Sifting Sands Condos for Sale

Living in Sifting Sands

Sifting Sands stands at 840 Ocean Avenue, on the corner of 9th and Ocean in Ocean City — a short walk to the beach, the boardwalk, the rides and the pizzerias, and right where the causeway brings you onto the island. It was built in 1961 and it is one of the last of Ocean City's iconic center-city motels still operating, running every summer since 1964. In 2004 it was remodelled and converted to condo-motel ownership. It is still a working motel. You can buy a room in it.

That is the thing to understand before anything else, because it makes Sifting Sands unlike almost any other address in this town. The units are studios and one-bedrooms running roughly 220 to 410 square feet, most sleeping four with a sofa and a bed, a galley kitchen, a full bath and a dining table. They are small, they are furnished, and they are designed to be turned over. Buying here is buying into an operating business as much as into a piece of real estate.

The rental structure is specific and it is the reason people buy here, so it is worth laying out plainly. There is a required on-site rental program running roughly mid-April to mid-October. The building handles the bookings, the maid and linen service and the turnover — the pitch is hands-off, hassle-free income, and it is accurate. During that season an owner may block off up to 21 days for personal use. Outside the program window, from November through mid-April, there are no usage restrictions at all: live in it, rent it out yourself, or leave it shut. The building itself stays open year round.

Compare that with the other condo-hotels on this island and the difference is real. Ocean 7 closes entirely from late October to April. Sifting Sands hands you the winter. For an owner who wants summer income and a quiet off-season place to actually use, that combination is close to unique here.

The building is professionally managed, well funded and, by every account in the file, well run. The monthly fee is broad — water, sewer, hot water, cable, Wi-Fi, use of the heated pool, parking for one car, building fire and flood insurance and exterior maintenance. Owners pay their own electric, their property taxes and interior contents insurance, and that is close to the whole picture. There is a coin-op laundry room, a finished sun deck with a gas grill, a guaranteed parking space, beach tags on loan for tenants and on-site cleaning.

One more thing that matters more than it sounds: Sifting Sands is pet-friendly, which is unusual for a building that rents this heavily and is a genuine differentiator for owners and tenants both. If you are looking at income property on this island, the other buildings with formal programs are The Flanders, Biscayne Suites and Beach Club Suites, and the full Ocean City condo market covers everything else from the boards to the bay.