I showed a great piece of property today.
I know it's great, but the client and his agent just know it's got a lot of trees on it.
The seller has already done a little bit of clearing on the six acres, but has resisted our urging to do additional opening up of the forest canopy. My broker and I are both fans of filtered views, so we would encourage any buyer to be cautious about removing too many trees, but this land is still in the heavily forested stage, so we aren't worried about taking out too many trees.
Some big bay trees have been removed and some of the smaller redwoods and Douglas fir have been removed. Still, unless you are familiar with how trees can overwhelm a property, you could almost look at this land and wonder if anything had ever been cut. The picture gives a pretty clear representation of what this property looks like to a buyer. The trees in the picture are primarily Douglas fir with a few redwoods scattered around the acreage. These are big trees, especially compared to the immediate neighbor who has clearly logged more recently. This is the start of a great private park, but the trees are masking some amazing sights.
What I couldn't show today.
What the first picture doesn't show is the other side of the trees. This pretty six acre parcel is on the west side of Dry Creek Valley, one of the finest grape growing regions in Northern California's wine country. By taking out a few trees, the view is going to be vineyards in the foreground and middle ground with various mountains and hills in the background.
There may be better views on some properties, but this ranks pretty high on my "sit on the porch and stare all day." view-o-meter.
The dilemma for me or other agents in this situation is that the proper mix of show-and-tell and imagination are rarely present in buyers. If you leave issues like the view to the imagination, most people will fail to understand what they can't see. It's normal. On the other hand, the proper way to choose which trees to remove or prune really depends on where the new buyer would build a house and how they would locate their windows and decks. So, we're stuck in the middle between buyers who can't visualize the view and owners who are reluctant to choose views on behalf of clients they can't visualize either.
I'm pretty certain we can eventually persuade the seller to find the happy medium and remove a few trees and some low-hanging branches. Today, however, I showed a beautiful view...that the clients can't see.
Healdsburg Sotheby's International Realty has great listings in Dry Creek Valley.
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