I am a real estate broker here in Hawaii.
It was during one of my showings that I visited this building and immediately I saw the view and
thought to myself, "Wow, I need to live here."
So I made it my absolute goal to earn the income in order to afford to buy a unit in this building.
Welcome to my condo in Honolulu, Hawaii.
My name is Jeremy Mateo, I'm 27 -years -old and I live in Honolulu, Hawaii.
I own a one bedroom condo and my housing costs are $3,843 a month.
I bought my condo in March 2020 and it cost $560,000.
I got into real estate back when I was 19, when my mother
kind of suggested that I start a real estate career.
I did a showing in this building probably around January of 2019 a nd I was still very
early in my career.
The previous year before that, I only made $20,000 selling three homes.
So I talked to myself and I said, "Jeremy, if you really want to live here, you're going to have to
sell maybe 10 homes this year and make over $100,000.
With my unit compared to other units that sold in this building, I truly believe that me getting
this for $560,000 was a great deal.
Because when I checked the comps or the comparable units in the building, I saw that a unit on the
22nd floor sold for $550,000.
And with my floor being on the 37th floor, I just threw out $560,000 just
to see if they would accept.
And sure enough they just accepted.
Saving for the down payment, that was truly kind of a challenge because as a real estate agent,
we don't know when our next commission check is going to be.
I went into extreme frugal saving techniques.
Whenever I got a commission, I put the entire thing into my savings and I only put $500
into my checking for me to survive, basically.
With that $500, that basically was just to pay for my gas or any food that I
eat. When I was out at that time, I was also a D.J.
and I was D.J'ing in nightclubs and that was kind of the income that helped me
survived to while I wasn't selling any homes.
At the time of closing, my down payment was $56,000.
Closing costs was about $7,800.
However, because I was a real estate agent buying my own place, I had the 1.5% commission, which
was $8,400. Which was pretty awesome because that basically wiped away all of my closing costs.
However, when you buy a home, lenders don't want to see that your bank account is empty because
they want to lend you money, make you buy a home and you have no funds left to pay for the
mortgage. So my mom and my grandma gave me gifts to put in my bank account, o ver $30,000,
to show them that, hey, OK, I'm able to buy this home and I'm not going to be broke.
However, I was kind of apprehensive of them doing that, but it was the only way for me to close o n
the loan.
So my monthly mortgage payment is about $2,800.
But on top of that, you still have the HOA fees, the maintenance
fees, the taxes and insurance, which is about an additional $1,000.
So every month my payment to live in this condo is about $3,800.
When buying my condo, I used a 30 -year fixed rate mortgage and I had a 4.25%
interest rate. When I bought this home, it was all original and I was very happy with that
because my intentions were to do a complete renovation to, you know, kind of give it my entire
vision of how I picture myself living in my home.
My original budget was to do $50,000.
However, like everyone says with their personal residence, I kind of went a little over budget and
spent $100,000, including furniture.
Part of that overspending had to do with a general contractor that was kind of upping his
price every single time I talked to him and I eventually fired him and had to get another
contractor. So if I didn't use that first contractor, I would have saved probably
$30,000. Here we are in the living room.
There's lots of space here.
I like to have friends over to host parties and have fun.
Here is my home office.
I really loved how my desk really matched with everything else in the home.
You know, this is where I work on my real estate deals.
This is also where I filmed my YouTube videos as well.
So a lot of work gets done just in this small corner.
Here is the custom -made entertainment center.
I really love watching sports, football, basketball.
So I wanted to get a big, you know, 82" TV.
I also wanted a nice, cool electronic fireplace.
That's about 60". And then on the top is a custom-made panel for the
electronic lights that is actually Alexa -operated.
So when I was in high school, you know, I really wanted to be in a punk rock band.
I played the drums.
I also played guitar. So music has a big influence on my life.
So I wanted to have some kind of musical section in my room.
So here is, you know, all the guitars that I've had.
This area of my room, this is what I like to call the lobby.
And this is where I have all my shoes, you know, my jackets.
Over here in my kitchen, you know, I completely renovated the kitchen.
Over here used to be cabinets.
And I thought, you know, if I'm going to be cooking a lot, I don't want the cabinets to, I
guess, block my view from the balcony.
So I took that down, opened it up.
Over here used to be a wall.
And all of this, you know, I wanted a big countertop with a waterfall edge.
Over here we have my nice Samsung fridge, very sleek.
I wanted that modern look with no handles.
That's just super nice.
And all the cabinets I made to be great and match everything else in the home.
And I have this nice wall -mounted oven and microwave combo.
One of the really cool things that I added to my kitchen was this thing right here.
So whenever my friends come over and we like to have fun and we're drinking, you know, after you
take a shot, you're not going to wash it, you know, like this, like a regular person.
You know, you're going to put it on here and just wash it like that.
If we walk out here on the balcony, you know, this is the amazing view.
This is the reason why I wanted to live in this building.
And over here, this is where I enjoy most of my meals.
Sometimes I bring my laptop out here to get some work done while I enjoy the view.
And then from my balcony, we can actually walk into my bedroom right here.
Here is my big, comfy king bed mattress, my two night stands on the side,
my dresser, and all of these match with all the furniture and the kitchen cabinets throughout the
home.
We have my big 55" flat screen there.
The only downside to living here in this one -bedroom condo is that there's not much room for
storage. Then when we walk to my closet over here, as you can see, it's kind of a tiny closet.
There's not much space.
I have a lot of clothing and a lot of other outfits here.
As you can see, this is where I completely renovated the whole bathroom, changed the
cabinets, the countertops, even the toilet.
I took down the old mirror and I replaced it with a brand new mirror that had LED lights.
Over here, this bathroom used to be like a tub with old glass.
I replaced the new glass and I made it a stand -up shower.
And I made sure to put the tiles to match with the cabinets everywhere in the home, as well as
to match with the entertainment center in the living room.
This neighborhood is honestly really safe.
It's really nice. My condo unit overlooks a private school and it's a really great
community. In my building itself, however, I've noticed that the demographic of the
residents living here are kind of on the older side.
So time -to -time I would get noise complaints because I'm so young and I have my friends over
partying. With everything that I spent on my home and the renovation, I
absolutely laugh at myself and I wish I didn't do that.
But, hey, you know, it's a personal residence.
You're going to make those mistakes.
This was probably my first big project going forward.
You know, I'm definitely budgeting better, planning better.
I'm definitely living more frugally and trying not to spend as much as money because of everything
that I did in my condo.
Right now, I have plans to probably live here for maybe 4 to 5 years.
After that, I'm planning to maybe buy a big single -family home.
When I do leave and decide to move into a bigger single family home, I definitely will probably
rent out this unit just for, you know, additional income on the side to start my real estate
investing career. For me to be a homeowner at 27 in Hawaii, of all
places, like I think it's such a great accomplishment.
Hawaii is one of the most expensive places in the country.
And for me to buy a very nice home at this young age, you know, it feels so good and I
feel like I want to help others being a real estate agent.
Real estate is going to help you build wealth for the future.