PT/PA/Sequim folks: Housing Questions (Bell Hill, Blyn: mobile home, buying, subdivision)

[jbinva]

Greetings all,

Some questions, if I may, about housing in your area.

During our visit, I noticed differences between the three towns and could see the +/- for each. I did really like the inbetween PT/Sq (Blyn) and PA/Sq (Diamond).

What's happening to pricing recently? It's hard to tell - you can see the asking price (many surprisingly high I thought) but what a home closes for is what matters.

How did you decided where to buy (PA/PT/Sq/inbetween)?

Build vs buying. Is there advantage one way or another right now?

I'd love to get a small chunk of mountain view land (not in a subdivision but not waaaay out in the boonies) and get a builder to create a cottage style home (2b/2ba/1500 sq ft). But perhaps better bargains are in the existing home market?

I see many, perhaps most, on well/septic (?) with propane tanks for heat -correct?

Any personally a) recommended realtors and b) recommended builders who would be interested in creating a new small cottage style home?

Finally, in summer - how busy are these towns with tourists? (like Florida in Jan/Feb/Mar or not even close to that?

Thanks very much all!

[eponabri]

We live in Diamond Point, but also have a house on the market in Sequim (Sun Meadows). We built our house here in 2004, got in just before the cost of lumber went up. Houses out here tend to be more expensive in Diamond Point, but they are also high in town the higher up on Bell Hill you get.

We are not on well water, we have Aquarius water, which isn't much better. But lately it hasn't been too bad. We don't use propane at all. We have a wood burning fireplace and electric heat.

We also have Direct TV and cable for the internet, so we aren't quite in the boonies as we use to be. However, power goes out quite a bit in the winter. The Blyn power station isn't efficient enough for all of the new houses out here.

The closer you get to town, unless the house is by the water, you'll find house rates are a bit cheaper.

Yes, this is a good time to buy, because it's definitely a buyers market right now.

Tourists in the summer really is only a problem during Lavender Festival. Any locals who are not working at the festival either leave town or stay at home. Highway 101 is the the only road in and out of town, and you can be sure there will be at least one car accident to tie up traffic during that weekend. The rest of the summer it's not too bad. They are working on widening the highway in places and that has helped.

4th of July in Diamond Point can be a pain, because we are not in the city limits fireworks are shot off for a couple of weeks. If it's been a dry summer, we always worry about fires. So far we've been lucky.

As far as buying vs building, we've done both; we built this house and we bought the one in town. I like building better since you can customize it the way your want. Of course, dealing with builders brings it's own headaches. We lived in a mobile home for 2 years while our house was being designed and built, but it was worth it. We lived in town last year and moved back here and I was so glad. I'm never moving from this house again. It's definitely our dream house.

You can see pictures of both houses on my blog:
Sequim Magick