The San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty Home Trust is pleased to announce the com­ple­tion of its twelfth and final house in the Sun Rise II neigh­bor­hood. This home, known as “Stew­art,” is the only one of the hous­es not barged over from Vic­to­ria, B.C.. Instead, the house was donat­ed by the DuPar fam­i­ly from Decatur Island and  Con­tin­ue Reading

By Louise Dus­trude Two liv­ing spaces intend­ed as vaca­tion rentals have become year-round res­i­dences instead because of Covid 19, and two oth­ers have become com­mer­cial spaces, accord­ing to Lynn Dana­her, the own­er. Ryan Ben­nett, Lynn’s son and co-own­er, has been remod­el­ing and upgrad­ing the four units at the cor­ner of Argyle Avenue and Web Street, for­mer­ly  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son checks in with a Sec­ond Quar­ter Real Estate sum­ma­ry… The sec­ond quar­ter results, which com­plete the first half of the year, in San Juan Coun­ty were extreme­ly good when con­sid­er­ing the virus impact.   Per the NWMLS, the dol­lar vol­ume in San Juan Coun­ty was $118,381,567 with a total of 201 trans­ac­tions. The  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son has a new entry in her San Juan Island Lifestyle Video series. This one is about San Juan Island Real Estate and COVID

San Juan Coun­ty Health & Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices wish­es to announce to eli­gi­ble orga­ni­za­tions the County’s inten­tion to release a Notice of Funds Avail­able (NOFA) for a 2020 fund­ing round for the Home Fund pro­gram. The Coun­ty intends to release this NOFA on July 1, 2020 with respons­es being accept­ed through August 5, 2020. Appli­ca­tions will be  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son checks in with anoth­er Real Estate tips col­umn… Do you real­ize that you may use all or a por­tion of your retire­ment funds to invest in real estate?   Retire­ment accounts are basi­cal­ly Trust accounts for your ben­e­fit when you retire.  In the 1970s, the IRS approved real estate as an invest­ment option  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan islanders, you are the best! The Board and Staff of the San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty Home Trust want to thank you for your great response to our recent Appeal. This was made in order to set up an Emer­gency Fund for our home own­ers, who have had hours cut back or have lost jobs  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son is back with anoth­er San Juan Island infor­ma­tion source video. This one pro­vides you with a quick real estate mar­ket update.

Response to the dis­cus­sion about the Land Bank and Afford­able Hous­ing REETs. Tues­day, June 2, 2020 Edi­tor, I am writ­ing as Board Pres­i­dent of the San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty Home Trust, a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion on San Juan Island. Our mis­sion is to build and sell per­ma­nent­ly afford­able hous­ing for own­er­ship, to low and mod­er­ate income-qual­i­­fied islanders. We are  Con­tin­ue Reading

Response by Ron Whalen/Sponsor of San Juan Coun­ty Ini­tia­tive 2020-10 I request the fol­low­ing be post­ed to San Juan Update as a response to the let­ter post­ed by Alice Hurd on June 1st. Not true…..Neither the ini­tia­tive or the peti­tion says any­thing about end­ing or elim­i­nat­ing the Land Bank (LB) and afford­able hous­ing. THE PROPOSED INITIATIVE  Con­tin­ue Reading

In the SJ Update Mail­bag today we have this let­ter from Alice Hurd, For­mer Trustee of the San Juan Preser­va­tion Trust… I am writ­ing to share my con­cern about an ini­tia­tive peti­tion being cir­cu­lat­ed in San Juan Coun­ty for the pur­pose of putting a mea­sure on the Novem­ber bal­lot to close down the San Juan Coun­ty  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son checks in again, this time with infor­ma­tion on inter­net avail­abil­i­ty on the island… Update to Our Inter­net Con­nec­tion Rock Island has been busy for the last 5 years installing the base struc­ture for our fiber and oth­er inter­net con­nec­tion options through­out the Coun­ty. As a REALTOR, I can state that inter­net reli­a­bil­i­ty  Con­tin­ue Reading

In response to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, San Juan Coun­ty Trea­sur­er, Rhon­da Ped­er­son, has encour­aged those who are able, to pay the full year in April to off­set those who will have dif­fi­cul­ty mak­ing the first half pay­ment.  If you have been finan­cial­ly impact­ed by this pan­dem­ic and find your­self in need of a pay­ment plan  Con­tin­ue Reading

At their March 31, 2020 meet­ing the San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil direct­ed staff to make avail­able as soon as pos­si­ble funds for rental assis­tance to assist those in our com­mu­ni­ty strug­gling to make ends meet dur­ing the COVID-19 out­break. If you or some­one you know are expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties with your rent or mort­gage pay­ments dur­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son checks in with anoth­er in her video series, this one cel­e­brates Fish­ing Der­by Sea­son.  She says “I might have to keep my day job as I am a bet­ter REALTOR than a fish­ing person.”

Mer­ri Ann Simon­son is back with anoth­er San Juan Island Lifestyle Video. Here’s what she has to say about this one… This video is about local Real Estate. As Real Estate Agents, we are prob­lem solvers.