes, the it seems that the motherboard is not doing what is supposed to do replacement costs and estimated $121 or something like that. So that’s four emails right there. And then the owner says, Yeah, go ahead and replace it. Okay. So the best email we get is when the maintenance department or the tenant writes to us and says, it’s all done. And it works like a charm or something like that. And the main department say, Thank you for letting us know. And your service request is closed.

ATTILIO:
I think it’s important that you guys have a separate department for that. Because if you’re a pm trying to do that, plus everything else, oh, how many? How many admin work and just the servicing the service? The call department?

DUKE:
Well, you know, there’s four people that work there. Seven days a week. Yeah, because we get maintenance calls all hours of the day, seven days a week. So people are home more on the weekends.

ATTILIO:
Yeah. And you gotta stay on top of it, because happy client happy tenants pay their rent. So I said be ones don’t.

ADRIENNE:
So do earlier on in the show, we had Bradley, Maruyama and all state, and he was talking about the renter’s insurance. And we wanted to just confirm or find out a little bit more about what is the policy of Hawaii Pacific property management and the renters policy.

DUKE:
So we they are required in their lease to show us within 10 days, proof of renter’s insurance. And basically that’s just to cover them, because renter’s insurance covers things like a place to stay when something breaks, or they have to move out of the house. And if they get a robbery attempt, or something breaks, falls, leaks, or tree limb falls in the house fire. And there’s, it’s really not expensive, it’s $200 a year for a renter’s insurance, and to add an additional coverage, where we say that you got to get coverage for a place to stay in case, you know, you have to be pushed out of your house for a little while for repairs, then that’s an extra $25.

ATTILIO:
So like a vaccination against being homeless?

ADRIENNE:
Yeah, I was pretty sure that Duke required this because I know not all companies require it. And I think that’s like that’s, that’s a win win. It’s good for the tenant. And it’s good for the owner. And you know, it’s a win win win, because it’s also good for Life Pacific property management, where everyone’s gonna let me taking care of

DUKE:
Bradley them. Yeah, because they are really good about sending us a copy of once they execute that. Yeah. So no, Bradley’s team is on it.

ATTILIO:
Yeah. With Allstate Insurance. Yeah, you know, it’s like all downs. And you guys, do, you know, people, I tell people, you know, when Duke and your team, when you guys call out service departments, you represent a ton of business. So not that the service guys are treated differently, the one off mom and pops, but they’re going to want to make sure that you guys are happy with the volume of business that you send them. So they’re going to really want to take care of those clients that you sending them to. Yeah.

DUKE:
Right. Right. And, you know, the people that are renting now, we’re going to be buyers soon. Yeah. So it’s an advertisement for them when they step up to a different kind of insurance. But yeah, the rental policy for us, the lease extends to, you know, the tenants, their children, their in laws, and whoever else is living in the house with them. Yeah. So, you know, when you’re in a rental business, you’re, I’m, I’m doing the same thing that the real estate agents are doing. We’re trying to provide housing for people and do a good job doing it. So

ADRIENNE:
once you guys, those reviews,

DUKE:
we try, we try and you know, we’re not always perfect, but property management is so engulfing I mean, it takes it takes on a life of its own, we have to be responsible for everything in that house. And when something breaks down, who do you think they blame? And, and so repairing has to be timely, it has to be efficient. And it has to be communicative. Because if you’re not involved with the owner, at the same time as a tenant, you got to say, Hey, Mr. Owner, you know, a tree just fell off and now we gotta go send somebody to cut down that tree and then fix your house. Yeah. So there are 1000 things that can happen to a house

ATTILIO:
and you got to be on top of it to keep the tenants happy. So the rent keeps coming in and you keep making your mortgage payment. And yeah, I don’t know the for rent by owners and part time property managers and property managers. I don’t know how you guys do it. Robert Kiyosaki is no he wrote a book Should that poor dad, he says get passive income and buy rental properties. And he says, do not manage this stuff yourself. You know, January, February 12? Is Super Bowl Do you really want to get the toilet is all blown up on Super Bowl a call on a Super Bowl Sunday and know that you don’t want to take the call either. But

ADRIENNE:
they’ve got a four person maintenance team that’s ready to deal with

DUKE:
Exactly. Yep, seven days a week. Correct.

ADRIENNE:
So, so do we are approaching the end of our show? Is there anything that you really wanted to touch on before we wrap it up?

DUKE:
Um, we care about the people that we deal with and our owners. So, you know, it’s it’s important that we put that forward in our service. And, and you’ll find that most of the people you’ll talk to on my team, because some of the people you’ll never talk to in the background, but everybody that’s out front really cares about the people, and they like their jobs. So that’s kind of like a prerequisite for working here is you got to like what you do? Yes. And my job is to support them.

ATTILIO:
You take care of the customer, which is the people and our people take care of the clients, which is the customer and everybody happy.

ADRIENNE:
Right? So business wants to be company? Yeah.

DUKE:
Correct. We’re a want to and not to have to kind of business. You know, you want to do our business.

ATTILIO:
The best testimony I heard was a client who said I only want to rent in Hawaii Pacific Property Management properties they actually wanted to stay within.

ADRIENNE:
Yes. I’ve heard that multiple times from different tenants that they will take their property to property that’s managed by Hawaii Pacific property management. So good job.

DUKE:
We love those people. Yes. Thank you.

ADRIENNE:
All right. Well, thank you. Thank you for being on the show. Again.

DUKE:
Yeah. All right. Have a good new year and thanksgiving. All right. Thank you.

ADRIENNE:
Alright, so that’s Duke Kimhan, you can find him under our experts. We trust tab.

ATTILIO:
You forget all that just Google team Lally and Hey, tell I’ve trust me. I like even my properties. I don’t even imagine themselves. And I can’t wait to let Duke and his team do it.

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