Is it true there are Sequim real estate books that can help me learn more about Sequim and more about finding and buying a home in Sequim, WA? Where would I find such books, and who in the world would write such books?
There are several excellent Sequim real estate books written specifically for buyers moving to Sequim. Some are in paperback, some in Kindle, and some in Audio. They are all written and narrated by real estate attorney (ret.) and broker Chuck Marunde, and they make fantastic resources for buyers intent on doing their research.
Real Estate for Buyers
This real estate book is a Kindle version, which of course can be read on any device whether android or Apple. On Apple you simply download the free Kindle app, and you can read any digital book on Amazon. This is one of Chuck Marunde’s best real estate books for buyers. Here’s a sample:
“Is the Sequim area where you want to live? This is a key question, because before you decide to look at homes, you should already have decided where you want to live. Okay, there’s nothing wrong with looking at some homes in an area you might like so you can get a feel for the homes available in that area, but the priority is choosing your retirement area first, and then shopping for homes in that area. The perfect home in the wrong area would not be good.”
“The larger Sequim area consists of Sequim, Carlsborg, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Port Ludlow, Port Hadlock, and further south Quilcene and Brinnon, and a little to the southeast, Chimicum, Nordlund and neighboring towns. Sequim is the center of what I am calling the Sequim area. That’s because Sequim is where you find the major shopping and medical facilities (including the hospital in Port Angeles 15 minutes away), and Sequim is the dream retirement area because of the ‘Blue Hole’ or the ‘Rain Shadow’ and the perfect climate. Many find the Sequim area to be the ideal location for the ultimate quality lifestyle.”
Learn much more about Sequim, WA, including the many questions people have been asking for decades–all answered in this book. You’ll love this book, and Chuck Marunde highly recommends this one. You’ll find it on Amazon at Real Estate Books for Buyers.
A Real Estate Buyer’s Guide
Sequim Real Estate A Buyer’s Guide is available in either the Kindle version, or if you prefer the paperback version. Learn all about the home buying process in this market, the weather, the lifestyle, how to find and interview a good buyer’s agent, buying a home you can actually sell, traps for the unwary buyer, roofs, appliances, how much to offer, and much more from one of America’s foremost real estate experts, real estate attorney (ret.), broker, author and buyer’s agent, Chuck Marunde, J.D. Here’s a sample:
“Have you considered buying a home on a bluff? We have bluffs in the Sequim and Port Angeles areas with absolutely stunning water views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and International waters with beautiful Victoria’s night lights glowing on the horizon. But what about bluff stability? Is a 100 foot or a 200 foot bluff stable? If the house I’m interested in is 100 feet from the bluff’s edge, is it safe and stable for years to come? The answer is not easy, but there is a logical analysis that can help you decide on a particular bluff property, or avoid it.” This issue and many more are addressed in this real estate book.
Buying a Country Home Far From the Concrete Jungle
I get some great questions from retirees around the United States who are searching for that perfect place to spend the rest of their lives. Thousands of people are doing online research every day on little towns around America, and rural towns far from the stress and anxiety of the metropolis. Retirees all over the nation are diligently searching for a piece of Heaven where they can live a quality life in a safe place with a good climate. By the way, this book is available in an audio version also on Amazon or directly from Audible.com [Real Estate Books].
The exodus from California is phenomenal. Retirees are exiting California in the greatest mass exodus in state history, and they’re moving to states like Washington, Texas, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, and any state that is not California. It’s sad for most of them, especially for the 3rd generation California families, but they are realizing it’s not whether they should exit the state, which is spiraling into the depths of despair at an accelerating pace, but how soon they should escape.
Buyers starting their research often ask how they should get started finding the ideal home in the perfect little town. It all starts with content-rich information online written by a local professional who is trustworthy. No matter which country town you’re looking into, this book will help immensely as you filter and consider all the information you take in.
The 24 Secrets of Buying a Country Home will delight you with specific advice on finding and buying your ideal retirement home in America.
Selling Your Home
The Seven Myths of Selling Your Home is a fantastic companion for anyone planning to move to Sequim and buy a home. Selling a home far away and buying a home while attempting to coordinate all the moving pieces “is no small matter,” as the Vikings would have said. Don’t get caught up in the games that Realtors play when it comes to listing and marketing your property. Done wrong, and you could lose tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention precious weeks or months.
