Half-Acre Double Lot with Lake Access Near Cle Elum Ski Country — $149,000

The lot is the story here. Two parcels on Canyon Lane in the Sunlight Waters community, totaling 0.53 acres, sold together. In a recreational community where most people are working with a single tight lot, having that much combined ground is a different situation entirely.

The house is 760 square feet, built in 1971, two bedrooms and one bath. The agent copy calls it a fixer-upper, which is the polite version of saying it needs work. At 760 square feet, there is not a lot of house to wrestle with, but what work it needs, you would want to know before you commit. The listing does not say much beyond that.

What it does say is that Sunlight Waters comes with Twin Lakes access and a community pool. That is not nothing. The draw to this part of Washington is the outdoor calendar: skiing, hiking, the water. Being in a community with lake access built into your ownership, rather than chasing a separate lot or a membership, is a straightforward convenience.

Cle Elum sits in Kittitas County on the east side of the Cascades. The area pulls people who want a base for skiing at Snoqualmie Pass or access to the trails and lakes in the region without being stuck in the denser recreation markets closer to Seattle.

The math is what you are really looking at here. You could use the existing house as a camp cabin while you figure out a longer plan, hold both lots, or eventually look at what building options a half-acre in this community allows. The agent copy gestures at flexibility without saying what it actually means, so you would need to verify what the local zoning and HOA rules permit on the second lot before assuming much.

At $149,000 for two lots with lake access and a community pool in a recreational area, the price is doing a lot of the talking. Whether the fixer-upper is a manageable project or a teardown conversation is the question you need answered in person.