James J Augustine

James Augustine is a second-generation Big Island commercial real estate broker. He grew up in his family's commercial real estate company on Hawaii Island, learning the business from the inside. How properties are held, how they change hands, and how decisions made in one decade shape a portfolio in the next. When the family business sold, he set out to build something under his own name.

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That upbringing left him fluent in two conversations that rarely share a vocabulary. On one side are owners holding property their family has held for decades, thinking about what comes next: a sale, a transition to the next generation, or simply stepping back from the day-to-day after years of handling it themselves. On the other are investors and institutions evaluating Hawaii Island on basis, yield, and hold period, who need someone on the ground who can underwrite to their standard and execute without supervision. James works both sides, and frequently both ends of the same transaction.

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Since 2007 he has served clients in commercial real estate, overseeing construction and repositioning projects ranging from single-tenant buildings to Class A, B, and C office complexes and shopping centers. As an investor and project manager, he has remodeled more than a dozen properties on his own account and alongside investment partners. Having overseen that work himself, he can walk a building and price the path through it. What the work costs, what it returns, and what the asset becomes on the other side.

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What clients come back for is reliability, the peace of mind of knowing someone is watching the numbers closely enough that they don't have to. James holds a B.A. in Economics with a minor in Accounting from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and that training shows. He runs the analysis before the enthusiasm: what a property actually earns, what deferred maintenance genuinely costs, and whether the numbers hold up once they're normalized. It's why owners and other brokers bring him deals first. He can tell quickly whether the numbers work, and he knows what it takes to make a property perform long after closing. It's also why institutional clients rely on him as their eyes on this island, and why the majority of his business arrives by referral.

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Today James is Founder and Principal Broker of Big Island Commercial Properties, which he established in 2016 and headquartered in Kailua-Kona. BICP works exclusively in commercial real estate across the entire Big Island of Hawaii, including Kailua-Kona, Waimea (Kamuela), Waikoloa, South Kohala, and Hilo, handling commercial sales, leasing, tenant placement, commercial property management, and asset management. The firm works across retail centers, industrial and warehouse property, office and medical office buildings, and mixed-use properties, for clients ranging from local small business owners to institutional investors with nine-figure portfolios.

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James approaches this work as an asset manager rather than a property manager, and he considers the distinction meaningful. Property management keeps a building running. Asset management asks what the building should become and works backward from there. Which tenants strengthen the rent roll five years out. Which capital items can be deferred and which compound if they are. Which lease terms will still hold up when the property changes hands. He runs his clients' properties the way he runs his own: with the long horizon in mind.

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James holds Hawaii real estate license RB-21580. He lives on the Big Island, in the community he serves, and spends his time off with his family and his French bulldogs.