Aloha, 
Kimi and I are Realtors here in Kailua Kona, and after 19 years on the Big Island, we finally built our own home.
We started with buying the land and our dream spot was in Kaloko. We found an awesome parcel near the bottom - at about 1,800 foot elevation.  We call life up here "living in the 10's" ...... 10 degrees cooler, 10 minutes from Kona Airport, and 10 minutes to Costco - get it now "living in the 10's" lol. 

(DISCLAIMER ON TIME AND PRICE: This was originally posted in 2020 before C) 

We started with the HPM Maluhia floor plan, but made so many modifications. I don't know that we came out ahead, I will say that working with Brigitte from their design center made it all worth it (Mahalos Brigette), and of course our contractor was awesome.  Of those modifications,  we moved the kitchen over to where the dining room/view was, detached the garage from the house, enlarged the "office" , living room, and master bedroom - without sacrificing square footage from other rooms (yet - read below later)
Although we added footage and did not take away from existing areas, it did create some problems.... 
Here is a quick video and overall we are very pleased, very !

Amazing progress, from breaking ground in March to Finals and "occupancy certificate" in late September and early October, thats 6 and half months. 

Kaloko Home Build in 6 months from Lance Owens RS LUVA Real Estate on Vimeo.

Things we loved about the house  
1: The fact that we were dealing with a local company, modifications were easy to get done, and that people cared.  It made a difference.  I thought about bringing in lumber, trusses, tile, etc in a container from the mainland.  In the end, I feel confident in saying NO, the ease of returning things and the ability to hold back deliveries when delays presented themselves and “boots on the ground” local guidance was well worth the amount we would have saved.  I also know that if I don't buy local, local people don't have money to support my business - buy local its worth it. 

2: The ability to raise the wall heights to 9 feet vs the standard 8 feet - worth every penny don't let anyone talk you out of it.  In the end, it feels nothing like a package home with this simple modification. My wife almost talked me out of it and we both agree that would have been a huge mistake. 

Some of the things to pay attention to on these Package Homes: 
1: The laundry room, one reason we went with a "package home" was the feeling of being reasonably sure all the quirks were worked out, and they were not. Original plans 101, you would think that a 1,900+ square foot home would be capable of holding a modern day washer/dryers and standard cabinets in the laundry room?
Walls up, plumbing in, roof on, and NOPE, they won't fit - ughhhh . Here we go, not even moved in yet and we are tearing out walls, moving plumbing and robbing bedroom 2 of closet space to fit the units, also had to have custom cabinets built for the smaller area. 

2: Room sizes in general, again on 1,900 sqft home I felt the guest rooms were smaller than expected. We had lived in a 1,200 sqft home for 17 years and when adding 700 sqft, actually we added another 200+ sqft , I did not feel they were proportionate to the rest of the house size - if that makes sense 

3: Bathroom from kitchen view - I believe I have to take full responsibility on this one, when we moved the kitchen apparently a wall got deleted that would have blocked, looking directly at the "Powder Room". I did choose plans that they had modified already for someone else, and I should have looked at the changes more, but I did expect more guidance there. 

5: Master bath, again this had been modified from the original plans and I should have realized the changes - So I am just telling you, be very careful of any mods and unintentional consequences. Nobody to truly blame but myself, but I would have appreciated more guidance.  We could have, should have made the master shower larger and the walk in closet smaller. 

4.  Windows and Doors:  One might assume as we did that the Doors and Windows for a “package home”  were in stock or readily available.  Nope, we had to special order many of them so allow time for this – work with your contractor to get these ordered ASAP or make modifications.  We found little difference in construction and material costs to modify the window sizes to align with sizes in stock at the hardware store.   Not only was it easier to find the windows but was also much cheaper to find window treatments given “normal” sizes.  Plus, we got larger windows.  Also as very typical in a humid climate a few of our windows arrived “cloudy.”  We simply returned them to Home Depot and picked out perfect ones. 

4: Hose bibs, not near enough hose bibs on the exterior of the home 

5: Security lights on the exterior - zero, again with a package home we expected these things to be worked out, we are not contractors, nor architects - we are people that build a house once in a lifetime (maybe twice) . 

6: Our only true "regret" on the home, is the sliding glass door in the living room which we upgraded to the Milgard Essence (about a $3,000 upgrade).  We would have been better off with ordering in a Pella like our other sliders.   

7: Appliance packages, being REALTORs we know the importance of matching appliances throughout the home and ordered the entire package through Costco - will never do that again. shipping nightmares, return nightmares, damaged items. (I actually wrote an entire blog on that). also make sure they have a service center/person on the big island, Samsung does not, our only option on our stove not working out of the box, was to cut off the cord, scrape the serial number off, mail it Samsung so they could cut us a check, to replace it with a new one. Not a way I like to do business.

For the most part – we truly believe we made great decisions, had wonderful, responsive vendors to work with.  None of the negatives are deal breakers, we just want to bring awareness to others planning on doing the same... do not assume that things have been well thought out, just because it is a package home that has been built thousands of times. 

Remember – we live in Hawaii so shipping things takes some thought and time.  Amazon prime was our friend and offered so much more variety than what is offered in our box stores.  Start dreaming about a theme for your plumbing and light fixtures.  Amazon is awesome with timely delivery, returns and finding that very specific fixture. 

NOTE: on the time frame, this was after we had made all the design changes and had plans and permits pulled already, 6 months was from the day the first shovel broke ground, until we were granted an "Occupancy Permit".  All the prep time before that is hard to put a time frame on, because we had mulled it over for a good year, and not full time.