We Buy Houses in Inverness, CA

Fire insurance is the most frequent reason an Inverness owner calls us. The ridge is Bishop pine and Douglas fir forest, much of it regrown thick since 1995, and the houses that burned were in the Paradise Ranch Estates and Inverness Park neighborhoods along the Drake corridor. Carriers know that history. When a policy is non-renewed and the only option is the California FAIR Plan plus a wraparound policy, a financed buyer has to qualify with that premium included, and on many ridge homes the numbers stop working. We pay cash, so a bound policy is not a condition of our closing.

Ground movement is the second. The 1982 storm caused substantial slope failures along the ridge, closed Sir Francis Drake for several days, and led residents to raise money to dredge and stabilize the creeks afterward. Many houses sit on cut-and-fill pads above narrow private roads in the First, Second and Third Valley drainages. A house with a cracked foundation, a sagging deck on cribbing, or a drainage problem shows up in a buyer's inspection and leads to a geotechnical contingency that can run for weeks.

Water service differs depending on which part of town you are in, and buyers sometimes discover that late. Inverness proper is served by the Inverness Public Utility District, which collects water from springs and streams in those three valleys on the slopes of Mount Vision, filters it at two plants and serves about 520 connections; the same district runs the volunteer fire department. Inverness Park and Paradise Ranch Estates are served instead by the North Marin Water District's West Marin system. Every house treats its own wastewater, and on steep, shaded, clay-rich lots a failed leach field can be expensive to replace.

Then there is the building stock itself: board-and-batten cabins from the early twentieth century, shingled 1950s and 1960s houses, and owner-built additions that predate any permit. Moisture under the forest canopy rots sills and decks. Unpermitted bedrooms and studios do not count toward appraised value, which turns a fair asking price into a failed appraisal. We buy these houses as they are.

The village center — the Inverness Store, the post office and the library along Sir Francis Drake near the bay — is the oldest part of town, with small cottages on modest lots. North of it, Seahaven and the roads toward Tomales Bay State Park hold larger lots with bay views. South of the village, Inverness Park and Paradise Ranch Estates, a hillside subdivision of about 140 home sites bordered by the state park and the National Seashore, carry the clearest fire history and the most insurance trouble today.

Buyers come mostly from San Francisco and the East Bay and want privacy, forest and the Seashore trails next door. They pay a premium for a renovated house with a view and back away from anything needing structural, septic or insurance work they cannot price. Shopping, schools and services are in Point Reyes Station a few miles away, and the nearest large-town services are in San Rafael, roughly an hour over the hill.

Because so much land around Inverness is permanently protected — the National Seashore on the ridge and Tomales Bay State Park along the shore — the stock of private lots is fixed, and good houses rarely sit long. The problem properties are the exception, and they are the ones we buy.