The Process of Moving: A Farewell to Our Trees?

As I periodically have made rumblings about, Mrs. Denmarkguy and I are planning to move from our lovely large house that has been our home for over 15 years to a smaller space that is easier for us to both afford and maintain... hopefully next year.

There's always a lot of prep work involved in such a move and one of the things we're facing up to is the fact that what makes this place wonderful and attractive to us is in many cases the exact opposite of what makes the property marketable and valuable to potential buyers.

For example, the fringe of the property is surrounded by a number of large trees which we enjoy very much because they offer shade and they give us a sense of privacy almost like living in the middle of the forest, even though we are in a built-up neighborhood.

However from a pure marketability standpoint, those trees are partially (or largely) blocking our ostensible "million dollar view." Cutting down four large trees would reveal a grand sweeping vista of the Straits and the ocean beyond, with Vancouver Island in the distance, the local bay in the foreground and the mountains behind.

Right now, they are only visible through small gaps in the trees.

It's not that we don't enjoy having the view but we just have cut little "windows" in the trees to provide us with Zen water views from the spots where we normally like to sit and drink coffee and read books. It gives us a great sense of privacy, and protects us from the probing eyes of both neighbors and people taking walks with their dogs in the street.

As we have been aware that we were going to go through the sales process for a while, we have also been paying attention to what has happened with a lot of recent sales in the greater neighborhood.

Invariably, when one of the older properties — that hasn't changed hands in many years — has been sold, one of the first things that happens is that the new owners cut down all the trees for fronting the view so that they can have that "grand and sweeping vista."

Personally, I have never liked feeling so exposed, but according to our friend (who is a realtor) we have to think like the majority of people in the market for water view properties such as this, And not like ourselves.

I suppose it's just a reminder that some of us are very little like the mainstream. It's also a reminder that "livability" and "resale value" don't necessarily fit on the same page.

On the opposite side of that particular coin, our realtor friend pointed out that we would likely be able to get a pretty good deal on a new place because the features that are interesting to us aren't necessarily what's readily marketable to the world. Most likely we would end up in a place that from a Realty perspective would be considered "hard to sell."

At this point I'm just starting to trim a few of the trees, but in time we will likely bite the bullet and get an arborist in here to cut them down. While that will be a sad day for us our realtor friend suggests that it might add as much as $50,000-$100,000 to the sale price so it's definitely a worthwhile endeavor!

Given our ongoing financial predicaments, that's not something we can afford to ignore!

There's something slightly sad about the way pretty much everything in our world ultimately boils down to maximizing profit.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great remainder of your week!

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Created at 2025.07.29 00:37 PDT
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