Chuck wrote this book from an abundance of experience, over 40 years in real estate, having seen all kinds of gamesmanship, salesmanship, and marketing (both good and grossly inadequate). Sellers have no idea what the insider secrets are for the listing agents who have one goal–get listings, listings, listings, and then hope that some agent, any agent, sells their listings. Listing agents claim to have big marketing systems for buyers, but that is almost entirely hype, and it angers Chuck Marunde that listing agents play such games with people’s lives just so they can make money.
If you want to know the insider secrets of what does and does not work to sell your home, then you definitely will benefit from reading this book. Chuck does not list homes–he only represents buyers as a buyer’s agent, which emphasizes that this book is not written to get listings. It’s written for buyers. Period.
Real Estate Trilogy
The Sequim Real Estate Trilogy is a compilation of three of Chuck Marunde’s books, including Sequim Real Estate for Buyers, Buying Your Retirement Home, and The 24 Secrets of Buying a Country Home. This is a great combination for any buyer doing their research on the Sequim area, and thinking about buying their ideal home.
Apart from saving by buying the Trilogy, these books are packed with megabytes (dare I say tons?) of information any buyer would love to have, and lo and behold, Chuck Marunde shares a lifetime of real estate knowledge and experience that cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn and decades to master. All of this is yours for a few bucks! It’s crazy, but Chuck loves giving all this away to buyers. “I find it very fulfilling to know that I’m giving people information they literally cannot find anywhere else, and specifically that I’m giving them what I call ‘insider secrets’ from the real estate industry that take decades to learn. I don’t want people to get caught in traps for the unwary, or to make major mistakes at this critical juncture in their lives. Life is too short to lose money or get into a nightmare scenario in your ’60s when all you want to do is settle down quietly in your perfect home.
It should be clear by now that Chuck Marunde is the only Sequim real estate agent creating all these precious resources for buyers. In addition to all these books, Chuck also published over 2,200 blog articles for buyers on his SequimBlog.com, and he has also created and published hundreds of professional quality videos for buyers on his Youtube channel called Living in Sequim. Who does this? Answer: Chuck Marunde.
Real Estate Technology
“The Internet has dramatically changed how buyers find and purchase homes, and it has dramatically changed how sellers advertise and sell homes. And there’s no question the Internet has forever changed the real estate industry for agents and brokers.”
“I started in real estate sales over 40 years ago, and I made the transition from a traditional bricks and mortar brokerage to a high tech Internet model. It was a gigantic transition, like trading a horse and a leather saddle for a rocket ship. Believe me, it was not easy. Once I learned to fly at the speed of sound, I was comfortable, but the transition from bricks and mortar to high tech virtuality was a long difficult process.”
“What I want to do in this book is share what I’ve learned along the way about how the real estate industry has changed, and how these changes affect consumers like you, and how these changes affect real estate brokers. Believe me, for buyers, for sellers, and for real estate agents everything has changed. Unfortunately, it takes a long time industry insider to recognize the astonishing changes that have taken place.”
If you want to understand how the dramatic changes in the real estate industry, including buying and selling, have changed recently, you’ll want to read this book. Realtors around the country should read this book, but believe it or not, 98% of the Realtors are not interested in growing their business with technology and the Internet. It’s odd, isn’t it, because this is where all the buyers are, but most Realtors are still using a 40 year old business model. I kid you not. Flyers, mailings, cold calling, open houses, network luncheons. Some of them think having a listing syndicated (stolen) by Zillow and other sites is online marketing. It’s not. You’ll learn more about Internet marketing and real estate technology in this book than any other book on the market. I know, I’ve read the other books or perused them. As with the other books, you’ll find Real Estate From Bricks and Mortar to High Tech Virtuality on Amazon.
Real Estate Marketing
The New World of Marketing For Real Estate Agents is really written to Realtors around the country, but you may enjoy it more than they do.
“If you own or work at a large real estate franchise, this chapter may be hard for you to stomach. May I suggest you need to read this contrarian perspective even if it feels uncomfortable. I want to encourage you by suggesting that you don’t have to abandon your bricks-and-mortar and the successful principles that have been keys to your success in the past. But you cannot expect these coming years to be business as usual. Surviving in the real estate business and thriving in the coming years will require more from broker/owners than anything you’ve done before.”
