To Landlords and sellers in City of Seattle - new rules w/ fines… Get up to speed! January 31, 2007
Important Fair Housing Notice for Seattle
The City of Seattle has recently adopted a new ordinance that requires all real estate professionals (including brokers and property managers) within the city limits to prominently display a fair housing poster in their place of business. The poster is available at http://www.seattle.gov/civilrights/outreach.htm under the link for “Housing Issues.” The new posting rule takes effect January 31, 2007, and failure to post can result in a monetary fine of up to $500. If you have questions, please contact Elliot Bronstein, Seattle Office for Civil Rights, at 206-684-4507 or by email at elliott.bronstein@seattle.gov.
First, let me state that I am a BIG believer in Fair Housing and all that it stands for. As an agent I have unfortunately seen more than I care to of people still showing discrimination when it comes to property sales and rentals. It disgusts me. And, while I know that I uphold the law in this area there are plenty of those who don’t and now the City of Seattle has decided we need to provide more readily apparent documentation of the requirement for Fair Housing. In some ways this is good as a reminder to everyone about the law but there are definitely some stiff penalties that come with it.
Starting today this new rule goes into effect in the City of Seattle. The links in the details above (1st paragraph) will take you to the City of Seattle site and you’ll want to scroll down to the Housing Issues section to find the PDF poster you can use. There has been ongoing ambiguity about the placement of these posters - the rules say to post the sign at places of business but does it mean the rental, house for sale, office of the agent, or the owner of the property? The local Rental Housing Association of which I am a member helped fight what they could about this new ruling - about the only thing they were able to do though was to push out when it took effect (it was supposed to be last year) and they got the first fine dropped from $500 to $125 but each subsequent day of non-compliance is $500 per day. A pretty hefty fine so pay attention here!
I can say that Team Reba will plan on having signs in each of the properties that we sell in the City of Seattle - just to be sure. We’ll also make sure to notify our clients of the new rules. For those that live near Seattle and who own rental property it will be good for you to know too as this kind of rule could be imposed in your town. Get organized and consider joining organizations like Rental Housing Association http://www.RHA-PS.org if you want to have a stronger say in local rulings. In the meantime though, don’t forget to put up your poster. I would guess that this applies to all active listings that are currently outstanding in the city.
Sphere: Related Content$68,745.00 Paid to Rain City Guide Readers
Well I have to admit that it has been a very, very odd year indeed for me. I stumbled into the world of blogging, and I had no idea where it would take me. Well it took me into a totally consumer-centric view of my world.
Transparency turned out to be much more transparent for me, than for my “blogclients”. I started experimenting. I did not change how I worked in any way. But instead of simply charging what I “normally” charged, or what most agents charge, I decided to view the commission as “a retainer fee”. I then changed it at the close of escrow, to what I perceived to be a fair value for the services rendered.
Sometimes I changed it on day one and that worked out OK. But then in some cases, I found that what I thought would be fair on day one, turned out to be too much at the end, and so I “settled up”. Only once did I have to renegotiate what was agreed upon on day one by raising it, and the client and I both agreed on a different and higher amount. We did that about halfway through, as he changed his parameters, and we both agreed the situation was greatly affected because of that. But I addressed it as soon as it was going sideways, so he had plenty of time to change agents if he and I could not come to terms on a new commission. Fortunately that was not necessary, because we both agreed that the original negotiation was based on factors which did not hold true as time went on.
The stories, which I will try to detail on my blog tonight, will be covered in a somewhat vague manner, as I have to retain the confidentiality of my clients. But I will try to give the stories in a way that we can all learn what a true sliding scale of different fees for different services might look like. A commission schedule that is so fair, that no client felt like they overpaid, and several even felt like they underpaid. And the one man who got the service for free, almost forgot that he wasn’t my client at all 
I never calculated the end result of the total monies returned at the end of the day, until tonight. It is almost three in the morning, and no one is more surprised than I to see that $68,745.00 was paid to my “blogclients”. While most of those clients had read both my writings here on Rain City Guide and my blog, I have to attribute the bulk of the clients to having come to my blog via Rain City Guide.
There were a couple of times when I went a bit overboard, and I admit there were a few times when it hurt like hell, especially in the beginning when I was “training myself” to view the settle up at the end as fairly as I could. But I can honestly say that the couple of times I erred with regard to fairness, I erred on my side of the fence. I did that because those particular clients were injured by someone before me, someone in the industry who “did them wrong”. I felt the need to compensate them for what happened to them, before I entered into their world.
