Transforming Hawaii: Lailan Bento on Affordable Housing and Community Development | S2:E60

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder Story. Today we have Lailan Bento, who is the owner of Hawaii development group. And there's something about Hawaii that I find is very interesting around the housing there, how difficult and challenging it is to even create development. And she's going to dive into all that. She's even building what is a city of affordable housing in Hawaii, but I can't wait to dive in. So let's just start with why did you even get into real estate? I got into real estate. I come from a political family. So I did work for a former governor for eight years. And And then knowing how to navigate through the departments, I went into sales in the hotel industry, selling Hawaii for many, many years.

0:48And I did fairly well doing that. And I thought, you know, I've always had an interest. I had an aunt that was a very big real estate broker in the state. And I always, you know, admired her growing up. And I thought, you know, if I can do this for a corporation, I think I could try to do, you know, real estate. I've always, you know, wanting to get into it. And I just took the leap of faith,$8 in my pocket and started real estate and started selling to, you know, start off with my family and friends and went from there and then went off to co-found Hawaii Development Group, which is a real estate company here in Hawaii with my mom.

1:22And it's been exciting. It's been an exciting journey so far. Yeah. So it sounds like you started as more the agent selling real estate and now you're diving more into the development side. How was that transition? That transition, it's actually a lot of fun. It's a lot of work. There are many, many challenges. Hawaii has the strictest building regulations in the country, in the U.S. So there's so many layers of red tape between our county and state government to be able to build in Hawaii. We're currently on a development it's taken about. My mom has been the listing agent spearheading that for about 10 years now, just pushing it through from public hearings, environmental impact statements to just financing, lending, permitting, all of it over the last 10 years.

2:10And so we're finally excited to go into development, but it's definitely different from general real estate. Development is a whole other animal. It's a lot more work. But to me, it's worth it at the end of the day. It's fun to see, you know, dirt turn into buildings finally and to be able to hand over keys to I'm going to be able to hand over keys to my own people, right? My own Hawaiian people, which, you know, at the end of the day, that just is why I got into real estate to help my own. So let's talk. I'm curious about the state of the market in Hawaii. So why do you feel like there's such a big need right now for affordable housing?

2:44And how is that help the people of Hawaii? Right now, Hawaii has the most people, our population is decreasing because we have the middle class. We have people actually born and raised in Hawaii, like myself, that cannot afford, you know, they're working two or three jobs. You know, you have eggs at$12, you know, for a dozen eggs. You have bread at$11 for a loaf of bread. I mean, a gallon of milk is$15. So you're starting to look at families and the cost of living. They're seriously struggling, even working two or three jobs as parents. So they're moving to cheaper states like Texas, Arizona, Las Vegas, just to be able to make it and buy a home.

3:23And so there's definitely a need. There was a need way before COVID. Our island in particular is short 13 ,000 homes, and we have a population of about 200 ,000 people. So not every person living on the island currently as a resident can even afford, or there's not even a home for them to live in. So we're trying to meet that need. We have a current Mariners administration that's trying to push that through, especially with things like Lahaina that have happened. It's kind of put all of our politicians at the forefront of we need housing, right? People are leaving one natural disaster and that just takes out the market even more with housing.

4:00So that just is a little snippet of it. Yeah. Yeah, I imagine. I mean, if you have to get everything imported and shipped in, such as food, how does that work when it comes to building supplies? I would think that that is a whole challenge in itself. Right. Building, you know, like you just mentioned, everything is shipped in. 85 % of our goods are shipped into the state. So, you know, then we have what's called the Jones Act, which some people don't know, where before we were, you know, a state. Ships from other countries could just stop at our ports, but now they have to go to U.S. ports in the mainland and come back here.

4:34So we're actually, that's why goods are so expensive because we're taxed twice in Hawaii. So with that, coupling with now, you know, the supply shortage out of COVID and then the manpower, a lot of people have moved, right? A lot of businesses closed up in COVID. So just to find even the manpower and then you're going to pay top dollar to get, you know, a crew of construction workers to actually show up. So, you know, it's a little bit of a challenge, but. Hey, everyone. I'm not sure if you've heard, but our show Founders Story is now available on the iHeartRadio app. So check that out. iHeartRadio online or you grab the app.

