Would like some opinions from people who live in maui.........?

Question

My husband & I are seriouisly thinking about making a move to maui in about 3 yrs. That's why i'm doing some of my homework before we make the leap over there. I've been there 2 times, him once. We got married there 2 yrs ago. i fell in love with the island the very 1st time i went, I've always wanted to live near the ocean,(especially,the warm water you have there...we're from california) We both are in industries where we can find jobs anywhere.( my husband owns a security cameras/dvr systems....also he used to sell cars. And myself i'm a bartender with 13yrs under my belt...i'm 36 now.) we're both tired of the rat race here,my question is what is the crime rate there? my theroy is if you can afford to live in cali you can afford to live in maui. We don't need anything special,just a small 2 bdr.apt or condo will do...anyones input here would greatly be appreciated. Aloha!!

Answer 1

I can see how you might compare prices and say Maui is comparable to California, but the whole structure of the economy is different, and that's what people run up against when they try to move from one to another.

Last month, I bought some furniture from people who tried it. They said, "We've been coming here for thirty years, and we had no idea how difficult it was to live here until we moved." They were moving back to California.

They ran into several problems. One is that she was a school nurse in California, and there are no school nurses in Hawaii. There are school health aides, and they don't get paid nearly enough. When she tried to get a job at a hospital, she found she needed to be in the local nurses union for about ten years before she'd get anything but night shift. She ended up taking a job that paid about a third of what she made in California, and then she gave up.

One of the biggest challenges for you may be that tourism, agriculture, and just about every economic activity in Hawaii right now are taking a big hit from gas and jet fuel prices. The bartenders are telling me it's  s l o w  , or at least they did last time I bought a drink--about two months ago. The hotels are reporting their highest vacancy rates since planes quit flying after 9.11.01.  

Crime rate would be pretty good if it weren't for crystal meth, which is tearing lives and families apart. We've got some kids in the school system right now who were exposed in utero, and we're doing the best we can for them, but we don't always see the kind of results we want to see.

I tried to compare crime rates online, but I don't know what city you're in, and none of the cities on Maui were listed. So I compared Honolulu and ....Fresno! Maui doesn't have as much crime as Honolulu. Honolulu doesn't have nearly as much murder as Fresno, but almost as much theft. Santa Barbara, on the other hand, has more rape but less theft than Honolulu, and almost no murder. Oakland has twice the burglary and three times the rape of Honolulu. Honolulu has more burglary and theft than San Diego, but only about half the murder.