Schools  (families with school-age children and college students) and 1 level living (retirees) are big drivers of that here.

IMHO when intending to buy and hold you look at long term demographic drivers - population, employment, school quality, low availability of land...

This may be another driver for raising/razing the property if it floods often.Check the municipality's flood map for construction. 

It's your property and you are in the driver seat. 

There was an uptick in market activity for August (per HAR), and maybe that was the main driver behind it, families wanting to be settled for the school year.  

Usually they are people who don't invest in real estate themselves but are in a position to know something about an area or houses for sale in an area (such as a school bus driver). 

The other driver for an attached ADU is to sandwich in the external wall plumbing which has been giving me problem the past few winters here.  

I work as an Uber driver so it might be something I can incorporate!

BUT... he's got no website, no license as a lender (he's in Washington State, so I don't know if it's required to be licensed as a private lender there, no 1033 just the shortest application form I've ever seen that doesn't even ask for my social, just my driver's license number and a copy of my DL, and all no doc... no bank statements, no tax returns... no credit pull? 

Driver around all the streets and look for vacant houses.