Sea view and sea facing are two terms which should be self explanatory. However, it is surprisingly something that a lot of people get confused about. I find that even some real estate agents are unaware of the difference. This blog although short should be a good guide to understand the difference between a sea view house and a sea facing house.
→ Sea Facing House
A sea facing house is exactly what it means. The house faces the sea. Imagine if you are sitting in an eye blinking contest, you are facing the person bang on. There is nothing between you and the other person. A sea facing house is exactly that. There is nothing between you and the sea (or the ocean depending on your geography). You have an unrestricted view of the sea for the lifetime of the house. There will not be any kind of obstruction between you and your house in the lifetime of your ownership or existence of that house. Most of the times a sea facing house is touching the beach. You would have direct access to the beach from your house. That is the purest form of a sea facing house. You can check out an example of a sea facing bungalow to understand the concept of a sea facing house.
→ Sea View House
A sea view house also is exactly what it means i.e. you can see the sea from your house. You can have a distant view of the sea or have a close up view of the sea from your house. So say you are 1 km away from the beach but your apartment is on the 50th floor. You will most likely have a sea view from your apartment. However, if you are on the 1st floor of the same apartment building. You cannot see the sea from your apartment, then you obviously do not have a sea view apartment.
Now imagine you are on the 20th floor of the same apartment building. There are twin towers of 30 floors ahead of your building with a good 30 meters gap between the,. Your apartment is placed perfectly in the middle of the twin towers such that you can see the sea from ONLY the loving room of your apartment. Guess What! You have a sea view house. It is a partial sea view, interrupted sea view but a sea view house nonetheless. You can checkout an example of a sea view apartment in this YouTube video.
Yes there is a thin line in the definition of a sea view house. I have been in apartments with a SLIVER of a sea view where the owners boast about it. You have to explain the subtle differences as politely as possible to them. If they are genuinely interested in selling their apartment, then they will understand.
The same concept applies to lake view and lake front houses or an ocean view and ocean front houses.