Sequim, Washington has been repeatedly ranked as one of the best little towns in the United States to retire in. Having raised my own family here, I can testify to the fact that this is a wonderful little community away from all the crime and traffic congestion that drives most of us crazy.

CNN Money Magazine named Sequim as one of the best places to retire.   “Located two hours north of Seattle, Sequim (pronounced skwim) offers a lower cost of living and an easier pace than its burgeoning neighbor to the south. For about $300,000, you can get a three-bedroom house there.”

Sperlings Best Places [Sequim is the best place to live and retire]:   “I moved here from San Bernardino and San Diego, my uncle has lived here for 15 years and always bragged about it. So I checked it out. Best move I ever made. Beautiful, peaceful, deer, eagles, no crime. On the water across from Victoria Canada. Hiking, boating, don’t have to lock our doors at night, only downside is 25 mph speed limit, will drive you nuts. We have Walmart and Costco, Home Depot, and peace and quiet.”

Sequim – Best Places to Retire Video filmed at the John Wayne Marina in Sequim.

Sequim Resources website on Best Places to Retire – Sequim.

Retirement Resources in Sequim – All FREE.

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The online classified ads service for Sequim and Port Angeles has received a major upgrade and is more user friendly and even fun to use. This service is great for anyone selling anything, including real estate, cars and trucks, furniture, appliances, dogs, farm animals, electronics, sporting goods, anything. Of course, it’s great for anyone looking to buy, too.

This is a free service sponsored by Chuck Marunde and Sequim & Port Angeles Real Estate, LLC. “We’re in tough economic times, and this is one small way to help people and business owners in Sequim and Port Angeles connect with buyers,” said Chuck Marunde.

If you’re a business, and you want to promote your business online free, just register and type your product or service description (with good persuasive sales script), and you can even include a photo of your business or your staff or your product, and don’t forget to include a link to your website!

Asked how this compares to Craigslist, Chuck explained, “You also get a free service with Craigslist, but that is not a niche for our little area, and frankly most people don’t find Craigslist all that user friendly. It can be very hard to find anything on Craigslist with billions of ads, and now a lot of commercial spam on Craigslist. In addition, while many swear by Craigslist, talk to a 100 people in Sequim or Port Angeles, and you’ll find only a few actually use Craigslist on a regular basis.”

Sequim & Port Angeles Classifieds is a great service, and because everything for sale is in Sequim or Port Angeles, it doesn’t get any more useful and searchable.

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Sequim and Port Angeles home sales have slowed down–no doubt about it.   We see how much of the real estate market has crashed in other parts of the country, but Sequim and Port Angeles have some good news.   It’s not all so terrible here.   Take a look at home sales in the month of September for the past four years.

This past month, September of 2008, 41 homes sold in Sequim and 35 homes sold in Port Angeles.   Not bad considering.

[Source of Data:   Olympic Listing Service]

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Here is an insider’s view of why Sequim is such a wonderful place to live.   I’ll share seven reasons I love Sequim, and why you might love it, too.

1.   Sequim is a beautiful and peaceful community with water views, mountains, and old growth forests;

2.   Sequim has retirement communities, lots and homes built to suit retirees in close proximity to shopping and community activities (but you can also buy a farm or 5 acres outside of town);

3.   Sequim’s school district is one of the best in the country, and the children are all above average (4 of them are mine);

4.   Sequim has an extremely low crime rate, and you’ll feel like you went back in time 30 years;

5.   Sequim doesn’t suffer the traffic nightmares of most cities (do you love the country?);

6.   Sequim has great weather and is popular for its rain shadow, meaning it gets about a third of the rain fall of Seattle; and

7.   Sequim has an amazing variety of recreational activities, such as fishing, boating, bicycling, hiking, flying, marathons, dog shows, farmer’s markets, boat races, bird watching, hikes into the Olympic National Park, skiing at Hurricane Ridge, short ferry rides to Victoria, B.C., horse riding, lavender farms, great motorcycle rides around the Peninsula, more volunteer activies than one can list here, dozens of hobby groups and clubs, and just about anything you can imagine for every age group.

[Photo by Chuck Marunde, John Wayne Marina in Sequim]

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Sequim is a very popular retirement community.   We have the so-called “rain shadow” and pilots talk about the hole in the sky over Sequim all the time. Our sunny weather is wonderful, although it doesn’t rain in the northwest nearly as much as people think.   I’ve rarely been in Seattle when it was actually raining.   A few times yes, but many more times no.

We’re away from the nightmare traffic of the I-5 and I-405 corridors of the Seattle and Tacoma metropolitan areas.   Since Sequim is on the northern Olympic Peninsula just over two hours drive from Sea-Tac International Airport, it is a rural or country setting.   Being on the Peninsula, we get less traffic, because we don’t get people passing through on their way from one place to another.

We have the beautiful Olympic Mountains and the Olympic National Park with old growth trees in a natural and protected environment.   We have the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the John Wayne Marina, and water views galore.

We have more recreational activities than almost anywhere in the country, biking, jogging, hiking, surfing, boating, sky diving, mountain climbing, fishing, golfing, incredible motorcycle roads around the Peninsula, restaurants you won’t forget, and the list goes on.

We have more volunteers in various community activities than I’ve ever seen anywhere I’ve lived.   I was invited as an attorney to talk to a group a while back, and I was introduced to a few people, including a retired rocket scientist (yes, they really exist), a retired CEO of a large California company, a retired Army General, and a wealthy inventor, all of whom were great conversationalist.   That was just one little luncheon.

