GoLakeChelan's Chelan Real Estate Blog

The debate over dock mitigation using Large Woody Debris (LWD) in Lake Chelan is heating up.  Large Woody Debris are usually bundles of old apple trees which are anchored to the bottom of Lake Chelan to supposedly mitigate for the impact of building a dock.

Washington Administrative Code, WAC 220-110-060, requires no net loss of habitat for a hydraulic project (in this case, a dock).  In earlier public meetings on the Shorelines Master Plan Update currently underway with Chelan County, expert biologists were brought in to discuss fisheries mitigation on Lake Chelan stated that the LWD currently being specified for mitigation probably favored the predator species of those that are supposedly being attempted to be protected.  In fact, are likely to help fish habitat rather than hurt it.

A detailed discussion of the issue can be found at the Lake Chelan Sailing Association Web site at sailchelan.com.  The issue goes beyond the expense and effectiveness of LWD structures for fish habitat.  The LWD structures pose potential hazards for navigation and swimmers including potential liability for possible injury or death.  The unique circumstances of Lake Chelan, where our shorelines don’t have vegitation and the water level is lowered as much as 21 feet every year are such that the types of things that might benefit other waterways are not applicable to Lake Chelan.

More recently, Russ Jones at the LCSA has started a forum on the topic of LWD at Lake Chelan that details some of the recent happenings.

One of the recent events is Mike Kaputa at the Chelan County Department of Natural Resources is working to set up a “fee in lieu” program for permit holders.  That program would allow an applicant for a dock permit to pay a fee into a larger off-site mitigation project rather than put bundles of mature apple trees on their property in Lake Chelan.

Based on the feedback on the forum, the public wants to understand why there should be any mitigation required at all for a project which doesn’t cause any net loss of habitat to begin with.  Also, last week the state Department of Natural Resources has taken a position that they don’t want any LWD placed on land under their stewardship (all land below the 1079′ elevation at Lake Chelan) as well as a host of new regulations they are preparing to implement administratively.

Meanwhile, property owners who are hoping to construct docks this year are at a loss as to what they should do.  Do they implement probably harmful, dangerous and unsightly LWD structures, wait for a fee-in-lieu program or just wait to see if a sensible alternative develops?  It is understandable that people who are trying to get things done are frustrated by the lack of accountability and responsiveness from the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Natural Resources.

If you are own or are looking at Lake Chelan Waterfront homes or property, be sure to stay informed!

Tags: Construction, Lake Chelan Land Use, Lake Chelan Real Estate // Add Comment »

On the internet you can find out almost anything!  I stumbled across an interesting site while looking at security systems that has some little quizzes that rate your likelihood of being burglarized.  There are other quizzes that you can use to rate other “risks” in your life. The quizzes are instructive because the questions themselves are informative and you can play with them to see how your risk might change with different choices.

The Lake Chelan area, and the whole county, has pretty low crime statistics for most types of crime.

I don’t know much about the background of the web site owners other than they are ranked high by Google!  Enjoy.

Tags: Fun Friday // Add Comment »

As our state government and unions usher Boeing from Washington, what about Seattle’s and Lake Chelan’s other big economic benefactor, Microsoft?

No, Microsoft doesn’t have union issues and as far as I know isn’t threatened by unemployment insurance and state disability costs, although they can’t be thrilled by those costs.  What is notable about Microsoft is how little of our technology future seems to be coming from Redmond.  With the recent launch of the iPad from Apple and the Nexus One phone from Google the vacuum of future looking products from Microsoft is huge.  The question is whether Microsoft has lost its way in the market.

Dick Brass, a former Microsoft Vice-President has an Op-Ed in the New York times that laments the cultural issues at Microsoft the he believes actually thwart innovation.  According to Dick Brass, Microsoft is also no longer the cool and cutting edge place to work and has seen the exit of many of their best and brightest.

The article is worth reading in its entirety.

What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers. – NY Times

Tags: General Interest, Lake Chelan Local, Northwest Happenings // Add Comment »

In many parts of the country, builders are working to become relevant again in the housing market.  Their competition is less with other builders than it is with foreclosures and short sales.  But at Lake Chelan, other than what is mostly custom home construction, builders are laying pretty low.  Spec home construction is pretty much halted.

