New Construction · Kalaeloa, Oʻahu
Kalaeloa · Kapolei · West Oʻahu · Hawaiʻi
Brand new single family homes and townhomes in one of the oldest arrival places on this island. If you are reading this with orders on the counter, start here.
450+
Families Served
2016
Licensed
$275M+
Career Sales
When Polynesian voyagers first reached Oʻahu in their double hulled canoes, Kalaeloa was one of the places they came ashore. They carried ʻulu with them, the breadfruit that fed the earliest settlers here, and planted the first ʻulu trees in this region. Gentry named the community for those trees.
Kaʻulu sits on roughly 30 acres of Kalaeloa, the former Naval Air Station Barbers Point, which is being redeveloped a piece at a time. The full community is planned at about 390 homes, 128 of them detached single family and 262 of them townhomes, released to Buyers in phases over several increments.
Gentry describes it as a green community with open space, common areas and pedestrian friendly streets, and calls the homes “Tomorrow’s Homes Today.” The architecture follows two themes with long histories on this island, Plantation and Craftsman, and every home has alley loaded parking with a full sized garage.
Here is something worth knowing up front. Gentry does not sell to investors. Every home at Kaʻulu goes to an owner occupant. That shapes the whole feel of the place, and it also comes with rules that matter a great deal to a Military Family. More on that further down, because it is the part most pages leave out.
Kaʻulu is still being built. This is the honest version, checked against what Gentry publishes rather than what a brochure implies.
Gentry puts this in writing for every Buyer, and it surprises people. Residents park in their garage and, where there is one, the tandem stall in front of it. On street stalls inside Kaʻulu are for visitors only. No parking on the roadways. If a Family’s vehicles will not fit in the garage and driveway, Gentry says plainly that they should not buy here. Walk the garage and measure before you fall in love with a floor plan.
Every builder writes their own rule about Buyer representation. Gentry’s rule at Kaʻulu is stricter than most, and it is not the rule you may have read on another page.
Registering by phone or by email ahead of time does not satisfy Gentry’s policy at Kaʻulu. This is what Gentry publishes in the sales process instructions inside their own Kaʻulu sales packets.
“Broker CO-OP to all new prospective buyers registered by a broker/agent on their first visit will be 2% of the Base Price of the home. Broker must accompany client on FIRST visit, no exceptions.”
Gentry Homes, Ltd., Kaʻulu by Gentry sales process instructions. The same requirement appears in Gentry’s published Owner Occupants’ Presale Notices.
If a Family drives out to the sales office alone on a Saturday to have a look around, they have very likely given up their right to independent representation for that community. There is no undo button and Gentry says no exceptions.
The people at the Kaʻulu sales office are professional, knowledgeable and genuinely pleasant. They also represent the developer. Gentry Homes, Ltd. is the project broker. Their job is to sell Gentry homes on Gentry terms.
Gentry’s cooperating broker fee is paid by the builder out of the base price of the home, not added on top of what the Buyer pays. Having Tina beside you does not raise your price.
All this really means is one phone call before you go. Tina meets you at the sales office, walks in with you, and everything after that stays open to you.
Kaʻulu is not one product. The single family side and the townhome side serve different Families at different points, and a lot of Buyers arrive assuming the detached homes are the only option here.
Collection One
Single Family Homes
Detached two story homes, 128 in the community. Three floor plans, all of them 3 bedroom and 2.5 bath, each with an enclosed yard and a two car garage.
Published starting price
From the mid $900,000’s
Collection Two
Townhomes
Attached homes in Plantation and Craftsman buildings, 262 in the community. Five unit types, 2 and 3 bedroom, each with its own garage. A limited number are set aside as Reserved Housing for eligible first time Buyers under separate income rules.
Published starting price
From the low $600,000’s
Both figures above are Gentry’s own published starting prices, verified in August 2026. They change without notice, and a starting price is almost never the price of the home a Family actually wants once the plan, the homesite, the lot premium and the included finish package are added in. Gentry’s recent market releases have priced above the published townhome starting figure, because the lowest published numbers reflect Reserved Housing units that carry income limits and their own eligibility rules. Current pricing on what is actually available right now comes from a conversation, not from a web page. Ask Tina and she will pull the live price list for the open release.
