By David S. Gow, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty Home Trust The hous­ing mar­ket in San Juan Coun­ty is bro­ken. The geo­graph­ic iso­la­tion that makes our arch­i­pel­ago high­ly prized for its qual­i­ty of life, and as a tourist des­ti­na­tion, also restricts the move­ment of peo­ple, goods, and cap­i­tal. So while the inter­net, mail and par­cel deliv­ery  Con­tin­ue Reading

This was the third year that Bike ’n Build has come to help the Home Trust project and neigh­bor­hoods. Bike ‘n Build is an orga­ni­za­tion of young pro­fes­sion­als — some of them out in the work world and some still work­ing on their degrees, or advanced degrees. They give up their vaca­tion time to do  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son is back with anoth­er in her SJI Lifestyle video series. This time it’s tips on crab­bing: Catch­ing Clean­ing and Eat­ing… Yum!

Dear Edi­tor: The San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty Home Trust held its fifth annu­al, sig­na­ture fundrais­er, Fies­ta San Juan on Sun­day, July 16th… a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port this organization’s goal: to deliv­er per­ma­nent­ly afford­able hous­ing to those who are the fab­ric of our island com­mu­ni­ty. Noth­ing of this ven­ture can be done with­out the unflag­ging work  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son shares some infor­ma­tion on sep­tic sys­tems… As Real Estate Agents, we are con­stant­ly learn­ing and then shar­ing our knowl­edge with our clients. We must even expand our knowl­edge into some relat­ed indus­tries that are not com­fort­able to dis­cuss with a client, such as sep­tic sys­tems and their func­tions. The real estate indus­try  Con­tin­ue Reading

The San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty Home Trust invites you to join us at the Brick­works for our 5th annu­al Fies­ta San Juan, Sun­day, July 16th from 4:30pm to 9pm. We are serv­ing up Mar­gar­i­tas, Food, and Music for your enjoy­ment, Danc­ing for some fun and exer­cise, and Live and “Chance” Auc­tion items to sat­is­fy your wish for  Con­tin­ue Reading

Unlike liquor, your water source in San Juan Coun­ty is not guar­an­teed and must be acquired and cared for. When you first con­sid­er pur­chas­ing an unim­proved par­cel of land you should con­di­tion your pur­chase upon a sat­is­fac­to­ry water source. The days of clients pur­chas­ing land with­out the water source deter­mined are long gone. Fur­ther, if one  Con­tin­ue Reading

Check out this arti­cle by Nan­cy Keates on the Wall Street Jour­nal web­site… The San Juan Islands, long cher­ished for remote­ness and sim­plic­i­ty, is now the hottest lux­u­ry real-estate mar­ket in the coun­try. The prici­est 10% of the area’s real-estate mar­ket rose faster last year than any oth­er U.S. coun­ty, accord­ing to Realtor.com. The medi­an  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son shares this inter­est­ing infor­ma­tion on docks… Dur­ing the real estate boom years of 2005 through 2007, water­front homes on San Juan Island appre­ci­at­ed around 8–10% per year and homes with docks appre­ci­at­ed around 13%. Docks have always been a cov­et­ed prop­er­ty ameni­ty as they tru­ly allow easy access to boat­ing; the rea­son many  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son shares an arti­cle on Real Estate tips with you… Buy­ing Prop­er­ty in the San Juans Select an Agent to Rep­re­sent You As you may be aware, all of the bro­ker­age firms on San Juan Island are mem­bers of the North­west Mul­ti­ple List­ing Ser­vice; there­fore, any of the agents can assist you with any of the prop­er­ties  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son has anoth­er San Juan Island lifestyle video.  This one offers tips on the var­i­ous types of boats that are suit­able for our waters and one that is not recommended.

All are wel­come to an Open House at Sun Rise II, the newest San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty Home Trust neigh­bor­hood, on Sun­day, April 2nd from 1:00 to 3:00 pm. Sun Rise II is the third Home Trust neigh­bor­hood of per­ma­nent­ly afford­able homes, pre­ced­ed by the Salal neigh­bor­hood on Carter Avenue (2006) and the Sun Rise I neigh­bor­hood (2011)  Con­tin­ue Reading

By Mer­ri Ann Simon­son… Most of the water­front home own­ers in the Coun­ty went through the process of deter­min­ing if flood insur­ance is a neces­si­ty for their prop­er­ty when they pur­chased or refi­nanced. As you may be aware, the major­i­ty of our water­front prop­er­ties are des­ig­nat­ed as being in the flood plain as deter­mined by  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son is busy with anoth­er San Juan Islands Lifestyle video. For this one she says: “I know this video may appear to be a Veuve Clic­quot com­mer­cial but it is just anoth­er San Juan Island Lifestyle video.  This one offers tips on host­ing a suc­cess­ful island brunch.”

And while we’re on the sub­ject of the costs of hous­ing, here’s some­thing sort of relat­ed — In the SJ Update mail­bag we find this note from Andra Rus, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Spe­cial­ist with an out­fit called Prop­er­ty Shark… This is Andra Rus from Prop­er­tyShark’s PR team and I just want­ed to bring to your atten­tion a piece of research  Con­tin­ue Reading