Buying a house on the Tulalip Reservation? (sale, real estate)

[bdb5853]

We are house hunting and have found a couple of nice houses that are located on the Tulalip Reservation. Any insight into that? I am leery of buying a house there, but a realtor assured us that there are some nice houses there that are properly 'deeded' and not to worry about the location. Any feedback???

[Scotty Dosent Know]

Unless you are part of the Tulalip Indian Tribe I believe you can buy a home on the reservation but you cant own the land? Maybe some others on here that are real estate agents can elaborate but that would be enough to keep me away.

Also if you are on here posting questions about it.....it may be difficult if you ever want to sell to someone else later on.

[Inkpoe]

Read into this thread and be forewarned at least:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/washi...servation.html

[Ira500]

Different tribes have different rules. The Nisqually Tribe has only leased land, but the Tulalips have both leased land and deeded lots.
Still, even if it's nice house and a deeded lot, it's still riskier than buying a house on non tribal land. The Tulalips have stopped extending leases on much of their leased land, I'm just not sure about how or if that will effect non tribal members on deeded lots. And I sure as heck wouldn't trust a realtor to get you the accurate information. They have a vested interest. Where are they going to be a few years down the road when you have a dispute with the tribe?
I'd either just steer clear, or hire a real estate attorney with experience working with the Tulalip tribe.

[Hemlock140]

There are other issues with buying there, I know from experience with a relative that bought and left in less than two years. There is a huge drug problem and lots of crime, and there can be jurisdictional issues with the Tribal Police. The number of signs on the main road commemorating the death of someone due to a drunk driver is the first warning sign. I'd really suggest looking elsewhere.

[bdb5853]

This thread was very helpful. Thank you very much!!!

[xboxmas]

Yeah the Tulalip area seems pretty ghetto from what I have seen. And plenty of drunk driving signs along Marine Drive. Pretty sad.

[rkcarguy]

Had a buddy looking at a place to buy, and the tribe would not extend him water rights even though it was another non-tribal owner selling the house who has current water rights. Thankfully he had his offer contingent upon several things so he did not get stuck with the house or lose money on the deal.

[MWhiteOwl]

We've lived here in Tulalip (upper Marine Drive just past SpeeBiDah) for nearly 17 years now. It's gorgeous up here and we have had no problems whatsoever.


This is all deeded property in our area and a number of people in here have lived here even longer than we have. These are 7.5 acre wooded tracts. You do need to run it by Tribal if you're planning to chop down all the trees on your lot, which to us is a good thing, but other than that, there has been no interference from the Tribe at all. It is a beautiful, quiet area full of wildlife and though there are quite a few of us living up in here, you don't see other houses so you get the feeling of being really remote without actually being so. If we were to ever sell, the tribe gets a 1% fee of our sale price. That's it.

We would definitely do it all over again.