I had a great day showing Port Angeles properties to a couple from the east coast. If you’re a potential buyer of Sequim real estate or Port Angeles real estate, you might find this interesting. We started in the morning meeting at a local gourmet coffee shop to discuss my client’s goals, to review their parameters for the ideal home or land and go over the properties we had selected for viewing. They also wanted my thoughts on where the market was going in the months and years ahead. Their primary concern was timing, in other words, is this a good time to buy a home here?
The reason we were looking at homes and land was because this couple had not yet made a final decision on whether to buy an existing home or have a Sequim or Port Angeles home builder build their retirement home. Part of their decision making process is to see what is available right now and what homes and land are selling for in this area. We had a great time, and one of the reasons I love what I do as a professional Realtor is that I get to meet and work with some of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. I swear that the people who retire to Sequim or Port Angeles are the kind of good, hard working Americans with old fashioned values and strong character that you love almost immediately when you meet them. This is true for me as I meet my clients from all over the U.S.
Here are a few highlights. We looked at a beautiful spec home, a 2-story craftsman style home with a deck that wrapped around three sides of the home. This home is almost 3,000 square feet and has a garage with 10 foot ceilings with a double door and a single door. This was a custom home built as a spec home by a builder who got in trouble because he overbuilt. This home was completed in 2007, and the bank foreclosed on the builder. Believe it or not, it’s been for sale since then and no one has ever lived in it.
Having worked with home builders intimately, I’ve learned how to estimate the cost of developing a lot and building a home like this. The lot is almost two-thirds of an acre. The cost to buy this lot today, develop it and bring utilities in, and get the house permitted and built would be about $400,000. It’s a nice custom home with good quality materials, but it’s not a top of the line custom home with the best possible materials, flooring, and cabinets. The listing price? Try just under $300,000. Wow! There’s no doubt this house is a steal. It’s in a neighborhood of beautiful custom built homes on large lots, and there’s a golf course visible through the trees across the street. Nice.
We also looked at lots, and nice lots in this area with paved streets and utilities installed are $73,500 and up from there. And then we also looked at a lot that is several acres with a gorgeous creek running through it and a lot of privacy. That lot is $250,000.
So what did my clients do? They are hardly going to sleep tonight. They are thinking about how fast they can wrap things up back home and get moved. Happy dreams tonight!
Last Updated on July 27, 2012 by Chuck Marunde