There are so many activities, groups, and associations for retired people, I won’t take the space here to write about them, but you’ll find everything from gardening to building experimental planes.

Retirees are happy to find land here where they can build their dream homes.   Right now Sequim has a large inventory of lots for sale.   Of course, the market has slowed down everywhere, and because a number of developers started their projects here several years ago, buyers now have a great selection of lots available, and at reasonable prices.   There are water view lots, mountain view lots, high bluff water frontage, gated communities, private acreage surrounded by trees, open farmland for sale, ranch property for sale, and let’s face it–this is a buyer’s market.

I am seeing a very significant percentage of our buyers coming from California and Arizona, and many are professionals who know what they want.   I also have been enjoying working with people who are wealthy and/or famous who love the beauty and privacy they find here, and the anonymity they can have here.

Sequim is a great place to retire.   No doubt about it.   Use my websites and blogs to read more about Sequim and Port Angeles.     See SequimPortAngeles.com.

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What is the future of Sequim? What is the vision for Sequim? Will Sequim have a robust economic plan for the future, with the City Council and the Chamber of Commerce facilitating a powerful mission statement?

A recent letter from Ron and Susie Chapman to the Sequim Gazette raised this argument:

“We moved from Juneau, Alaska, because the place we called home for over 30 years also ‘had a dream’ that envisioned cruise ships and the wealth they would bring to our town. . . . The last four years saw the number of tourists climb, some days there were over 10,000 tourists. The local people were run out of all our favorite places by helicopters, a never-ending line of smelly diesel buses and guided tour vans. . . . All the small grocery, clothing shops and restaurants that were once open year-round were bought up by big companies . . . It was really a sad sight; a once vital part of the community was gone because a few ‘had a dream.’”

Interesting letter from the Chapmans. I think we can appreciate their point, but I do think that one of our great challenges is thinking clearly about challenging issues of the day, like the future vision of Sequim or Port Angeles. I think if we sat down with the Chapmans, they would agree with what I am thinking, but their letter does seem a bit lopsided without considering a more balanced and articulate argument. Here’s what I’m talking about.

The rapid growth that they spoke of and that they did not like has many facets.

First, if I had a nice retirement pension (or a large state salary and benefits, which is largely what Juneau is as the capital) and moved into a quiet little peaceful community, and it grew as the Chapmans describe, I too would be disappointed. But I have learned there is much more to the world than my small universe. There are others to consider, and the world does not revolve around me. I learned that the hard way, the school of hard knocks as they say. But I sympathize with the Chapmans. Still they were able to pick up and move to Sequim, which is not exactly table scraps for most of us. Living in Sequim is not what I would consider punishment or banishment from Juneau, Alaska. (I lived in Tok, Alaska. Imagine that!)

Second, while the Chapmans have colored such growth in the most negative light, many hard working businessmen who support their families by catering to tourism and to all the related and effected service industries, have been abundantly blessed a 1,000 times over financially. And this blessing occurred while many in the world and in this great country are going bankrupt and their families are often torn apart in the ensuing chaos. Many are losing their homes to foreclosures. Would those of us who are caught up in such growth choose rather to curse the prosperity and end the blessings for those less fortunate?

Third, the Chapmans argument is part of a much older argument that is made in small beautiful towns across America. It has been repeated in Sequim 1,000′s of times. “Close the gate and lock it! We don’t want any more people here!” But we do not have that choice. I would say, “When you have your own planet, you can make the rules. Until then, we must let people come.”

Fourth, the Chapmans, in fact, had the freedom of choice to stay in Juneau, or to move to Sequim. Frankly, I’m glad they came to Sequim. This is a wonderful community, much better in a thousand ways than cold, land-locked Juneau. But most of all I’m glad such good people decided to join our community.

Fifth, the Chapmans argument that someone who “had a dream” was foundationally responsible for the incredible economic growth that Juneau has seen is probably not a very good argument. Economic growth did not happen because someone like Martin Luther King had a dream. Having dreams or visions come in all sizes and shapes, and alone such dreams do nothing. The kind of economic growth that occurred was the result of 100′s of residents and business owners vigorously working to accomplish something very big. It was no accident such growth occurred, and it took a lot of hard work by many people over a long period of time. It cannot be dismissed by a simple statement that it was caused by someone who “had a dream.”

Sixth, the Chapmans are assuming that such growth is bad. But are there others who would say, “We are so grateful for the growth that we have and the millions of dollars that are pumped into our little economy every summer, and thank God we all started talking years ago about how to attract more people to our beautiful city.”

I guess my point is that simple statements often are really much more of a very personal reflection on one person’s lifestyle preferences, and so we ought to be careful when we throw a blanket of powerful reasoning on top of grand concepts held by others. A microcosm does not give us all the relevant data to build a macro-economic model. Examples of what has happened in other cities, such as Juneau, is instructive, but by no means the end of the subject. It is nothing more than one example of how some are negatively impacted by economic growth, seasonal or not.

But, I think the Chapmans would agree with me. Their letter to the editor was limited by space. They did not have the opportunity to discourse at length as I have here.

Chuck Marunde, J.D.
Broker/Owner
Sequim & Port Angeles Real Estate, LLC
618 South Peabody St., Suite I
Port Angeles, WA 98362
(360) 775-5424
chuckmarunde@gmail.com
SequimPortAngeles.com

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