Gentry calls these Value Included in Price features. This list comes straight from their published single family feature list. The townhome list is similar with a few differences.
Gentry has been recognized by the Hawaiʻi Building Industry Association as a leader in sustainable housing. For a Family looking hard at monthly cost of ownership on this island, the solar water heating and the SEER2 air conditioning are the two line items worth asking your lender to factor in.
Gentry lists ceiling fans, flooring upgrades, quartz kitchen countertops, washer and dryer, and upgraded appliance packages such as GE Café or Fisher & Paykel among the possible upgrades. Townhome upgrades are narrower, mainly ceiling fans and upgrading to Luxury Vinyl Plank throughout.
This is the point in a new construction purchase where budgets quietly move. Some of these choices are difficult or expensive to change later and are worth paying the builder to do. Others can be done after closing for a fraction of the cost. Sorting one from the other, for your specific plan and your specific budget, is a large part of what Tina does for new construction Buyers.
Because Kaʻulu is a condominium project, there is a maintenance fee on the single family homes as well as the townhomes. Ask for the current figure for the specific home and release, and make sure your lender is using it when they qualify you.
If you have bought a resale home before, almost none of that muscle memory applies here. Gentry releases homes in phases, publishes a price list, and selects Buyers through a public lottery. There is no negotiating, no bidding, and no offer strategy. There is only being ready on time.
1
It runs in the Honolulu Star Advertiser on two consecutive Sundays and the sales packet posts on Gentry’s website the same day.
2
A prequalification letter is required to enter the lottery at all. For a VA Buyer that means having a lender who has already worked through your Certificate of Eligibility and entitlement, before the release opens.
3
Signed, notarized, and returned to the sales office by the deadline, along with a homesite selection form ranking every home in the release in your order of preference.
4
Names are drawn to set the order. Gentry has been running these by phone. If they call and you do not answer, you have five minutes to call back before you drop to the bottom of the backup list. When you do get the call, you have five minutes to name your plan and your homesite. This is why the selection form gets filled out carefully in advance.
5
A reservation and a deposit check are due within 48 hours of selection, with an additional deposit at contract. The purchase contract has to be completed within 7 days. There are no contingency sales, so a Family cannot make this purchase conditional on selling something else.
6
From there it is construction, walk throughs, and keys. Every new release starts the whole process over from the beginning.
This is the section that matters most to a Military Family, and it is the one almost no page about Kaʻulu mentions.
Every Buyer of an owner occupant designated unit signs a notarized affidavit under Hawaiʻi’s Condominium Property Act. In it, you commit to living in the home as your principal residence for 365 consecutive days after the deed records, and you agree not to sell, offer to sell, lease, rent, assign, convey or otherwise transfer any interest in the home during that period. Renting it out means you no longer have complete possessory control, and that breaks the affidavit.
The penalties are written into the document. A false statement or a violation can carry a misdemeanor charge and a fine, and a civil penalty of up to $10,000 or fifty percent of the net proceeds, whichever is greater.
For a Family on orders, this deserves a real conversation before you enter a lottery. A build timeline plus a 365 day residency commitment is a long runway. If there is any chance of a short tour, an early PCS or a separation inside that window, we should map it out on a calendar together first. That is a twenty minute conversation that can save an enormous amount of grief.
Kalaeloa sits on the leeward side, west of Pearl Harbor and south of Kapolei proper. Access is through Kalaeloa Boulevard and the H-1. Fort Weaver Road serves Ewa Beach and is not your route from here, no matter what other pages tell you.
