Growing up on the west coast, I was always jealous of my friends with their rich tales of childhood Cape Cod vacations. California has Carmel, if you're lucky enough, and Florida has Seaside, but once you get up to the Pacific Northwest, you're pretty much limited to forgotten logging and fishing towns, and the experience just doesn't compare. Recently, however, the planned oceanfront community of Seabrook has brought that famous experience West, and unlike the Hamptons, it's actually affordable.
Seabrook is on the Washington coast, just two or three hours from Seattle, depending on traffic. It's a bit north of Ocean Shores geographically, but miles away in terms of what it is and what you'll get from your vacation.
For one thing, renting a house in Ocean Shores has become a real chore since the city council made it illegal to make houses into rentals a few years ago. This was designed to protect the hotels, and it has, but it's really made the vacation experience suffer. Still, even though Ocean Shores has bowling, scooter rentals and a half-dozen places to buy pizza, nothing is within walking distance of anywhere. That's Seabrook's big thing; if you can't get there by walking, you can rent a bicycle for free and pedal there yourself.
The community is made up a stunning array of beautiful homes, each immaculately designed and appointed with almost any sort of amenity you might want. Weddings, family reunions, and even small corporate retreats are common, because many of the homes comfortably sleep 8 or more, and at half the price of a downtown Seattle hotel room. Yes, the whole house rents for literally half of what you'd pay at the Sheraton or the W Hotels, and you get flat screen TVs, DVD players, a hot tub, and all kinds of other bonuses depending on the house.
You might opt for a place with a pool table, media room, or just about anything else you could want.
Many of the houses accept pets, but all will take your kids in ways no hotel can match. There's an on-site playground, walking trails, the beach and outdoor games like horseshoes and shuffleboard. You won't get a hotel room, but a house complete with a kitchen to cook your own food and catch up with whatever you're there for, even if it's just relaxing or catching up with loved ones.
But if you're a serious vacationer, and you're looking for a legacy location to take your kids to each summer, this might be a better place than you might imagine. If you want to buy a vacation home, you're always free to do so, but I strongly suggest you do so in a decidedly vacation-oriented place. If you just buy a house in place you like, it may be your getaway, but it won't carry the same memories for the kids. Our family getaway is in Guanica, but there's nothing there but a town. If we had opted for San Juan or Vieques, it would be a true destination, like Seabrook.
If you're going to go for lowest-cost only, let's be honest and admit that you're not going to get anything worth the memories, and you're unlikely to enjoy the same appreciation in your investment. If you can find a decent vacation home for less than two-years pay, forget the house, you need to sell your time machine, because you'll be rich.
If you want to buy a vacation home, and you're in the Pacific Northwest, this is as good a choice as any, and far better than most. It's coastal, it's as close as you'll find, and it's a planned vacation community.
It's not a time-share, it's a real house with a real title. You're not buying 1/52nd of a house, you're buying a house. And if you think you can't afford it, talk with them about vacation rentals, because properties rent for hundreds a day. While you'll never hit 0% vacancy, think about being rented out half the time, getting an extra $20,000 a year, and still having 180 days you can spend in the house yourself.
We have many decent developments like this here in Puerto Rico, but as you know, they're already premium priced out of the market. This is a pocket of property in a corner of the country otherwise overlooked, so you can afford to buy your house, enjoy it, make something back to cover your investment, and still reap the benefit of every ounce of appreciation, and every penny of tax-benefit, as your accountant can explain.
In other words, you can have a house for the summer months that you actually want to go to, one that you can afford, and one that's actually close enough to visit.
As a planned community, there are plenty of things to do, though I'd argue that there is a ton of nothing-too-distracting to do. You can send your younger kids off to the on-location playground, or your younger kids down to the beach or in to the nature trails for an afternoon out in "the wild". It's not a place like Atlantic City where the unending chime of the Skee-Ball machines will woo you back into action, though the Quinalt Casino isn't far away, if you're looking for a getaway with real, Vegas-style gaming.
Basically it's a quiet place where you're free to unwind. You'll have to tell your boss that Wifi and cell phone coverage don't function, even though they do, but this is as far as you can get from the busy daily life of Seattle, and as far as you'll want to go. You can go south to Ocean Shores if you want to hang out with weekend tourists more interested in seeing sights than actually unwinding, or you can stay in town for fine dining, a movie, endless walks on the beach, or just to see the sun set on the majesty of the Pacific Ocean.
If you like hiking, biking, bird watching or fishing, you'll need look little further than your cul-de-sac to find what you want. If you want to see whales, there are tour groups that can take you out at the right season for that too.
This community is a lot like a number of outfits we've covered here in Puerto Rico before, but here are the critical differences:
It's close enough from Seattle or Portland that you can actually enjoy it without paying thousands in airfare and car rentals just to have some time to yourself.
You can come here for odd weekends regardless of when the mood moves you.
You're keeping construction money and maintenance revenue right in your back yard, where it's needed more now than perhaps ever before.
There is nowhere in Puerto Rico from which you can see the incomparable glory of the Pacific Ocean.
Unlike Puerto Rico, which is in its own right fun and wonderful, Seabrook, Washington offers a degree of relaxation I can only compare to Nantucket in the off season, no matter how frantic your kids actually are.
If you want more information about the city, check out the city of Seabrook, Washington. If you want information about renting a cottage for the week or weekend, check out the rental site online at www.seabrookcottagerentals.com. And if you're ready to buy a place, don't talk to me about it, just do it.I could tell you about their uncommonly green construction (which they have), their purchase values (likewise) or how easy it is to rent out your new vacation home, but you can check it all out and see for yourself. Take a weekend out there and I have no doubt you'll see what I saw, especially if you've ever been to a real vacation destination back east.
Growing up on the west coast, I was always jealous of my friends with their rich tales of childhood Cape Cod vacations. California has Carmel, if you're lucky enough, and Florida has Seaside, but once you get up to the Pacific Northwest, you're pretty much limited to forgotten logging and fishing towns, and the experience just doesn't compare. Recently, however, the planned oceanfront community of Seabrook has brought that famous experience West, and unlike the Hamptons, it's actually affordable.