Most importantly, when you treat your clients fairly, when you discuss commission issues openly with your clients, both buyers and sellers, everyone is happy at the end of the day. I treated them all like family. I charged them what I might charge my Mother or my Sister or even my own child, well…maybe some more like my cousin I charged a fair value for the work at hand. And while even I am amazed at the total tonight, and frankly it hurts…it really does, I know in my heart that every single time, it was a fair assessment of a valid cost for the services rendered.
It doesn’t break down to a flat fee or a fixed percentage. Some needed a lot more assistance than others. Some found property quickly and some took a very long time. Some sold their property quickly, and some took a very long time.
I’m looking over my list and only $2,175 of the $68,750.00 was paid to someone who “asked for a discount”. Almost all of it, was offered to them by me, without their needing to ask for it. Most of all, my “blogclients” have truly been a joy to work with. They totally trusted me to have their back. They totally trusted me with their most important goal and they totally trusted me not to treat them unfairly in any way shape or form. Not just about the money part, but in all things. Every single one felt I had gone above and beyond the call of duty. And every single one appreciated my efforts on their behalf at the end of the day.
I would very much like to take this opportunity to thank both Dustin and Anna Luther, for this wonderful opportunity. I also thank them on behalf of my “blogclients”, who are all grateful for having Rain City Guide to help them through what might otherwise have been a more difficult process.
The internet is truly a wonderful thing, and we are all learning to use it to everyone’s best advantage. We no longer simply “surf the net” to suck up information. We use it as a vehicle to form relationships, both business and personal.
I need to put the actual stories on my blog because we are really not permitted to discuss commission specifics in a “group” setting, under anti-trust laws. And also because this post is already way too long
To First Page of Google in 7 Hours! January 30, 2007
Isn’t blogging grand! I got a call this morning from a nice Realtor from Saline County, Arkansas named Wally Fry.
I was a little ticked at first because he said he got my name from Top Producer, and they told him to check out my blog as an example of how to blog. My first thought was Holy Sh.t! Batman…I can’t take a call from everybody in the Country who signs up for a Top Producer Blog! But he was such a nice guy that I couldn’t be mad at him, so after talking to him for fifteen to twenty minutes and checking out Central Arkansas while on the phone with him, I came up with an idea.
Where there you go, Mr. Wally Fry of WallyFryRealtor.com is already on the first page of Google at number five or six. Doing better than me even. Of course it took Wally to follow through on my idea, and he was spot on it in a jiffy! What a fabulous opportunity there is for those getting into real estate blogging today, especially for those who are in areas where the concept is still really new.
Thank God and Gore for the Internet!! Good Luck, Wally! I’ll be mentoring him for another couple of weeks, but I can already tell that he’s very quick on the uptake and a fast study. By the time other Realtors in his area “catch on” to the concept of blogging, he’ll be way ahead of the pack.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Perennial Borrower
It must be since we’re just a month past the holiday spending, and the credit bills are rolling in, that I start to receive a couple frantic phone calls from clients who say something along the lines of “I know I told you that I would get my act together last time, but.…” It bothers me to keep refinancing them but what service am I doing if I refuse and tell them they need to work on their credit cards first or to stick a budget? They can’t and/or won’t. They’re on a slippery slope and what if they just go elsewhere to an unscrupulous lender? People who feel they are in a desperate position may be easily taken advantage of.
Case in point, a recent long-time client was too embarrassed to return to me last February to refinance and went through her trusted bank. She now has a very high rate along with the same returning revolving debts. (In the bank’s defense, I have not seen the HUD-1 from her closing…yet). Now this person is in a worse mess. I have watched her credit score dip lower and lower. Yes, I can refi her again. Instead, I wish I could just “fix it” or more likely “fix her” and stop this cycle.
Perennial borrowers will continually gobble up their equity to pay off debts from living beyond their means. And, there will be always be a (good or not so good) lender to help them with their refinance to pay off their debts all over again. Believe me, as a Mortgage Planner, I spend a great deal of time and care trying to help clients develop a basic budget and better financial habits.
Eventually, they will most likely have to sell their homes because there is not enough equity left to pay off the credit cards any more and the only loan programs left, if any, are so horrid that even they refuse to refinance again. Hopefully, they’ve been able to leave at least 10% equity in their property to pay the closing cost to sale and maybe have a few bucks left afterwards.
