Rain City Guide

While I was preparing my morning rate quote (I’ll follow up at RCG this afternoon in case of a rate change), I thought I would run a couple scenarios on how much your credit score now cost you…just one digit off and you are paying more for your mortgage.
The following scenarios are based on a [...]

Google is now predicting traffic in the future to help you avoid nasty Seattle traffic on freeways, but that is nothing compared to…
Microsoft’s Clear Flow doesn’t just tell you that traffic usually sucks on Thursdays at 5:30 (because if you’ve driven on I5 twice at rush hour, you already know that). It tells you the [...]

Let’s take out the Crystal Ball and a mountain of stats and make some predictions for 2008.
Here are my predictions for residential (not condo) sales in 2008:
16,500 will sell by year end.
3,583 sold in the first quarter (fact not prediction)
4,455 will sell in the second quarter
4,950 will sell in the third quarter
3,927 will sell in [...]

About two years ago when I did property or land searches I would log in to the MLS. With technology advancing like it does, now I find myself searching for real estate with other sites (Galen’s is one of my favorite). The best sites all tend to use MLS map searches as their [...]

It’s been tough for agents, a long hard winter, particularly for agents who have not had their license for five years or more. Tough for most everyone, but particularly for newer agents.
I hadn’t heard from my friend, Michael Creel, “heard” in the sense that I had not seen him write a blog post for [...]

I’m beginning to wonder. I’ve always put the clients best interest first…it’s just something I naturally have to do in order to be able to sleep at night. There has been a time or two when a real estate agent has told me that my job is solely to provide mortgages and not [...]

Dear Jillayne,
I have two residential loans that have been referred to me, one from a mortgage broker in Colorado and another from a credit union. Both LOs have already taken the loan application, gathered all the supporting documents, and sent the loans through the lender’s automated underwriting system. The credit union is unable to [...]

Surprise on the breakdown of First Quarter YOY. While condo volume is down 41% compared to 1Q-2007, condo prices are holding steady and may even be going up. Single family homes are down 33% as to volume, but as Case Schiller reported and I have tonight verified, single family home prices are back [...]

The Tim launches the Naked Loon.
Also see: Citizen Rain and Seattle MetroBlogs coverage.

With the new credit score based pricing, rates below are based on a 720 credit score. Most mortgage rates are now credit score based. Mortgage rates continue to be very volatile and often change several times a day.
Conforming Mortgage Rates (loan amounts up to $417,000 for 1-unit properties). The [...]