Greetings to my friends in California, Arizona, and around the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area looking for property in Sequim or Port Angeles. Here’s my question for you.
When you find a listing in the MLS in Sequim (or in Port Angeles), and it boasts a grand water view, gorgeous “country” acreage, and a quaint old house, and the price looks pretty reasonable, do you jump on a plane (or a car for you in Seattle-Tacoma) and come check this gem out?
NO, NO, and NO. Please let me save you time and money and frustration. Maybe a true story will make the point best.
A client finds me on the Internet and calls me from the Phoenix area, having found that listing above. He and his wife are excited about booking a flight immediately so they can come and look at this property and make an offer. I decide to go check it out personally and send my client photos. The MLS only had three or four lousy photos, none of which included the grand water view. I don’t want my client flying all the way here to discover that this may not be the property. We simply don’t know much about it from the scant information in the MLS.
I won’t include the link I emailed to my client so he could see the 18 or so photos I shot. Let’s let the property remain anonymous, as well as the listing agent. But here is part of what I emailed my client, who was deeply grateful for a reality check.
You’ll see captions or notes under a few of the photos. The photos pretty much tell the story. The listing agent calls this property water view property, but I think that may be a stretch. On the other hand, if you built a new house up and behind the old house, which is a higher elevation, you would have a distant water view over the neighbor’s RV barn and house and through the telephone and power lines.
The property is pretty much grown up with thorns and thick bushes and small trees as you can see. What you cannot tell from the photos is that this property is very close to Highway 101. I could not see the highway through the thick vegetation, but I could hear the traffic, so it must have been about 300 yards from this property. The traffic noise is quite loud, because you have heavy truck traffic here.
I could tell inside the house that there have not been upgrades to the electrical. Light bulbs dangle from wires in the ceilings.
Having walked the property and gone though the entire house, I do understand why the property hasn’t sold in the almost one year it has been on the market. It’s in a bit of a twilight zone in this market. In other words, for a retired couple planning to build their retirement home, assuming they are looking for a “water view” as this property is advertised in the MLS, they will be sadly disappointed when they see it has an obstructed water view that really is not much of a water view. They would not want the noisy highway traffic, and they would most likely want to tear the old house down and remove it at substantial cost. I talked to a contractor who said it could cost $20,000 to tear it down, and at $140 per ton for dump fees, it could cost another $20,000 for the disposal fees. There is a four foot high concrete wall with rebar in it just behind the house. Why would anyone go through all that to own this lot when there are dozens of nice water view lots at this price without all the extra work, and in a nicer area without loud traffic noise. For other folks who want a getaway cabin, this isn’t exactly a “country” setting with the busy roads and noise.
Question: Have you found a listing in the MLS, and would you like more information and photos from a professional who knows how to give you accurate information? What if I told you this service is absolutely free? Save yourself a lot of frustration and money, and simply email or call. As a buyer’s agent, this is a service I offer you exclusively.
Email Chuck Marunde, or call Chuck at his cell phone right now, (360) 775-5424.
Last Updated on July 19, 2008 by Chuck Marunde
