I live in Honolulu currently but used to live in Tokyo (mother is Japanese) and still travel there on a regular basis (pre-Covid).

The real estate market has evolved a lot in the last few years, with more real estate investors making it more competitive and interest rates cutting severely into margins and also slowing down buyer demand (when trying to get out of a property). 

With the COVID-era surge in home prices, rapid increases in mortgage rates, and rents not keeping pace, it really has gotten harder to make these deals work.

Things were going well but now things are really bad and it has nothing to do with COVID-19.  

Thanks to COVID, for a couple of years, you can actually make enough money to be cash flow positive even if you hire a property manager AND have mortgage payments. 

yes in 2020 I had to find an alternative due to Covid.

Looking to utilize my equity as necessary as I purchased during the onset of COVID before the prices skyrocketed.

And it was also during covid lockdowns so that added to my issues.

The boom in building was mostly for the larger cabins because of the crazy rents they were getting during covid (even a little before covid actually). 

I bought this home in 2013 and also did a cash out refi during COVID so buy interest rate is 3.875%.