This Sequim sunset opens the new year with a gorgeous display as seen from this high bluff trail off Lotzgeselle Road.  I took this photo with an iPhone.  I’m constantly amazed at the technologies we have at our fingertips these days.  Of course, it is my job as a Sequim Realtor to look at real estate, so as I enjoyed a moment of serene beauty, I also was doing my job.  It’s a great job!  You can view a larger image by clicking on the photo below.

Sequim Sunset Ushers in the New Year

Sequim Sunset – Regular or Supersized

This is always a great place to enjoy a Sequim sunset, because of the high and unobstructed vantage point.  This location is in a park off Lotzgeselle Road near the northernmost end of Kitchen-Dick Road.  [Yes, that's the name of the road, a source of humor for many.  We have some interesting road names here.]  We’re looking to the west with the north to the right.  On a clear day we would see Victoria, B.C. to the north across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  On the horizon are the Olympic Mountains. 

Sequim Sunset in the Blue Hole

Sequim is about six miles to the southeast of this location.  This park is also the entrance to the spit, home of the Sequim-Dungeness Lighthouse.  And just a couple of miles away along the coast is the true center of the Sequim Blue Hole or the Sequim Rain Shadow as it is known.

As I walked this trail along the bluff, I passed several couples closing their day with a sunset walk.  Several were walking with their dogs, and two were on bicycles.  Everyone was very friendly.  People actually greet each other with a warm smile and a kind word or two when they pass.  No wonder we love living here so much!  A beautiful Sequim sunset is just frosting on the cake, or perhaps I should say God’s glory displayed on the Olympics.

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Dealing with a home builder and building your retirement home can be stressful, and there are a few traps for the unwary.  I received a call this week from a client who owns a gorgeous high bluff water front lot on Bainbridge Island.  She and her husband are near retirement, and they found a home builder on the Island and began making plans to build their dream home.  This home will be the fulfillment of a long term plan they have had for many years to build their financial security for their retirement years and then to build their ultimate home and live happily ever after.  That’s the plan for most of us, right?

Home Builder Nightmare

Unfortunately, as they began striking up conversations with people on the Island, they learned their home builder had a trail of bad relationships, unpaid subcontractors, and a questionable history as a home builder.  And then they found out that their house was to be the last home the builder intended to build.  He was planning to move overseas.  I’ve said it before, and I’m compelled to say it again, “Truth is stranger than fiction.  You simply can’t make this stuff up!”

Unfortunately, they had advanced the builder $6,500.  Fortunately, they had not signed a contract yet, and so they would only lose the $6,500.  They can ask for it back, of course, but they’ll never see a dollar of that money.  There’s no doubt about that.  I practiced real estate law for 20 years, and I’ve seen this same scenario many times.  The attorney’s fees to chase the money would exceed any recovery, but typically the builder has already spent the money anyway.  This is an example of a case when it is a good time to cut one’s losses and chalk it up to an expensive education.

Finding a Good Home Builder

Finding a good builder is something I’ve written about extensively.  I’ve written about the exact scenario above and other similar nightmares, and I’ve described precisely how to avoid these traps for the unwary and how to find and identify the best home builder.  Here are some of those articles.  These articles were written with 20 plus years of experience of hearing from hundreds of clients, each of whom had trouble working with a home builder.  You could say that the lessons in these articles, and the other articles on this blog about building and working with contractors, cost many people hundreds of thousands of dollars from the school of hard knocks.  Why not take advantage of the lessons they paid for, and from which you can now benefit at . . . let’s see, how much?  Oh, absolutely free on this real estate blog.

• Sequim Home Builder: Price Guarantee
• Sequim Home Builder Does it Again
• Who Should I Hire First – Architect or Builder?
• Your Sequim Home Builder and Quality
• Home Builder Needs Adult Supervision – True Story

Home Builder Works With Architect

You might wonder how the client in the story above found that builder.  Their architect gave that builder a high recommendation.  Turns out there may be a cozy relationship between the two.  Great.  I wrote a very important article about the danger of hiring an architect first, and it is a very real problem.  Read the article above about “Who Should I Hire First – Architect or Builder?”  If you read that article, you’ll see a very ugly comment from an architect who tells me how out to lunch I am.  Since the client above just lived through the exact scenario I described in that article,  I would say I may be wet, but if I am it is just a little dampness.  [P.S. I have nothing against the architectural profession, just against dishonest or unethical individuals.  Every profession has a few of those.]

If you are planning to hire a Sequim home builder, I recommend you talk to Rick Anderson of Anderson Homes, LLC.  He is, in fact, a man of integrity, not to mention a really great custom home builder.

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This stunning Sequim waterview home for sale is now on the market for the new year.  This home has the finest feature rich kitchen in all of Sequim.  I’ll write more about the kitchen in a later article, but for now, you can enjoy the photos and a little about the home from the MLS listing.  Click on this photo below, and you’ll be taken directly to the full listing of what I believe is the finest luxury Sequim waterview home for sale at the beginning of this new year.

Sequim Waterview Home for Sale

Sequim Waterview Home

This Sequim waterview home was designed and built for comfort with the features of the ultimate home. The kitchen is not just the most beautiful kitchen in Sequim–it is also feature rich with conveniences. The site plan and house take advantage of one of the most extraordinary water views of Sequim Bay and the Strait of Juan de Fuca with Mount Baker on the horizon.

Sequim Waterview and Mountain View

I took this photo while standing on the deck of the house, but you know how hard it is to capture a distant mountain view in a photograph, so I used my zoom lense to get Mount Baker to show up in this photo so you could get an idea of what is on the horizon.

For a viewing of this Sequim waterview custom home in a gated neighborhood overlooking Sequim Bay, email or call for an appointment.  See the listing at Sequim Waterview.

