Earthbag structure just went up for sale near Oroville, WA - here's what you need to know

I get pings whenever land above a certain size and below a certain price goes up on Zillow. In all the time I've been looking at parcels, I've never seen something quite like this pop up before: it's a somewhat-finished earthbag structure on 20 acres, with numerous rooms. Basically next to the US border with Canada. Here's the Zillow link - there are photos!

I don't know how old this structure is, but according to this cached Redfin listing, the structure was on the property last time it changed hands in 2019. So it's at least a few years old. Sale price in 2019 was $28k, current listing price for $85k - with no changes to the property during that time, it's a testament to the recent "skyrocketing land prices" phenomenon.

The Okanogan County parcel viewer page shows images of the structure, indicating that the county is aware of its existence. There are no building permits on this page - but this isn't a strict indicator that it's an unpermitted structure (could just be an old permit that didn't get uploaded online). However, there is a comment on the parcel page: "REMOVED VALUE, COST TO CURE" - could relate to the cost of removing an unpermitted structure? The WA State DOR code indicates that the property is classified as a "Vacation Cabin".

You can see the roof of the structure on Google maps satellite mode. Coordinates are 48.935805, -119.313178, and here's a link to those coordinates. It looks very cool from the air.

Just sharing here for the curious, and for those who might know how to glean more insights about the property from internet research. I enjoy finding out as much as I can about land on the market from the internet - and this is a particularly interesting case in the context of earthbags!

what a neat place. my understanding is that area is fairly cheap, cheap for washington anyway - thats the super dry part. but i enjoyed eyeballing a nifty modern diy castle dealio.

i think to them its broken, or in need of cure. i mean it doesnt have a completed roof, so thats pretty big expense.
but you could be right, it might have issues. idk though, i think that area is pretty ok, less red tape than elewhere, and the right cimate for an earthy structure. it also says its on an hoa, which that always makes me pause, but apparently a fairly lenient HOA as that has been there for a while.

but my best guess is cost to cure, just means they are valuing it lower than they normally would because its not complete/ doesnt hold that much objective taxable value being unfinished. who knows though. maybe not many- if any -strict codes in that area.

leila hamaya wrote:what a neat place. my understanding is that area is fairly cheap, cheap for washington anyway - thats the super dry part. but i enjoyed eyeballing a nifty modern diy castle dealio.

i think to them its broken, or in need of cure. i mean it doesnt have a completed roof, so thats pretty big expense.
but you could be right, it might have issues. idk though, i think that area is pretty ok, less red tape than elewhere, and the right cimate for an earthy structure. it also says its on an hoa, which that always makes me pause, but apparently a fairly lenient HOA as that has been there for a while.

but my best guess is cost to cure, just means they are valuing it lower than they normally would because its not complete/ doesnt hold that much objective taxable value being unfinished. who knows though. maybe not many- if any -strict codes in that area.

I have a feeling the HOA is for road maintenance or snow clearing in the winter, being so far up north. As you say, if they were able to build an earthbag house, I doubt their HOA cares about much of what the property owners are up to.

This is near-par with current land prices on the east side of the mountains in WA - which seems to be typically about 5x cheaper than an equivalent lot on the we(s)t side.

I'm not super familiar with roofs of earthbags, but these do look worse-for-wear based on the photos. It almost looks like a failed green-roof setup, with the black plastic (?) tarps and dirt on top. Could also be degraded cob?

it just looks like they never finished it. like it was maybe supposed to be an earth roof/umbrella house? possibly. or they just never finished. its just a couple of sections that look like they have no roof at all. the spires are neat though.

and totally that is a nice area of washington, in its way. theres a big barter/ craft fair in that area and it draws a lot of interesting types, artists, woodsy people, hermits.
the whole strip, like from this land all the way south past the oregon border. i knew all kinds of neat free freaky people building funky school bus house/ houses in trucks, earthships/cob etc etc etc....funky ghetto meets earth organic style.

a lot of the artisans who were a part of the west coast markets, like the artists from the portland and eugene sunday market and saturday markets....well idk whos where anymore, but i used to know quite a few people who lived in that cheap strip, the very dry side of washington. from kilickitat to up there at canadian border - tonasket. and small communities, land shares some community projects. its got a nice culture anyway, i tend to think its not whatever permit issues you may be thinking of...

besides the water issue, it has some cool ways and the climate is pretty nice although hotter than most of washington. its definitely way cheaper. that and the total opposite-- the super rainy part from forks to neah bay, also a cheap area. i used to enjoy travelling around through there, but its pretty much all just the olympic national forests and hardly no towns.

Update - this property has now sold! Sale price was just shy of $50,000, transaction cleared almost a month ago. Hoping to not see it back on the market in a year - also hoping that maybe the new owners will rehab the earthbag house?? Either way, unless they somehow stumble upon this thread, or if they do happen to try to flip the land, I probably won't be posting any more updates here.

Sadly, I scrolled to the end to see it sold, but for much less than listed for. How do you get notifications? My daughter just moved to Seattle and I would be DOWN to buy anything out there! I just got a methane digester and have solar panels- will travel...

theresa tulsiak wrote:How do you get notifications?

When you're logged into Zillow, you can set up a property search where you tell it the area and all the other parameters, and it gives you results right on the screen. But you can also save the search and when you do, you can ask for emails either instantly or in a daily digest. (You can also save/love individual properties and get updates when anything changes on them.)