So, what would it take in the Lake Chelan market for a successful new home project to succeed?  People are buying homes.  While not at levels of 2004 or 2005, sales have improved since the last half of 2009.  So, there is a market for home sales.

First, what are builders doing other places.  They’re cutting prices, getting homes completed more quickly and educating buyers about the risks of buying foreclosures.  Primarily, they have to hit a price point.  Large builders like Meritage Construction are hitting prices as low as half of what homes sold for in their markets just a few years ago.  In the Phoenix area, Meritage is offering a three bedroom home for as little as $99,000.

Land prices have fallen, which is helping builders provide homes at much lower prices.  In places like Arizona, Nevada and Texas, serviced lots can be had ready to build for around $10,000.  However, in the Lake Chelan area, land prices are much higher.  Local impact fees can exceed $10,000 per lot in the City of Chelan!  There are impact fees for transportation in place or in planning in both the county and the City of Chelan.  Washington State ranks well above average in impact fee costs contributing to a high overall regulatory burden for housing in the state.

Another challenge for the local market is the small size of the market.  That minuscule size makes for several issues.  There are so few sales that it is difficult to ascertain trends with any certainty.  In the Lake Chelan market, it is difficult to find a statistically valid number good comparables for anything, much less on something that might reflect on something that is new and different.  Determining the market uptake of a project is also wrought with uncertainty.

Short sales and REO sales are such that a local builder is buying a short sale.  He would have preferred to build, but he could not have built a comparable house to the short sale for its purchase price.  So what’s a builder to do?

First, to remove the risk of the project uptake rate, the project would have to be able to be completed in phases.  That rules out projects with multiple residences in the same structure which would all have to be built at once.  Second, they have to hit a price point.  While there are Lake Chelan pre-sales homes available for less than $250k, there aren’t any newly constructed homes available in that price range.  For homes listed this year for $250k and under around 80% of them sold.  For more expensive homes, the percentage that sold was in the teens.  So, the challenge in the Chelan area would be coming up with a new single family home product, preferably 3 bedroom, that can be sold profitably for under $250k in low volumes in spite of the local land and development costs.  Any takers?

Tags: Construction, General Interest, Lake Chelan Local, The Real Estate Market // 1 Comment »

160 acres, 15 minutes to Wenatchee surrounded by over 1100 acres of Land Trust land!  The owner of this property even has access to all that open space for horseback riding and other non-motorized access.  Incredible views, of course!  All of this for only an asking price of $639,000.

Call me!

The Fairview Canyon Ranch:

Tags: General Interest, Lake Chelan Local, Lake Chelan Real Estate, Wenatchee Area Real Estate // Add Comment »

I’ve added the January numbers into the Lake Chelan Real Estate & Homes Market Report.  January saw 5 transactions this year as compared to 7 last year.  The Average Sale Price was also down a bit.  That is probably because January 2009 had a $2.7 million waterfront home sale!

I don’t put too weight in monthly data, since the market is so small there is not really a statistically significant number of sales.  But, we’re off on the real estate adventure that is 2010!

Tags: General Interest, Marketing Lake Chelan Properties, The Real Estate Market // Add Comment »

So far, in 2010, Washington has had three bank failures with American Marine Bank on Bainbridge failing last Friday. The troubled banks are only in 8 of Washington’s counties and do not include NCNB located in Chelan.   Tim Ellis at Seattle Bubble has put together some great charts and maps showing the status of Washington banks.  Click the link to see the whole posting.

First up, here’s a map of all of Washington State’s banks and credit unions. For the banks, troubled banks are in red, non-troubled are in green. The size of each circle represents the total assets of each institution:

Tags: Finance, General Interest // Add Comment »

I posted on the national real estate blog, Bloodhound Blog, about the current happenings in Oregon and Washington.  Here are some excerpts:

Oregon voters approved two measures that invite businesses and high wage earners to move out of Oregon.