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In 2011 this Sequim Real Estate Blog covered the ups and downs of the real estate market, tips and tricks, insider secrets, tools for buyers not found anywhere else, negotiating keys, and Sequim photos and videos.  With this post there are 1,090 articles about Sequim real estate for buyers.  Here are the 20 posts readers loved the most.

Buying a Second Home in Sequim

Sequim Homes for Sale

Do You Know About Buyer’s Agency?

How to Get Wealthy in a Recession Like This

What is the difference between a listing agent and a buyer’s agent?

Sequim Homes Sold by Price Range

The Most Powerful Sequim Real Estate Internet Resources for Buyers

Sequim WA is a Lot of Things

How to Price a Home for Sale

Sequim WA is Beautiful

Sequim Real Estate Broker Writes Book to Help Realtors

Why Sequim Listings Do Not Sell – What Sellers Don’t Know

How to Buy a Home You Can Sell – and Why This is So Important

The Sequim Blue Hole – A Map of Rainfall

Sequim Washington Homes – Sales Chart

How to Buy a Sequim Home – The Exact Process Defined for Buyers

Hurricane Ridge

Sequim Washington Magazine – Something New and Exciting

Short Sale, Deed in Lieu, or Foreclosure

Sequim Real Estate Prices – Selling Price as Percentage of Listing Price

These Sequim Real Estate Articles have been brought to you by Chuck Marunde, your favorite Sequim Buyer’s Agent.

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You’re planning to buy a Sequim home.  You’ve been planning your retirement for years.  You’re just about to retire, and you want to buy your Sequim home now or at least before this next summer so that you can take advantage of prices that seem to have bottomed out and interest rates that surely are at an all time low.  The timing seems right, and so you have started the process.

The Ideal Sequim Home

You’ve probably planned many things in your career and in your life.  My question for you is, “Do you have a plan to buy your perfect Sequim home in a great location and at a fantastic price?“  Consider this.  You’ve put together some very specific plans for many things in your life.  Here are a few examples of the importance of a plan.

1. Building a retirement home requires a detailed plan.  There’s a builder and an architect, and extensive discussions, sketches and complicated plans that comply with the IBC (International Building Code).  The planning takes many months, and usually with the six months of construction, the whole process can take over a year.
2. Sailing around the world takes a plan.  There are months of planning to schedule the route, get permission to land at the right ports, and then there’s the weather, the food, and the contingency planning.
3. Successful master traders of stocks and options learn the importance of a trading plan that keeps them on track with specific rules for identifying potential stocks, for entries and exits, for managing trades and handling stop losses.
4. Successful business entrepreneurs have a plan long before they invest their life savings and open the doors to their new business.
5. NBA coaches have a plan before every game.
6. Teachers have a curriculum planned before each week of school.

Buying a Sequim home is not a time to shoot from the hip.  I strongly urge you to have a plan to buy your Sequim home.  Having spent 37 years in real estate, and having helped hundreds of clients, I can suggest an outline that might be helpful in putting together a plan that will assure your success in finding the perfect home in the best area at the lowest negotiated price.

Sequim Home Buying Plan

1. First, find a knowledgeable, experienced, and trustworthy Buyer’s Agent.   Listen, this is not an effort to sell myself right now.   Sure I’d like buyers to work with me so I can make commissions, but there is much more to this recommendation.   As a real estate lawyer I made some pretty good money because many buyers and sellers tried to do their “own thing” without sufficient knowledge or experience.   (Why do you think there are so many rich lawyers?)   A year and a half of litigation, a small wheel barrel full of money, and a lot of stress later and my clients proved to me over and over again the wisdom in finding the best and most experienced professional out there to help find that Sequim home.   He or she does NOT cost any more than the totally inexperienced or incompetent licensee who smiles nicely and smells good.   In fact, when I represent a buyer as their buyer’s agent I cost them nothing, yet I bring them a lifetime of experience.   How cool is that?   So I strongly recommend that people take advantage of the experience and negotiating power a good Realtor can bring to the table.  Read the rest of this entry »

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What is the real estate market and the U.S. economy going to do in 2012?  Here is my read on the real estate market and the the economy for 2012.  In terms of credibility in writing an article on the economics of both the real estate market and the U.S. Economy, just for your information, I have a degree in economics (with an emphasis on monetary policy), a degree in teaching, a doctorate in law, and 37 years as a business owner, lawyer, registered financial adviser, certified estate planner, business consultant, and real estate broker.  While that certainly doesn’t guarantee anything about the accuracy of my perspective, the so-called experts and talking heads on T.V. have been wrong far more than they’ve been right since 2005.  The odds are my prediction will be more accurate than the talking heads who never warned us of the impending doom until after the fact.

The Real Estate Market

There are economic cycles and patterns that tend to repeat themselves over time, but these past five years have seen variables thrown into the mix that no economic model has ever had to include in the predictive programming.  No Ph.D.  has ever lived through such times with so many variables and so many potentially complex outcomes.  The John Keynes economists have blown a fuse trying to figure out how to run fiscal spending and taxation models and not run the country over the cliff.  The Milton Friedman economists believe monetary policy is running amok and has been hijacked by social terrorists.

The truth is the politicians have no clue how to solve the problems they got us into.  While we are on the brink of defaulting on our debt, and Europe has sprung such large leaks they can’t seem to bail water fast enough, the truth is no one knows what will happen in 2012.  No one knows precisely because there are literally thousands of economic variables at play.  Governments all around the world now control many of these variables, and business owners who are the engine of employment, are at the mercy of politicians and government agencies calling all the shots.  Free enterprise is no longer functioning as the economic engine of the greatest laissez faire system the world has ever seen.  Read the rest of this entry »

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