Hi again from the Olympic Peninsula,We are quite sure our most recent post about our friends' Sequim Home for Sale got your interest, provided you are discussing to move to sunny Sequim, just like we did.
Got to tell you this. Before we went house hunting in Sequim during our fall vacation in 2005, we had done our homework online. We showed up in Sequim with a long list of houses and addresses, which we thought were worthwhile looking at, as they met our price range and location expectations. No realtor involved! We wanted to get a first impression of the house, property and surrounding and not being talked into things.
This approach of Sequim house hunting worked well. The online listings don't always show you the whole picture...how close is the next door neighbor or the highway or a new subdivision under construction. After two days, our list of about 12 Sequim houses was down to maybe two or three houses for sale. Now, it was time to get a realtor involved and things got interesting.
We noticed pretty soon that with buying a house in Sequim, the question is: Do you want Mountain View (Olympic Mountains ) or Ocean View (all the way to Victoria, Vancouver Island) or even both? We furthermore noticed that Ocean Views, like from Bell Hill were rated higher than the Mountain Views. Much over our budget, what we wanted to spend on a house in Sequim. For houses with ocean views from upscale Bell Hill neighborhood, you have to dig deep into your pocket.
Bottomline of today's post, if you want to have a house with a view in Sequim, you have to pay for it, just like everywhere else. We had found a nice house in Sun Meadows with a glimpse of the Olympic Mountains but nice sunny exposure and both fell in love with it at first sight plus the price was right. Well, our new Sequim house will have nice mountain views. We won't complain! Love from the Sequimers. Stay tuned on our Sequim Life.
2 comments:
We heard about Sequim from friends for the first time about four years ago, and had to come see the place for ourselves.
My wife and I immediately fell in love with the community, the scenery, and the friendly people. We also found, much to our surprise, that we already knew several people who live here.
That’s not an uncommon occurrence. It seems that almost everyone has some connection to Sequim, whether they realize it or not.
At any rate, when we came to visit the first time we drove around on our own for a while, then noticed a real estate sign in front of an interesting property. We called and the phone was answered by Scott Gordon, at Schwab Realty.
He turned out to be as much of a find as the area itself. We were looking for land, and Scott is a former fisheries biologist. He really knows about land, plants, and waterways. He also knows Sequim very well.
All are important if you want to avoid the pitfalls that can catch anyone who buys real estate while having little or no local knowledge of their own.
Thanks to the education we received from Scott, we rejected a parcel we thought would be perfect. Without spending a winter in town, how could we have known the five-acre site flooded every time there was a hard rain? The selling agent sure didn't tell us.
We came back to Sequim several times over the next 18 months, looking at houses and land, with and without Scott.
We ended up buying a home and investment properties. Thanks to Scott's good advice and strong negotiating skills we've done well on all of them.
He doesn't know I'm writing this; he's not one to favor self promotion -- or promotion via friend for that matter. Yes, we consider him a friend now.
We've made a lot of other friends here, too. We moved here two years ago, after selling our home and business in California, and we've never regretted it.
Even though my wife and I are experienced business managers, we're especially grateful that we found a real estate agent who provides good information, then respects our ability to decide when a property makes sense and when it doesn’t.
Lyford Hale
Thanks Lyford for your comment on how you found out about Sequim, found the right realtor for pursuing your home or land buying goals and seem to be happy and content with Sequim and your real estate decision. We'll see you around. Keoki and Heidi
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