In other news from the Northwest of interest to those in North Carolina, the Washington State Democrats are telling Boeing to leave.  They aren’t going to let little things like agreements that they already made stand in their way. - Bloodhoundblog.com

Tags: General Interest, The Real Estate Market // Add Comment »

There is some pretty interesting stuff on the agenda for tonight’s Chelan City Council meeting.

There will be a presentation on Resource Conservation & Development/Economic Development District bySamantha Bartling, RC&D Coordinator, and Jennifer Korfiatis, EDD Director.

The signalization of Columbia Street at the intersection by Safeway and the Chamber of Commerce will be presented by Angi Waligorski, RH2 Engineer.

There will also be two public workshops, one on the Neighborhood Planning project and another on the Warehouse Industrial Zone Action Plan.

There are other items that may be interesting to you, click for the complete Chelan City Council agenda.

Tags: Events, General Interest, Lake Chelan Land Use, Lake Chelan Local // Add Comment »

I am a member of the Northwest Multiple Listing Service which is best known for serving the Puget Sound area.  It is also the primary MLS in 19 counties and many other parts of the state including Okanogon County locally.  It serves approximately 80% of the state’s population and added Clallum and Ferry counties late last year.

In 2009, over $17 billion dollars of home sales were reported on the NWMLS.  That included over 52,000 single family homes and condominiums for a 3.7% drop in dollar volume over 2008.

Although the number of sales nearly matched 2008 levels (down 3.7 percent), the dollar volume fell by double digits, dropping nearly 14.6 percent. Closed sales in 2008 totaled more than $19.9 billion, but fell to about $17.2 billion last year. Brokers attribute the drop to a combination of factors, including lower selling prices and higher volumes of distressed sales, such as short sales and foreclosures.

Among the 19 counties in the NWMLS recap report, San Juan claimed the highest median sales price for single family homes that sold there last year, at $443,500. King County followed with a median sales price of $380,000 for last year’s closed sales. System-wide, the median price (half sold for more, half for less) for single family homes that sold last year was $280,000.

For condos, the median selling price was $235,000 across the 19-county market area, down 7.3 percent from 2008 when the median price was $253,500. King County accounted for six of every 10 condo sales, and they sold for a median price of $254,000.

Other interesting bits from the report:

• 83% of sales were cooperative, meaning it was listed by one office and sold by another office.
• Single family homes were 87% of total sales by transaction and 89% of total dollar volume.
• NWMLS members reported 802 sales of single family homes that fetched $1 million or more. The MLS map area for Bellevue/west of I-405 had the highest volume of million-dollar plus sales (120 closed sales). The highest priced home sale in the MLS system for 2009 was $15,560,000 for a home on Mercer Island.
• Members of the NWMLS reported 66 sales of condos that sold for $1 million or more; 392 condos sold for $500,000 or more. The highest priced condo sale last year was in downtown Seattle. It sold for $9,750,000.
• Newly built homes sold by NWMLS members commanded a sales price about 12 percent higher than existing homes (resales): The median sales price of a pre-owned, 3-bedrooom home (built 2007 or earlier) ranged from $140,000 in Grays Harbor County to $512,000 in San Juan County. The median price of a 3-bedroom new home (built 2008 or 2009) ranged from $158,225 in Grant County to $655,000 in San Juan County.
• Comparing school districts, the most expensive single-family homes, based on last year’s closed sales, are located in the Mercer Island District, where the median sales price was $832,500. It was followed by the Bellevue School District, which had a median sales price of $569,000.
• In the four-county Puget Sound region (King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap), about 15.3 percent of single family homes sold for under $200,000 – more than double the 7.3 percent from 2008.

Fascinating!  The same trends that are at work across the NWMLS are also evident in the Lake Chelan market.  In our area, most activity has been in the under $250,000 range where a much higher percentage of listings have sold.  The 83% of homes being sold cooperatively is a common percentage across the country.  In fact, if more realtors would avoid the conflicts of dual-agency, the number would be 100%.

Schools matter.  New homes sell for a premium over resales and neighborhoods matter.  Please comment on your observations!

Tags: General Interest, The Real Estate Market // Add Comment »