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7:02Yeah. I love the community feel of Hawaii. Every time I've been, it's, it's people getting together, the community that it's kind of like most islands is the Island feel. And, and it's just a, you know, it's, it's a nice culture and hopefully this will help a lot of people. How is it working in with your family, like working with your mom? How has that been? I actually enjoy it. Um, we have the same, you know, not the same personality, but we'd like to do the same things. And it's been, you know, she is my mom sometimes. Sometimes, you know, she's a business partner, but at the end of the day, you know, she's still my mom, right?

7:36So she'll scold me. But I've had actually a great time working with my mom. And a lot of the businesses in Hawaii, because it's such a small state, you get to grow up and you know everyone, right? And governor might have been your neighbor growing up and the lifeguard also, you know? And so I think that's the beauty of being from here. Also that we're all mixed ethnicity. So when you're growing up here, you really don't see a different race. You're all riding bicycles together and growing up and eating each other's foods. And that, I had to explain that to our developer. He was like, I've never seen this, you know, anywhere else in the world.

8:09I said, well, I think that's what draws people to Hawaii, right? We're all mixed and we all know how to live together. And that goes back to the plantation days, right? When Hawaii had plantations and you had, that's where, what we call the mixed plate, right? Where everybody eats that lunch plate, where it's all different types of ethnicities and that one plate, that comes from plantation days. So we are used to growing up together with your Japanese friend next door and the Filipino friend, right? And your families all know each other and you share each other's foods. And yeah, I think that's something that is special about growing up here and being from here.

8:44Hawaii always has a special vibe, I can tell. I was just talking to someone yesterday from Honolulu and they were telling me the same thing of how they fell now that they've moved out and how much they miss it. So what's the future for you? So you got this development, you're building essentially this new city of affordable housing on the personal brand side. What do you have in the future for yourself? For myself, I'm creating a nonprofit organization. I created a scholarship fund this year, I gave$11 ,000 from my company to Hawaiian kids for higher education, because there's such a need and lack of higher education on the islands, especially on the outer islands, as we call them here.

9:29And especially for middle class, I'm a native Hawaiian kid that was in the middle class my whole life. And there's always, you know, you don't even qualify for a free pencil. So for me, creating that scholarship fund I did this year and to grow upon that, and then I'm creating a nonprofit to be able to help, you know, local kids be able to, you know go to private school and also for higher education because I find that's where we need what to do with our kids right if we can educate them even though they're from the middle of the Pacific right you already have that grit growing up in the middle of the ocean right with you might not even have milk or you know bread at the store but you just have to be able to handle and to educate those same kids that just need a chance because I was one of those kids I think would be incredible um so i'm working on that non-profit and then i just recently because i didn't want to be just a real estate company right i'm one of the only realtors that's native hawaiian born and raised here and understands the history the culture and just this is my home right where my ancestors came from and so i also i'm just adopted a couple of county parks because i grew up playing sports and so i thought the parks are also a big part of our growing up here right in our life and so So if the parks are looking, you know, run down, the kids can't go swim in the pool, that, you know, what are they going to do?

10:47Then they're going to start getting into trouble, right? Because they're bored. So that's also something I just did was implementing, adopting as a company, because the county has a private partnership where you can adopt and take care of those parks for those kids. So that's also something I'm working on besides launching this development to be able to put my own people and keep them in our state, you know, and have housing and be able to live and work here, which I find is probably my most important goal. Well, as founders, right, if we can make money, do good, impact people, I think that, you know, that's the fulfilling part about why we're going to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, right, instead of working in a corporate job.

11:28But thank you so much for sharing. If people want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more information maybe they want to see about this new development that you're doing how can they do so sure um i my instagram is my name at lylan bento you could either message me there or my cell phone will be able to provide that to you my website or my email address which my email is lylan at high dev group.com is my email address well lylan thank you so much for all you're doing i can't wait to see this new development in hawaii i've never been to that part yet. So I'll have to make it out there once this is completed.

12:03And I'm so excited for your impact as well, because that founder story, that's we are all about impact. So thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

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