Before he began his real estate career nearly 22 years ago, Kalama Kim spent a decade in banking.
A graduate of Kamehameha Schools, Kim, who grew up in Kāne‘ohe, earned a degree in finance from the University of San Francisco. He spent 10 years in retail banking at Bank of America and City Bank, a local bank that's no longer around, where he oversaw branch sales and operations throughout the Islands.
Kim says City Bank was acquired, "and when you have a large bank buying the smaller bank, of course, there's only one of those jobs, so I decided rather than to stay on with a new formed company, since they already had someone that did my job, to move onto something else."
His boss at the time was close with the owners of Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties and suggested that Kim try out real estate; he made the career switch in late 2004.
Kim now is president and partner of Hawai‘i Modern Realty. He previously was president of Berkshire Hathaway HomeService Hawai‘i Realty and principal broker and district manager at Coldwell Banker Realty.
He's also held leadership positions in both local and national real estate trade groups, serving as a director-at-large with the National Association of Realtors, Hawai‘i Realtors and Honolulu Board of Realtors. He was the 2023 president of Hawai‘i Realtors and the 2016 president of the Honolulu BOR.
Kim was recently named the 2026 Realtor of the Year by Hawai‘i Realtors, a statewide professional trade organization founded in 1967 with more than 10,000 members involved in all aspects of real estate in Hawai‘i. Each year, Hawai‘i Realtors recognizes a member for their achievements within their local board, community, state association and the National Association of Realtors.
Aloha State Daily caught up with Kim recently to talk about the award, the industry, his career and more. Hereʻs what he had to say.
Thereʻs probably a big difference between retail banking and real estate. What was the biggest adjustment for you in making that kind of career transition?
Supervising and managing, leading, motivating employees is much different than doing that with independent contractor salespeople because thereʻs a line you canʻt cross with independent [contractors] and thatʻs what Realtors are. There's a line you can't cross; you canʻt treat them like employees.
I remember the first meeting I ever hosted, a workshop for my new role. ... I did a session on business planning, which is easy to map over from my role at City Bank and then moving over to real estate; it was an easy thing for me to just run, teach, and it was a sobering experience because you had some really successful Realtors that were attending. ... People in the front row would just stand up and leave, [with] no explanation. Not everyone but just a few, and that would never happen if it was an employee because employees would have to stay through the whole thing.
But right away, it taught me that the value that I bring in anything, in any meeting that I'm running, needs to be strong enough or of quality enough for them to stay through the whole thing because they're always thinking, 'What's the best use of my time?' and then they're going to go find that. So that was sobering right away and that was in the first month learning that lesson of how different it is working with independent ... salespeople and employees.
What do you like the most about working in real estate, especially in Hawai‘i?
It's so diverse in how each agent might run their business and the support I need to provide them, or a transaction that I'm getting involved with because the client has some needs and the agent needs support in that, because the American dream is still out there, where everyone really aspires to own their own home, own their own piece of paradise in Hawai‘i. Since everyone has that dream, you have this huge diversity of people and the way that independent contractor salespeople are, they can run their business in all different ways. So that's very diverse. It ... requires me to then be good in all different styles and ways that people run their business to be able to support those individual people and those clients in being successful in what they do.
How does it feel to be recognized as Realtor of the Year?
The recognition itself is amazing. It feels like the work that I did in volunteering and committing time with the association did make a difference in our industry, did make a difference for our membership. It's a validation of that, that what I did positively helped our industry and the over 10,000 agents that work in it. The other part of it is just the individuals who reached out to me once they heard the news via text or social media reminds me of how special our industry is; we work so closely together, even though we're competitors, and it makes me feel both respected and appreciated.
How has working in real estate changed since you started your career?
Real estate has changed dramatically, first because the real estate business has very, very severe changes in their cycles, and that forces change in everything that we do. More recently, though, we had to adapt to the settlement that the large companies and the Realtor Association made with this class action lawsuit that changed the way we did business. Just a few pieces, but it's made a dramatic change in how we practice real estate, especially here in Hawai‘i, so that was a big change three years ago.
(Note: In March 2024, the National Association of Realtors announced a $418 million settlement that would "end litigation of claims brought on behalf of home sellers related to broker commissions; the agreement also changed some of the rules around real estate transactions. Learn more here).
Then now, AI is really accelerated. I know AI became in the forefront when ChatGPT released to the public in the end of 2022, but now ... we're seeing these huge leaps in what it can do within our industry and that's starting to change the landscape of, first, how brokerage firms run, how agents run their business, and then it's going to start changing how the quality of services will be provided to buyers and sellers.
So it had the built-in market changes, then the legal changes and now the technology changes, and all of that has accelerated in my 20 years.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
That 40 years ago in high school I was a break dancer and too often when we have company parties, I test myself if I can still do those things and pay for it a month after.
Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