I know I’m venting…it’s just a real challenging position to be in.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Perfect Real Estate 2.0 Company
If I had millions of dollars like Jim and Shirley Wilson now have (254M Powerball this week) I would create what I feel is a void in market today. I would take a Zillow like property evaluation tool and add a social networking back end to it. This was actually some of the conversations Dustin, Robbie and I had over a year ago when I was first introduced to RCG.
Anyway, what the market needs now is a valuation tool like Zillow that is enhanced by taking in to account neighborhoods, the particular street the house is on, the property’s zoning, the neighbors to your left and right and many many more. Zillow has added features to allow home owners to update their statistics for a closer estimate, but there is nothing out there that allows the brainchild behind Web 2.0’s success… YOU! (also a reason I feel the Web 2.0 bubble is far from bursting).
This would allow owners, neighbors and most importantly realtors to add comments to their communities, neighboring houses and their own house. I can only imagine how valuable this content would be to future home owners. Matter of a face, this would add some type of accountability to neighbors and home owners to be ‘good neighbors’. I guess this would be like a Better Business Bureau for home owners. I am sure all of the tenured agents out there have heard horror stories of their clients having troubles with a new home where the Form 17 disclosures could not provide any protection. This would be especially valuable in multi family communities.
San Francisco’s my-currency launched today looking to tap in to this resource. John Cook’s blog talks about it as My Currency takes on Zillow which I understand, but I feel the underlying message here is putting the power in the people’s hand. It is easy for a site to put together stats that combines total square footage by numbers of beds/bath times a special area by area multiplier (I assume this is similar to the formula most of these sites use), but the does that mean someone will actually pay that price? If this were true, I would sell my house today for 200k more than I think it is worth because Zillow says so
2006 Statistical Review and Highlights January 28, 2007
Straight out of the horses mouth. I noticed these stats posted by the NWMLS today. I found a smilar post on their public site, nwrealestate.com. You can see the detailed story here
During 2006, members of NWMLS. . .
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- Reported more than 96,000 closed sales with a combined value of more than $35 billion
- Experienced a 6.7% drop in number of units sold compared to 2005, but an increase of about 5% in the dollar volume of the closed transaction
- Reported 1,951 sales of single family homes priced at $1 million or more (up from 1521 during 2005) and 859 sales of condominiums priced at $500,000 or more (up from 623 during 2005).
- The MLS area covering Bellevue/West of 405 had the highest number of million dollar-plus sales with 219, followed by Central Seattle/Madison Park with 165. For high-end condos ($500,000-plus), west Bellevue had the largest number (183), followed by Belltown/downtown Seattle (130) and Kirkland (117); 145 condos sold for more than $1 million
- Among the 19 counties in the MLS service area, San Juan claimed the highest median price ($539,500) for single family homes that sold last year; King County followed at $425,000
- Maintained a high ratio of cross-sales: more than three of every four transactions were listed by one office and sold by a different office
- Added 139,814 new listings of SFH and condos to inventory, with the highest volume (14,541 added during June
- Represented more than 30,000 home sellers, on average, each month
- Reported double-digit price gains for SFH compared to 2005 in all but one county
- In the four-county Puget Sound region (King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap), only about 6% of single family homes sold for under $200,000
- Sold more than 15,000 condominiums, about the same as during 2005; approximately 63% of all condos that sold system-wide were in King County.
- Found wide variation in prices of 3-bedroom homes. For pre-owned homes (built 2004 or earlier), the median sales price ranged from $124,900 in Grant Co. to $508,000 in San Juan Co.
- In King County, the average price of a single family home that sold in 2006 was about 2.9 times higher than the price in 1990 (up from $178,187 to $518,108).
NWMLS at a Glance
Member Brokerages Sales Associates Counties included in Summary Report
Appalling Statistics
Recentlyk Reba Haas wrote a post about theft of copper from new construction sites.
Today the NWMLS reports that this theft is still on the rise. Here are the appalling statistics.
The thefts since January 1st have occurred in the following areas:
- Area 54 - Tacoma area - 1 theft reported
- Area 72 - Edgewood area - 1 theft reported
- Area 100 - Auburn area - 1 theft reported
- Area 140 - West Seattle area - 1 theft reported
- Area 500 - Newcastle and Newport Hills area - 7 thefts reported
- Area 550 - Union Hill area - 1 theft reported
- Area 760 - Darrington area - 1 theft reported
- Area 730 - Meadowdale area - 1 theft reported
Appliances, staging furniture, copper are being stolen, by apparently opening the nwmls keybox without a keypad, since the use of a keypad would be recorded.