“This doesn’t mean old school is always bad. It does mean we re-examine our marketing strategies. New models and new technologies are a given, but many time tested principles of sales and marketing can still be used in a new mix of methods. Personalized letters in targeted mailing campaigns can be very effective, but those letters will point to cool websites, blogs, and video sites that are sticky enough to engage and keep viewers.”
“There’s been a huge change, but not all agents and brokers recognize what is happening. Many do not comprehend that they are in the middle of a major earthquake. Therefore, they continue to do what they always have done. Underlying all these changes is something very big that many traditional brokers are missing. Just as it is powerful forces that move tectonic plates deep below the earth’s surface, we are experiencing powerful forces causing an earthquake in the real estate world. As with so much in life, what we see on the surface is merely a symptom of a deeper and much more significant movement that is actually the driving force. It is this driving force that many brokers and agents have not recognized.”
Escaping California ASAP
This is a fun little book that many Californians will appreciate if they are looking at the San Juan Islands, which are north of the Sequim beaches. I’ve learned that there are people who are just absolutely determined to live on “the Islands.” If that’s your heartbeat, you will have fun with this book and the videos embedded in this ebook.
It doesn’t matter where you live in California or what your political philosophy. You have probably said privately something like this or a variation of this:
I hate the idea of leaving California. My family has lived here for three generations. My parents left me this ranch, and I know every inch, every tree, every valley, every trail. We’ve seen good times and bad times, floods and draughts, and we lost our share of cattle during the winter of ’62. My son is buried on the back 40 overlooking the valley. In all these years, we always pulled together as a family and got through it all. But California is no longer the California I’ve known. It’s different now. I hardly recognize it. This state is headed on a trajectory that goes from bad to worse, and there’s no turning back anymore. If we don’t sell and get out soon, I’m not sure we’ll be able to a few years from now. It’s a damn shame.
It is a shame. The most beautiful state in the union with such grand opportunities is no longer. It has been destroyed, not by global warming, not by any lack of resources, but by politicians and people. See Escaping California online.
Buying Your Retirement Home
From Buying Your Retirement Home: “Making an offer on your retirement home is not a matter of guessing or just pulling a number out of the air, and it’s definitely not about offering a standard percentage below the listed price. Buying your retirement home may be the most important investment you make in your lifetime. If you know how to analyze home values, how to define true fair market value, and have a buyer’s agent who understands the local market, you won’t be guessing, and you won’t over pay either.”
“There is such a thing as true fair market value. It’s not rocket science, but there is a very intelligent way to analyze the value of a home. All you need to know is what data to use, where it is found, and how to use it to accurately identify the FMV. Then you’ll be in a good position to take the first step in making an offer.”
“Making an offer on your retirement home may be the most important offer you ever make in your life, other than your marriage proposal. Mastering this process can mean the difference between getting your ideal home or not. It could also mean paying tens of thousands of dollars less than you would otherwise pay.”
Buying and Selling Real Estate
“Buying and Selling Real Estate in the Rain Shadow” was one of Chuck’s first real estate books on the Sequim, WA area. It’s a fun and easy read, and you’ll learn a lot about the Sequim area and buying a home or land in this unique market.
If it isn’t obvious, let me make it so. Chuck has given more of himself to the real estate industry and to buyers over 4 decades than any other local real estate agent, and his focus all this time, including his experience as a broker and real estate attorney, has made him one of the most qualified real estate experts in the U.S. The fact that he is available on a selective basis to represent buyers as an Exclusive Buyer’s Agent for the Sequim area as well as the Islands between Sequim and Seattle, is an opportunity for buyers. This is your money and it will be your final home . . . maybe. Why wouldn’t you want to hire the most experienced and dedicated buyer’s agent to represent you, especially if you learned he doesn’t charge you a buyer’s fee but get’s paid half the commission the seller pays through his listing agreement with his own agent?
Read some of Chuck’s books if you like, read his blog articles, watch his Youtube videos, but you can always email, text, or simply call and chat with Chuck on the phone. He’s easy to talk to, and he is fiercely loyal to his clients. Plan ahead, because Chuck chooses his clients as much as his clients choose him.
Last Updated on August 14, 2022 by Chuck Marunde
