Sequim real estate is still a keen attraction for out-of-state buyers. Sequim is definitely in a rain shadow, and it is a “best kept secret.” I raised my own family in Sequim. No doubt about it; Sequim is a quiet and peaceful haven in the Northwest.

Many are planning to retire in Sequim. That makes sense. Who wants to live where you have to fight traffic jams, as the good folks do in southern California? And then there’s the crime rate and the cost of housing.

Is there a place on earth where the heavens open up and the sun shines through, where crime is rare, the people are friendly, and where real estate is still reasonably priced? Yes, that would be Sequim.

So, for all of you who have an interest in looking at real estate in Sequim, I’ll make it easy and give you this link to search over 1,500 local MLS listings.

Search Sequim MLS Listings

For more detailed information about the Sequim area, schools, weather, and insider information for buyers, view SequimPortAngeles.com. To keep up automatically with the local real estate market, subscribe to the weekly Sequim Real Estate Newsletter in the subscribe button in the right column.

Courtesy Sequim & Port Angeles Real Estate, LLC and Chuck Marunde, J.D.

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Looking for Sequim real estate?  If you’re from California or the Seattle area, or for that matter anywhere outside of Sequim, the most efficient way to search for real estate (homes or land) is to do what you are doing right now–using the Internet. The great challenge is finding sites that actually will give you what you are looking for. I promise to do that here and with my other websites, which have links from this blog. My services cost you nothing on the Internet, and here’s what you will find:

Sequim lots for sale
Sequim homes for sale
Sequim water view lots for sale
Sequim water view homes for sale
Sequim farm land
Sequim horse ranches
Sequim mountain view property
Sequim real estate market news
Money Saving tips from a real estate attorney (ret.)
And many Sequim real estate articles written by author Chuck Marunde, J.D.

Browse this blog, and SequimPortAngeles.com, and you’ll not find another site where you can get more useful information, and you can email me for even more specific information. As a retired real estate attorney and practicing Realtor, it would be my pleasure to email you answers to your questions or more relevant information on your property searches. Here are a few resources for buyers:

Keys For Buyers Only:

1. Key Links for Buyers Only: Buyers Only
2. Get automatic emails of the latest listings with your specs: Latest Listings
3. How does a Buyer’s Agent work: Buyer’s Agent Only
4. How to save $10,000: Save $10,000
5. Subscribe to the #1 weekly email newsletter for buyers of real estate in Sequim & Port Angeles at the Sequim & Port Angeles Real Estate Blog: Go to Blog (and subscribe there)

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Are you in the process of looking for and buying real estate in Port Angeles or Sequim? Here’s an insider tip to buying real estate here. This tip alone could save you $10,000 to as much as $70,000, depending upon the total price. Few buyers know how common this trap is, so let’s get to it. Quite often a listing on the market will be overpriced. That’s not front page news, right? If you’ve been around looking, you’ve seen a property listed for a lot more than it’s reasonable FMV (fair market value).

Here’s the trap for the unwary purchaser by way of example.

A house is listed for $269,000. A thorough search of all the sold listings that are truly similar in the local MLS demonstrates that the comps (comparables) that actually sold (as opposed to currently listed) fetched a price of about $230,000, but all of those comps had substantial improvements that the subject house did not have. That means, the house you’re looking at is worth less than $230,000. Depending on how you value the improvements to the comps, that could mean your subject house is around $212,000 to $220,000. With that in mind, you make an offer of $212,000, substantially below the listed price of $269,000, but you’re no fool. It’s worth less than $230,000, and you know from your detailed comparisons that it is probably around $212,000. So your offer of $212,000 is actually a full FMV price.

Your offer comes back with a counteroffer at $261,000. You’re astonished. You don’t know what the seller is on, but it’s not milk or cool aide. Maybe the seller is not getting good advice from his or her agent, but you don’t even bother to make a counter to the counter. They are so far above FMV, there’s no sense wasting time when there are far better values available in this market. Far better.

What the seller (or the seller’s agent) must hope for is that you are not tuned into the market, and that you will think that your next counter should be somewhere just below $261,000. Big mistake. It is over listed, over priced, and you should NOT get caught up in this trap for the unwary by paying way too much for it, all the while negotiating back and forth and ultimately thinking you negotiated a good price. No. Walk away. Let that seller and his/her agent learn their lesson. Let someone else from California pay $20,000 or $30,000 over FMV for that house. Someone may pay too much, but not you. YOU WILL NOT PAY ABOVE FMV FOR YOUR NEXT HOME, because you’re nobody’s fool.

