Living around Sandpoint--what you wished you had known when you picked a house (Coeur d'Alene: real estate, mobile home)

[DvrGrl]

I've been reading the North Idaho posts for about 8 months now, and DM'd a few of you regarding realtors--thanks for your replies! My husband and I will soon be making our fourth trip to the Sandpoint area to experience a week of winter. We are seriously considering North Idaho as our retirement destination in the next 3 years or so, and are wondering if those of you who live there can give us some insight into the character of some of the towns and neighborhoods. For instance, if you live in Sagle, does the bridge end up being some sort of psychological barrier over time that keeps you from going into town, or do you consider it the best of both worlds because you can also get to CDA and Costco easier? From Google Earth it looks like there is a big quarry there--are there lots of trucks and noise? Are there areas that are inconvenienced by summer or ski visitor traffic, or are particularly snowy? Is there a lot of wind in the Selle valley? Bugs on Sunnyside? We stayed in Hope over the summer and thought the lake views and access some of the best we've ever seen, but could not deal with the train whistle. Also, if any of you built a house, any lessons learned on undisclosed costs or other issues? We want to be within 10-15 minute drive of downtown Sandpoint, with some acreage for privacy yet not be too remote. I realize this is a fairly broad set of questions -- we appreciate the opportunity to learn from your collective wisdom

[Cnynrat]

We live in eastern Sagle, south of Gamlin Lake. We don't find the long bridge to be a barrier at all. That's because we are about a 30 minute drive from town, so bridge or no bridge there really isn't any such thing as a quick trip into town to pick up a few things. We try to plan our trips well, and to combine multiple errands in each trip. It's less of a big deal for now because my wife works in town, so she's there weekdays anyway, but once she retires that will change.

We would have liked to have been a little closer to Sandpoint for the convenience factor, but on the other hand we love the sense of privacy and remoteness we have. Over the years I've found buying homes & properties to almost always involve some tradeoffs, so you'll have to decide which factors are non-negotiable for you.

Where we live it doesn't really help with trips to CDA since that's still a haul. I think you'd need to be a fair distance south of Sagle to shorten the trip to CDA appreciably. We usually end up in CDA once a month or so for shopping.

Supposedly traffic can be an issue on the long bridge, but in 7 months of living here we've never seen it other than some slower traffic this past summer when they were working on the bridge. Accidents on the bridge commonly cause delays since it's not unusual for both lanes to be blocked, but obviously that's not an everyday occurrence.

The train tracks are worth some attention when looking at properties in the area. It's not uncommon for us to have to wait for a train at the crossing on Sagle Rd., but usually that's only a for a few minutes. We actually hear train whistles where we are, mostly from the tracks across the lake near Hope which is about 4.5 miles away as the crow flies. We are not on the lakefront, that's about mile away, so it's not as though the sound is just traveling across the water. It's a faint sound though, not at all bothersome to us, and we can't hear them inside our home. I guess my comment would be you have to be quite a distance away, or have some favorable topography working for you to completely get away from train sounds.

Around our area there is a small increase in traffic in the summer months, but nothing that rates as being an inconvenience. Seems like most of that is driven by the fact that many homes out our way are not occupied in winter.

For your desired distance to town I would think Selle valley would be a good place to focus your search. The problem you may have in Sagle is that anything that is 10-15 minutes or so from the south end of the long bridge is likely to be fairly close to the train tracks, so you might not like the train noise. You need to get further away from 95 to mitigate train noise, but that puts you further from town.

Good luck with your search!

Dave

[SelwaySasquatch]

If you wanted to experience winter you should have come a month ago.
The worst of winter is over.
If traffic and train whistles bother you, CDA/Sandpoint could be a bad move.
Those are two major factors in why I wouldn't live there.
If I'm living in that part of the state, it's at Priest Lake.

[Cnynrat]

I could understand not wanting to live in CDA due to traffic - the 95/Government Way corridor north of town does seem to have bad traffic at times.

IMO, traffic is not an issue in the Sandpoint area other than for a small number of special events in town, such as the Festival, Lost in the '50s weekend, etc.

It snowed heavily at our house in Sagle all morning today. I hope the "worst" of winter is over, because for me that's been the past few days of warm temps and drizzle. Here's hoping for a return to colder temps and more snow!

