Hedlin property sale gained Town $8,075

All the figures and details for the almost two acre Hedlin property on Maple Avenue that the Town of La Conner bought and then sold the same day this past March are complete. This third Weekly News story has additional figures from the Town and the settlement statements from the title company.

Using Town figures, including staff time and easement paving costs for preparing the property for development, the profit is a little over $8,000, as Mayor Ramon Hayes stated in his column in the paper last week.

The critical changes are, first, in the purchase price, originally announced at $625,000. A 2020 $37,000 option to hold the property became part of the purchase price. The cost was $662,000 to buy the property by an April 2021 deadline.

To avoid a second $37,000 option the purchase had to be completed by that April date. It was not. The Town paid $699,000 for the property. The $26,000-plus in preparation and closing costs brought the total to $725,409.

The Town sold the property for $800,000 the day it purchased it. It gained $1,637 in tax credits.

The $43,154 in selling costs were primarily the $40,000 costs to the Windemere Realty brokers representing the Town and the buyer for Landed Gentry Homes.

La Conner’s total costs for buying and selling the Hedlin’s Maple Avenue property were $768,562, based on the buyer and seller settlement statements prepared by American Land Title Association.

The other changes are internal costs and an easement agreement. In March, Town Administrator Scott Thomas wrote in an email, “I would say that we probably have over $10,000 in staff costs into this project.” Last week Hayes included “minus 15k for paved easement” in an email providing calculations.

The Town’s net profit is $8,075. See table below.

The Town, however, did not sell the entire 80,000 square feet. Through a restrictive covenant included in the sales agreement deed it retained, in perpetuity, the use of 24,000 square feet, 30%, for a park on the northwest corner fronting Talbott Street.