:: In the Press ::

Honolulu, Hawaii (February 23, 2008): Daniel C. Newbill III, Real Estate Sales Director with Optimum Realty of Honolulu, Hawaii has earned the Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist designation in recognition of his experience, knowledge and expertise in the luxury home market. more...

New York (December 22, 2007): The U. S. housing market overall may be suffering from the doldrums, but wealthy home buyers continue to invest in homes at the very top of the market. Evidence of the strength of the luxury home segment was revealed in late November with the sale of the Trinchera Ranch in Colorado for a record-setting $175 million. This sale breaks the U.S. residential sales record of $103 million set earlier this year in New York’s Hamptons. more...

Honolulu, Hawaii (December 7, 2007): It's busy at the top in the Hawaii Luxury Home Market as reported by The New York Times. more...

Dallas, Texas (November 1, 2007): Sakara K. Blackwell, President & Principal Broker with Optimum Realty LLC in Honolulu recently completed a luxury home marketing training course offered by Laurie Moore-Moore. more...

Realtor Magazine Online (November 12, 2006): What would you do if you had three minutes to network? Talk fast! That’s what a group of real estate practitioners did Friday evening during REALTOR® Magazine’s first Young Professionals Network event. The cocktail reception, sponsored by REBAC, was an opportunity for young NAR members to get to know each other and to learn more about their professional association. more...

Honolulu (July 17, 2006): Sakara K. Blackwell, President & Principal Broker of Optimum Realty LLC in Honolulu, has become a candidate member of the CCIM Institute. Blackwell is pursuing the Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) designation conferred by the organization. more...

Honolulu (June 23, 2006): Sakara K. Blackwell of Honolulu based Optimum Marketing & Management Corp. and Optimum Realty LLC just returned from the 57^th annual FIABCI World Congress in Bangkok, Thailand. With leading international real estate professionals from around the world attending, Blackwell partook in an unparalleled opportunity to network and do business on a truly global level. more...

Honolulu (February 28, 2006): Sakara K. Blackwell of Optimum Marketing & Management Corp. has been accepted as a member of the International Real Estate Federation, commonly known by its French acronym, FIABCI. Founded in Paris in 1949, FIABCI links professionals in the real estate industry in a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary network conducting business in countries around the world. The only international real estate organization with representation in the United Nations, FIABCI is considered by real estate professionals and those in affiliated industries to be the leading international real estate association worldwide. more...

Honolulu (February 8, 2006): Optimum Realty LLC, including Sakara Blackwell, Hilton Blackwell and Melissa Masuda – Wong, attended the National Association of Realtors’ Third Annual Resort & Second Home Symposium at the Hapuna Beach Prince Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii. The two-day event was held February 6 – 7, 2006. The hotel provided the ideal surrounding for the Resort Symposium, making guests want to never leave the island. more...

San Francisco (October 28, 2005): Sakara K. Blackwell of Optimum Realty LLC, Hilton T. Blackwell, Vice President for Optimum Marketing & Management Corp. and Astrida Pesentheiner, Director of Possibilities at Optimum Realty LLC in Honolulu, Hawaii were among the more than 26,000 Realtors and friends attending the National Association of Realtors annual REALTORS Conference & Expo held in San Francisco Oct. 28-31, 2005.  more...

Honolulu (October 17, 2005): Sakara K. Blackwell of Optimum Realty LLC was awarded the prestigious Certified International Property Specialist (CIPS) designation and joins a worldwide referral network of elite global real estate practitioners with expertise in working with international clients as well as immigrants. The CIPS Designation is awarded by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), which represents over 1,000,000 REALTORS® in the United States.  Blackwell will be formally recognized at the NAR’s Annual Convention in San Francisco, California on October 29, 2005.  more...

Honolulu (October 15, 2005): Podcast Listings - Optimum Realty LLC has just added audio property tours to your property listings online. Potential buyers will be able to listen to an audio description of your property directly via www.OptimumRealtyLLC.com/propertyaddress, Podcasts or any digital audio player. When someone subscribes to our Podcast, new properties and updates will automatically download to their ipod or mp3 player. 

Honolulu (October 18, 2005): Sakara K. Blackwell of Optimum Realty LLC is standing out on the most viewed page on REALTOR.com^®, the search results page¹, by adding multiple photographs and customizing property descriptions to increase the impact of her property marketing efforts for her clients. According to recent research by the National Association of REALTORS^®, the most important features for home searchers when searching online are photos and detailed property information.  more...

San Paulo (September 7, 2005): Hilton T. Blackwell is featured in a cover story, "Videoblog revela o cotidiano de internautas," in Folha Informatica, San Paulo, Barzil's daily newspaper.  The interview includes a frame from Blackwell's blog; his wife Sakara and friends Marc and Guchi at Don Ho's Grill in Aloha Tower.  more...

Honolulu (September 2, 2005): MLS Search - Now you can set up your own listing alerts.  Click on MLS Search and you can now customize your search by city, zip code, property type, price and more.  Also, by registering your name and email information, you can save your favorite listings and searches.

Honolulu (August 30, 2005):  Hawaii Remodeling - Sakara K. Blackwell and her staging design company Optimum Island Design (now SPACE) featured in Hawaii Remodeling Magazine. more...

Honolulu (August 30, 2005): Google Earth now available - Google Earth Integration: Google Earth is a new tool allowing you to view aerial photos of almost any spot on the planet, and we've integrated it into our website. Now (if you have mapping turned on),when you view our listings details, you can zoom right in to that listing with Google Earth.  Also, all of our listings will automatically show up as thumbnails on the aerial map and you can "fly" around to each of our listings.  Even better, you can save our listings, so you can come back later and fly around some more.  We automatically update our listings every 4 hours, so you can simply load Google Earth at any time and see our current listing inventory.  Do you want you property marketed like this? Call us for a consultation.