| Installation | Off peak | Typical weekday peak | Route notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam | 20 to 30 min | 40 to 55 min | Kalaeloa Boulevard to the H-1 eastbound. The most common commute from this community. |
| Camp H. M. Smith | 25 to 35 min | 45 to 60 min | H-1 east to the Halawa area. Closer than Fort Shafter, despite what some pages claim. |
| Fort Shafter | 30 to 40 min | 55 to 75 min | H-1 eastbound the whole way, straight into the heaviest stretch of the morning commute. |
| Schofield Barracks and Wheeler AAF | 30 to 40 min | 50 to 70 min | H-1 east to the H-2 north. The H-1 and H-2 merge is a known bottleneck, so this is not the easy run it is sometimes described as. |
| MCB Hawaiʻi, Kaneohe Bay | 50 to 65 min | 75 to 95 min | H-1 east to the H-3 through the tunnels. A long daily commute from this side of the island. |
Kaʻulu is a condominium project. Gentry’s own presale notices describe it as a fee simple condominium project, and the approved development plan puts both the single family homes and the townhomes under a condominium property regime.
That detail changes how VA financing works. For a condominium project, VA approval is granted at the project level, and status is tied to specific increments and can change over time. VA financing has been used by Buyers at Kaʻulu, and you will find pages online stating flatly that the community is VA approved. Gentry does not say that anywhere on their own site, so we will not say it either.
What to do instead: confirm current VA approval status for the specific increment and unit you are considering, directly with the Kaʻulu sales office and with a lender who has closed a VA loan in this project. Get it in writing before you enter a lottery. Tina will make both of those calls with you.
Every month a Family pays BAH to a landlord, that money is gone. The same money aimed at a mortgage on a home in your own name does something different. That is the whole reason this brand exists.
We do not publish BAH figures here, because they change annually, they vary by rank and dependency status, and Oʻahu has its own rate. Pull your actual number from the official DoD BAH Calculator, then bring it to the conversation.
Have you ever considered what your housing allowance would look like as a mortgage payment on a brand new home in Kalaeloa? That is a real question with a real answer, and it takes one call with a good lender to find it.
Nothing on this page is financial advice. Affordability depends on your entitlement, your funding fee, your credit, current rates, the maintenance fee and the specific home. A licensed lender runs those numbers, not a website.
Every Family deserves the version of this that includes the inconvenient parts. Here is where Kaʻulu tends to work beautifully, and where a resale home somewhere else is honestly the better call.
If the second column describes your situation, that is genuinely useful information and not bad news. There are other paths on this island, including resale homes across West and Central Oʻahu and the other new construction communities. What matters is that the choice fits your Family and your timeline rather than fitting a builder’s release schedule.
Kalaeloa is quieter than Kapolei proper and closer to the water than most of West Oʻahu. Everything below is open and operating today.
Listed as nearby only. School assignment, enrollment and fit are yours to research directly with the Hawaiʻi Department of Education and each school.
The trade winds are usually up before you are. White Plains is close enough that the beach happens before the parking lot fills, and you are home with sandy towels by late morning. Ka Makana Aliʻi is a short drive for lunch and errands in one trip. Afternoons on this side of the island stretch out. By evening someone on the street has a grill going, because everyone here lives here. That is not a slogan, it is the owner occupant rule doing its quiet work.
You are not required to have one, but at Kaʻulu the decision has to be made before your first visit. Gentry’s published sales process states that a broker must accompany the client on the first visit, with no exceptions, for that broker to be recognized. Pre registering by phone or email is not enough. If you walk into the Kaʻulu sales office alone, you have very likely given up independent representation for that community. The sales office staff represent Gentry, who is the project broker and the developer. Bringing your own Realtor along on that first visit costs the Buyer nothing, because the cooperating broker fee is paid by the builder from the base price of the home.
VA financing has been used by Buyers at Kaʻulu, but this is a condominium project rather than a standard fee simple subdivision, and both the single family homes and the townhomes sit under a condominium property regime. For condominium projects, VA approval is granted at the project level and can be tied to specific increments, so status must be confirmed rather than assumed. Gentry does not publish a blanket VA approval claim on their own website. Before entering a lottery, confirm current VA approval for the exact increment and unit with the Kaʻulu sales office and with a lender who has closed a VA loan in this project.
