Right now the sun is shining bright and the weather is hot (smoking hot) and summer is here full force. This is why we live here in the PNW, best summers. You have the mountains on the cascades and olympics glittering bright with the snow reflecting the sun, just enticing you to come hike. With the waves in the Puget sound and rivers and lakes throwing the sun right back at you, saying come in and swim and fish in our waters. Yep nothing better in the summer than in the PNW and with no abundance of mosquitoes at least where we live at the lake. You can just setup your chair and really enjoy one of the last slices of nature before you head to Canada and Alaska. Of course in the high woods and mountains, yes we do have bears and Mountain Lions, coyotes and wolfs.
With real estate I believe everyone has learned or is finally learning – Location is everything. And yes sometimes you can’t get the perfect location. But when you can, nothing is better than that amazing location. In my opinion these are my 3 top locations for a Primary or Investment home.
- Waterfront pure and simple. Nothing is better than having water at your back or front door and being about to jump in for a swim or paddle/boat off into the sunset. It is the best spot to be in the hot summer days and everyone will want to becoming over for that bbq and swim/boat time. Now with that said, yes some waterfront is not good. (If you are in a flood zone or a very swampy location). Remember even with waterfront there are prime locations, good spots, and then just okay spots. With regards to the PNW in Washington state we have Salt water and Fresh Water locations. We then can go further with location here in Washington state as we have a lot of choices to pick from. Would you prefer lake or river/stream or would you like salt water bay/sound or oceanfront? This is totally up to you and to be honest, all waterfront in my mind is a solid purchase. Of course there are levels of prime locations on the water front as well. For example on the lake a clean spot for swimming and dock with boating in front of your house is perfect. But as the same lake if it is marshy and you can’t really swim and too shallow for a boat, while again you are waterfront but less desirable location. Budget will also have a huge determining factor on what you can pick/afford. And at the end of the day, I believe water front is 100 times better than a cookie cutter home with pavement and homes all around you.
- 2. Land and great large raw land with maybe a creek/river or pond or if you are lucky to have large land with salt water. Land is becoming harder and harder to find. There are many factors to why there is less land, the obvious is more people and more people wanting land instead of living downtown or in the cities. The big chunks of raw land that are clean, by clean I mean no wetlands or gophers to stop you from being able to build. Also flat with some hills is good, but steep and extremely hard to build on lots is also not the best. So you will always have different levels of land that is Best to not the best. I will say when the land is private and doesn’t have eye sores around it, being that of either man built/living presence or views such as mud flats or swamps. The really nice pieces of land usually get sold off market to investors/developers or if you are hunting for land, a really good real estate broker will call around for you to see if any owner is looking to sell. Another great way to buy big chunks of raw land is to look for timber land from logging companies. Sometimes these lots are further out in the country. But if you can afford to buy and hold on to the property until it is built up around you or development has come close to the big chunks of land you can make a good penny developing the land or selling to a developer/investor.
- 3. Downtown Residential/Commerical Downtown Residential/Commerical is amazing and can always be fun and exciting living or living/working close to all the action of a downtown city. Depending where the city is, you can have key locations downtown, if there is water then of course closer to the water or even better on the water is of course the best of the best you can get. If you have a residential of condo on a nice corner spot with restaurants and bars with cute stores, this again is very attractive and definitely helps the value. I really like if you can find a building to buy that has residential on top and a commercial unit on the bottom that you can either rent or use yourself for a business. These always are great buys, but harder to find sometimes. If you are just looking for commercial buildings, I usually recommend making sure the buildings are in key locations, unless they there in gentrification going on through the downtown key areas. These area are called opportunity zones and have awesome tax advantages and if you hold them for a key time period are a great investment, as long as it is just not sitting there vacant.
Ron Rougeaux 