P.S. I see this all the time, so if you are buying, may I suggest you get a very experienced, honest, and good negotiator on your side? After all, it’s your money and your next home.

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[Click on Image to Enlarge.]

While the real estate market takes a long needed pause to breath deep, the reality is that we have not yet seen significant reductions in the number of homes sold in Sequim and Port Angeles, at least not of recession significance. Sequim actually sold one more house in this time period in 2007 than it did in 2006, and Port Angeles sales dropped by only 12 homes. Pricing is more significant.

As this chart illustrates, in 2006 (for the six month period from March 1 through August 31), the median price of homes sold in Sequim was $285,000, and in Port Angeles it was $271,500, and in 2007 $280,00 and $255,500, respectively. The drop in average prices in Sequim is larger than the reduction in Port Angeles. The Sequim average sales price of a home in 2007 is down to $283,347 from $294,407 in 2006 (an $11,000 drop). During the same time period, Port Angeles homes sold dropped by only about $8,000.

I took the liberty of refining (weighting) the statistics to arrive at more meaningful numbers. For example, the majority of sales are within the price range of $200,000 to $400,000. There were a total of 185 sales in this range in Sequim in 2006 and 146 in Port Angeles. The total houses sold in the same time period (in that price range) in Sequim for 2007 is 186, and for Port Angeles 134. I excluded sales below $200,000 because that represents lower priced housing, some of which is not comparable to the typical 3 bedroom, 2 bath home that represents the majority of buyers’ preferences. I also excluded sales above $400,000 because that is a much smaller number of sales, especially those above $700,000 (only 12 in Sequim).

By excluding these lower and higher priced homes, 81% of the remainder of homes sold in Sequim are within $200,000 to $400,000. A similar result is obtained for Port Angeles sales.

Beyond the statistics, clearly buyers are still buying. Timing is everything in real estate, and even when the market takes a breath of fresh air before continuing its course, there are people at their 20, 25, or 30 year retirement calendar, and they are moving to Sequim or Port Angeles to purchase their retirement home. They are not concerned about the statistics, only purchasing their dream home. As Martha Stewart would say, “That is a good thing.”

From a sales perspective, one message a person could take home from all these numbers is that a seller would be well advised to be represented by a professional agent with strong negotiating skills, not to mention access to hundreds of potential buyers (the two MLS’s, out-of-state broker referrals, and other buyer sources not available to unlicensed individuals or FSBO’s). This is not intended as a sales pitch, but it does seem very logical in light of the importance of getting the highest possible price for a home in a time when prices are dropping, and getting the best price would be a partial function of connecting with the largest number of prospective buyers. Something to think about.

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Sequim Real Estate, Port Angeles Real Estate

Will buyers in Sequim and Port Angeles be forced to pay this real estate transfer tax? Just when you thought you were taxed enough, there’s a new tax on real estate coming our way. It started in California, as many trends do. It’s a private (not government) tax on the sale of real estate, and buyers are being forced to pay it when they purchase a home in a new development.

What Is This Private Transfer Tax?

Developers and builders often have opposition to their projects from environmental groups, land trusts, or other non-profit organizations. An alliance between develpers and these opposition groups has created a whole new paradigm, and developers are agreeing to pay off these organizations with a private transfer tax on the sale of each lot in exchange for their support for the real estate project. This saves the developer years of fighting, and clubs like the Sierra Club and the Audobon Society have found a new source of revenue.

The amazing thing is the way this new tax is imposed on innocent buyers. The developer includes a covenant incorporated into the deed, which requires future buyers to pay a percentage of the selling price to the designated land trust or charity. As of now, it appears the deeds have this requirement for a time certain, 20 years. Is this amazing? Creative, isn’t it! Because this seems to extort money from developers and ultimately from buyers while compromising what may be true environmental concerns, some would call this an unholy alliance. What say you?

This tax is apparently spreading to other states, and it is just a matter of time before it rears its ugly taxable head in Washington state.

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There are many perspectives on the Sequim real estate and Port Angeles real estate markets, and many ways to look at the state of the market. Here is another perspective. This chart represents the total residential units sold in the first eight months of the year from 1998 through 2007.

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