Dave

[DvrGrl]

Thanks for the insight into Sagle--we stayed out at Garfield Bay in the summer, and loved the view of the lake, as well as the countryside and hikes nearby. The drive to and from Sandpoint wasn't too bad, just longer than we think we might like once we move--then again, once we are retired we may have more time--at least I hope so. it's all relative as where I live now three miles can take 30 minutes. I am used to winter in general, growing up in New England including time in northern Maine--I should have been more clear--with all the comments about how grey it can be we thought we should check it out for ourselves. Also i appreciate your perspective on the bridge--we lived on the windward side of Oahu for a number of years and it was amazing how after a time our neighbors and ourselves had no desire to drive up the mountain and through the tunnel to town...though it wasn't far away--unless we had to. We were caught in a traffic jam past Sagle road while heading north to Bonners Ferry, though I suspect that was due to the construction and probably shouldn't be an issue assuming that has been completed.

[srambus]

Cynrat painted a pretty accurate picture. We moved here 7mos ago and we too live in Sagle, but we are apx 2.5 miles west of the train tracks/hwy 95 (Dufort & Mays Rd) and I feel it makes a huge difference in train noise. We rarely hear a train and when we do its a soft almost romantic off-in-the distance sound. I do not find that the Longbridge inconveniences me, in fact I look forward to crossing it and feel like " I can't believe I live here" every time I go over it. It is one of the highlights of going into town. Fyi, Sagle has lower property tax than Sandpoint. I love the location of being off of Dufort Road because Im not used to driving in the snow/ice. Dufort is a "School Bus Road" (Very important to ask you real estate agent) which means it will always be plowed in bad weather. It's awesome to know that all I have to do is go down nice plowed dufort and get to the 95, and in 10 minutes I'm in Sandpoint if I go left, and in 35 minutes I am in Hayden/Coeur d'Alene if I go right. Those roads are both nice and plowed. There are many very nice rural neighborhoods off of Dufort Road with no run down mobile homes scattered about like other areas. Mays Rd, Greyfeather Rd, Copper Ridge, Etc. Another gem right on Dufort is Round Lake State Park. I LOVE that i can go 1 tiny mile and put my kayak in, or fish or hike around a beautiful little lake. Also, from our house, we only have to go 2 miles to put our boat in at Morton Slough (at Dufort & Lakeshore) and then boat to Sandpoint or Priest River. I feel we really have the best of all worlds here: rural, but so close to so much outdoor fun. Now all that being said, if you still want to be rual but a teeny bit closer to Sandpoint, try driving up Pine St towards Baldy mtn. Beautiful, peaceful 5+acre homes there, and a short drive to town. Or Wrenco Loop rd, a lil farther. We originally bought a beautiful 20 acre lot with a fantastic view of the Pend Orielle river, btwn Sandpoint & Priest River, to build on. We brought electricity to it, and cleared out a home site. But one day we saw the home we are now living in and fell in love. We still have the 20 acres and we live it, but we're happy here in Sagle too. Good luck to you!

[DvrGrl]

Thanks srambus and Cynrat--it seems Sagle is full of friendly people willing to share insights! srambus I sent you a DM about the Dufort Road area. It looks like Round Lake State park is beautiful!

[DvrGrl]

Update....last week we looked at 7 houses, most needed a ton of work. While I had in my mind that we would like a view lot in the Baldy Mountain area, we found a beautiful house off of Dufort Road and our offer was accepted. We timed the drive to CDA at 45 min to the resort, just over an hour (except for the snow) to the Spokane airport, and less than 15 min to downtown sandpoint. We love the house and wish we could move in immediately but still have to sell our current house and figure out our retirement timeline. Thanks to those who wrote about Sagle, your endorsement was very helpful. We are so excited to be one step closer to enjoying the north Idaho quality of life.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by DvrGrl

Update....our offer was accepted. ........

Happy news. I'm glad you found the house you want and got it bought. That can be a long and difficult search.

[kayaker6]

Originally Posted by DvrGrl

Update....last week we looked at 7 houses, most needed a ton of work. While I had in my mind that we would like a view lot in the Baldy Mountain area, we found a beautiful house off of Dufort Road and our offer was accepted. We timed the drive to CDA at 45 min to the resort, just over an hour (except for the snow) to the Spokane airport, and less than 15 min to downtown sandpoint. We love the house and wish we could move in immediately but still have to sell our current house and figure out our retirement timeline. Thanks to those who wrote about Sagle, your endorsement was very helpful. We are so excited to be one step closer to enjoying the north Idaho quality of life.

Congratulations on finding your NID home! The Dufort valley is a beautiful area. Have you checked out the Dufort Mall?

Again congratulations and good luck with your plans!