Gentry releases homes in phases and sells them through a public lottery, not through offers or negotiation. A Presale Notice is published in the Honolulu Star Advertiser and the sales packet goes up on Gentry’s website. To enter, a Buyer submits a notarized Owner Occupant Affidavit, a prequalification letter and a homesite selection form by the stated deadline. Names are drawn to set the order, Buyers are called in that order to choose a plan and homesite, a reservation and deposit are due within 48 hours of selection, and the purchase contract must be completed within seven days. Gentry does not accept contingency sales, and every new release restarts the entire process.
Buyers of owner occupant designated units sign a notarized affidavit under Hawaiʻi’s Condominium Property Act committing to live in the home as their principal residence for 365 consecutive days after the deed records. During that period, the Buyer agrees not to sell, offer to sell, lease, rent, assign, convey or otherwise transfer any interest in the home. Renting the home out during that window would mean the owner no longer has complete possessory control, which breaks the affidavit. Violations can carry a misdemeanor charge and a fine, plus a civil penalty of up to $10,000 or fifty percent of the net proceeds, whichever is greater. Military Families should map this 365 day commitment against their orders and their build timeline before entering a lottery.
Kalaeloa sits on the leeward side, with access through Kalaeloa Boulevard and the H-1. Off peak, Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam runs roughly 20 to 30 minutes, Camp H. M. Smith roughly 25 to 35 minutes, Fort Shafter roughly 30 to 40 minutes, Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Army Airfield roughly 30 to 40 minutes, and MCB Hawaiʻi at Kaneohe Bay roughly 50 to 65 minutes. Weekday peak traffic can add anywhere from twenty minutes to half an hour on the eastbound routes. These are estimates only, and any Family should drive the actual route at the actual hour before committing.
The community is planned at about 390 homes on roughly 30 acres, made up of 128 detached single family homes and 262 townhomes. The single family homes come in three plans, Aukai at 1,508 square feet, Makaliʻi at 1,592 square feet and Hoku at 1,581 square feet, all of them three bedroom and two and a half bath with an enclosed yard and a two car garage, with a published starting price from the mid $900,000’s. The townhomes come in five unit types ranging from 877 to 1,324 square feet in two and three bedroom configurations, each with its own garage, with a published starting price from the low $600,000’s. A limited number of townhomes are set aside as Reserved Housing for eligible first time Buyers under separate income rules. All published prices are Gentry’s and change without notice.
No. Gentry pays a cooperating broker fee out of the base price of the home, so having Tina represent you does not raise what you pay for the home. What it does require is timing. She has to accompany you on your first visit to the Kaʻulu sales office for Gentry to recognize the representation, which means one phone call before you drive out there.
Tina Marie Gamble
Epic Hawaii Homes · eXp Realty · Top Producing Realtor, Oʻahu · License RS-78939
450+
Families Served
2016
Licensed
$275M+
Career Sales
“New construction is one of the most exciting purchases a Family can make, and one of the easiest to walk into unprotected. We have walked hundreds of Families through exactly this, and I know where it goes sideways. Bring me with you on the first visit and everything after that stays open to you 💜”
Let’s Talk About KaʻuluMost Families looking at Kaʻulu are also looking at two or three other places. Here is where to go next.
One phone call is the whole difference between having someone in your corner at Kaʻulu and not having one. What if you could walk into that first visit already knowing what to ask?
Community, floor plan, feature, pricing, sales process and policy information on this page is sourced from Gentry Homes, Ltd. published materials at gentryhawaii.com, including the Kaʻulu single family and townhome community pages and Gentry’s published Kaʻulu sales packets and Owner Occupants’ Presale Notices, verified August 2026. All of it is subject to change by the developer without notice. Published starting prices are the builder’s figures and are not the price of any particular home. Portions of Kaʻulu are still under construction and some community features described in the approved plan are not yet built, with no completion date implied here. Commute times are estimates and vary with traffic and time of day. Schools are listed as nearby only, with no representation as to quality, assignment or availability. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or financial advice, and nothing here is an offer to sell or a guarantee of financing eligibility. Buyers should independently verify all details, including current pricing, availability, VA project approval status, maintenance fees and the owner occupant requirements, directly with Gentry Homes, Ltd., a licensed lender and their own advisors before purchasing. Epic Hawaii Homes is committed to the letter and spirit of the Fair Housing Act.