What do we do next? Iron gates and patrol dogs?
Sphere: Related ContentAmazing Access
My husband was helping our son remodel in Portland this weekend. I had alot of work to do, keeping up with new classwork and working on business. I was going to stay home but decided it was lovely weather and I’d travel along with him so I could see my kids, too.
Having been in college when learning programming meant using keypunch cards, (A key punch is a device for entering data into punch cards by precisely punching holes at a designated locations :)).I have to constantly remind myself to remember how mobile my work now is. There was nothing that I had to do at the office that I couldn’t do sitting in the car with my computer on my lap, including this post!
I remember the first time I left the office with my cell phone and talked to a customer in Nordstrom. I pretended I was in the office and that I had time to talk. I remember the feeling that I could really do almost anything as long as I had my cell phone with me and no one would even know I wasn’t at work.
The craziest was when I got an offer on a listing about 10 minutes before pulling out of Miami on a cruise. The deal came together, the seller never did know I was not in town and I handled the whole thing from the ship’s computers. I don’t turn my business over to an associate unless I have to, and I don’t tell my clients where I am unless it’s necessary. So for a work-a-holic like me, It’s amazing how much free time I have now with mobile phones and now, the mobile office.
So, Randy is waiting for me to get back on the road where I can get back to listening to my lecture series online and typing a blog on my laptop plugged in to the battery with my really slick sprint card. I’ve already answered several emails, searched for a handyman in Vaughn for a client, done a CMA for another client and emailed all the results, while driving up I-5!
It may be that I never really get away from the office, but at least by bringing the office along with me, I can now even enjoy the hours I put in on the job.
BTW, my son is moving from his 1910 bungalow 2100 sq ft home in NE Portland worth $600,000 to a 3600 sf ft new home in Vancouver on 1/2 acre with more bells and whistles than I knew exsisted for $650,000. And it’s only 20 minutes away. Location, location, location.
Sphere: Related ContentDoctor, I have this weird …
Okay, teaser lead…literally. In our mail tonight we received a “Letter of Intent to Purchase” for our home. This letter is an offer to purchase our home for 20% more than what we bought it for. I’m “in the biz” and this does not appear at all to be from a legit real estate agent. This interested party is offering us 20% more than what we purchased our home for a year and a half ago and is offering to purchase our home “as is”. Every few months, we receive a letter from a real estate agent with a very interested buyer to live in our neighborhood…but nothing like this. I did run this proposed buyer’s name out of morbid curiosity on my favored title company’s site, and they would qualify based on their current home and mortgages (assuming they would sell).
So, Rain City Doctors (Trusted Advisors) is this normal? We are not selling and we plan to stay here quite a long time so the point is moot. What I’m wondering is:
- Is this how people are trying to buy homes now?
- Do we owe this person a response
- Should I just take two aspirin and call you in the morning?
To Catch a Predator January 27, 2007
Syndicated Columnist Kenneth Harney will report in his column tomorrow morning that the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, U.S. Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has made it clear that his top priority will be enacting nationwide mortgage lending standards to protect consumers from predatory lending.
I was recently asked by a national housing coalition to sign an endorsement letter for the purpose of showing Congress that there is broad support for federal anti-predatory lending standards which do not preempt state laws. These ideas will be included and give to Rep. Barney Frank:
As Congress begins a new session, we respectfully ask that any new anti-predatory lending legislation be based on the following principles:
- Considering a borrower’s ability to repay in lending
- Eliminating the incentives for steering borrowers into predatory loans
- Ensuring that loans are serviced fairly
- Protecting the right to go after predatory lenders
- Preserving states’ rights to protect against predatory lending
- Preventing foreclosures
Let the wild debate between banks/mortgage brokers and consumer advocate groups begin! This is one area where the banks and brokers will more than likely combine their lobbying dollars together.
The biggest concern I have for any new federal law is: How are we going to regulate this? Is the money going to come out of my tax dollars? I don’t think so. IMHO the money can come from the profits of bank, credit unions, lenders, and brokers. If you don’t want to self-regulate your own industry, then please don’t make the rest of us pay for it.
We can always ask Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC for help. “You’re naked, holding a container of cool whip and you’re trying to sell an adjustable rate, interest only, pay option ARM to the cute 18 year old mortgage lending prospect in the next room. Is that accurate?”
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