We Buy Houses in Marshall, CA

Wastewater has long been the central issue on the east shore. When Marin County planned the East Shore Wastewater Improvement Project, surveys found that roughly a quarter of the septic systems in the area were failing, that most Marshall properties sat next to or over the bay with less than 50 feet of setback, and that the soils could absorb little effluent. Tomales Bay is listed as impaired for pathogens under the Clean Water Act, and the oyster farms depend on clean water. The county built a community wastewater system, a project of about $3.2 million, that now serves roughly fifty properties along the shore. A house connected to it is far easier to sell than one still on an old onsite system.

Houses outside that system, or on the hillside, still depend on private septic, and the shoreline lots have almost no room for a replacement. When a system fails inspection, the fix can involve an engineered design and lengthy county review, and a lender will not close until it is done. We buy with the septic as it is.

Building over or beside the water raises title and structural questions that an ordinary house does not. Pilings, decks and foundations exposed to salt water deteriorate, and repairs need coastal permits. Title work also needs to confirm what land the owner actually holds, since the boundary at the water's edge and the rights to tidelands below it are matters a title officer will examine. These questions are not unusual in Marshall, but they slow a conventional sale and sometimes stop it.

The San Andreas Fault runs along the floor of Tomales Bay, directly offshore. Marshall's houses were built close to it from the start, and most of the shore has been occupied since the railroad era. Fault proximity bears on insurance and on disclosure, and on older piling-supported structures it can make an underwriter cautious. It does not change our offer beyond what the condition of the building warrants.

Marshall property seldom comes up for sale, and when it does it is valued mostly for its water frontage. A well-kept shoreline home connected to the community wastewater system, with permitted improvements and solid pilings, can draw strong interest from buyers looking for bayfront property in Marin, and we will tell such an owner to list it. The cash market is for homes the conventional buyer cannot finance or does not want to take on: a cabin on a failed septic, a house on rotting pilings, a hillside home with unpermitted additions, or an estate with title questions.

The commercial side of the shore shapes the town's character. Shellfish growers lease bottom in the bay, and Marshall is a center for oyster and clam harvesting. The Marconi Conference Center State Historic Park sits on 62 acres just south of town, on the site of the receiving station built in 1913–14 for Marconi's trans-Pacific wireless service. The station later belonged to RCA and Synanon before becoming state parkland in 1989. Nearby residents live with visitors, delivery trucks and the traffic on Highway 1.

East of the highway the land climbs into dairy and grazing country, and parcels there are larger, often with a ranch house, outbuildings, a well and septic. These sell more like farm property than shore homes and have their own financing problems. We look at each parcel on its own merits.