What is the Sequim real estate and Port Angeles real estate market like?

The Sequim and Port Angeles real estate market has not been hit hard like so much of the country.  With the pause in the steady rise in local prices and the 30-year historical low in interest rates, this is a very good time to buy.  I've written several articles on the market here, and you can find those at:

Sequim Real Estate
Are Homes Selling in Sequim and Port Angeles?
Port Angeles Real Estate and Sequim Real Estate
Sequim Homes Sold 2003 - 2007
Sequim Water View Homes
Homes Sold Winter of 2007 - 2008
Prices of Sequim Homes and Port Angeles Homes
Port Angeles Homes Sales and Sequim Homes Sales in 2007
Sequim & Port Angeles Homes Sales Chart 2007
Port Angeles Real Estate Sales in 2007
Sequim Real Estate Price Reductions
Don't Be Confused About the Sequim Real Estate Market

What about Sequim lots for sale and Port Angeles lots for sale?  What's that market doing?

The market for lots has been impacted more than existing  home sales, but it's not so much because people moving here are slowing down (although they clearly are as markets slowed in their home states) as much as  it is that many developers decided to get in this incredible real estate market.  The result is that 100's of lots have been developed and brought on the market just precisely when the national real estate market decided to pause.  This happens all the time in real estate as the demand increases and as developers jump in, and then as the market eventually pauses or turns down.

Land Sales in Sequim and Port Angeles in 2007
Buying Land Due Diligence Checklist

I want to build a new home.  How do I find a good home builder who is good and honest?

That's an very very good question, one most people don't seem to really ask with less than a curory effort to dig deeper.  Having practiced real estate law for 20 years and having seen so many good people get sucked in by a builder's low price per square foot advertising, only later to get the most expensive education of their lives (not to mention stressful), I wish wish wish that people would learn how to interview a builder and do their due diligence.  I continue to see and hear stories of nightmare after nightmare of people getting talked into a contract by a slick (and less the honest) builder, or his salesman, and after all the add-ons and extras, to find out they paid more than they would have with an honest and good builder.  Some lessons apparently cannot be learned outside the school of hard knocks.  How can I talk this way?  After 30 years of seeing these scenarios time and time again, I am pesuaded that only the most astute and discerning homebuilder will listen and learn from the expensive mistakes of others. 

Please Be Careful Hiring a Builder (Due Diligence)
Building a New Home in Sequim or Port Angeles

What is the luxury home market like in Sequim or Port Angeles?

The luxury home market in this area has been somewhat insulated.  If you start at $700,000 and go up to $3,000,000 you will find that those homes have their own buyer market.  It's a segmented market, and buyers in that price range are often not negatively effected financially by what effects the majority of those in the middle income class.  Even in southern California where someone is trying to sell a $10 million home, the slower market there has not made their home unsellable.  On the contrary, luxury home sales are doing quite well in most parts of the country. 

Luxury Homes  in Sequim and Port Angeles

For additional guidance from your local Realtor and Retired Real Estate Attorney: