Watching trends in the daily market watch of the MLS August 20, 2008
I’ve been keeping an eye on some of the daily trends in the MLS and have noticed for several weeks now that price reductions have now outnumbered new listings on an almost daily basis. In past years, when almost all houses were selling fairly quickly, we noticed that a small percentage of houses required drops and there was usually a decent number increasing their prices.
Now, it seems that as days on market have increased for many sellers we are finally getting that reality check in place that was needed. Granted, it does seem that the majority of these price drops are in the outlying areas of our MLS region, but the inner-city urban spots are not without their own new reality.
What I like right now is that we’re getting a nice balance of buyer and seller activity, which, for my own personal business/team, means that we’re likely going to be growing our business over the next year or more with some very nice results.
Do you know where to find info on septic systems and your responsibilities? August 7, 2008
A client of mine is planning on selling a property soon and he’s trying to get his proverbial “ducks in a row” before going on market. He asked me about what his responsibilities are with regard to his septic system and he also wanted to know if he needed to do an inspection or pumping of the system prior to selling. If you are not familiar with this process either as a buyer or seller, here is a great website with details about septic systems for you to learn about. It’s specific to King County so if you live outside this area you’ll want to see if your own county has a similar website with info for you.
If you just want to learn more about septic systems (also called onsite sewage systems) and how to use them properly and care for them you can read through this information, also from King County.
Mr Monk Buys a House July 16, 2008
Mr. Monk returns to TV with a premiere episode this Friday, July 18th. This one will be near a dear to our hearts. He’s going to buy a house! That’s right. Here is your most OCD client in a life-imitates-art drama.
When his new neighbor plays his music too loud, Monk decides it’s time to move. He makes the big leap and buys a house that turns into a money pit, reminiscent of the 1986 movie that we agents like to give to first-time buyers who think they are ready for a fixer-upper. Things continue to challenge Adrian when he hires the handyman from hell who is determined to rip up the entire house. Brad Garrett form Everybody Loves Raymond guest stars.
Happy 4th of July! July 4, 2008
Taken from my bedroom window through the glass using that Lumix camera that Galen recommended.
Here’s a few more. Happy 4th of July everyone!
Pocket Listings in Seattle? June 23, 2008
I was a meeting this weekend with an agent in Southern California where he showed me a website he says he visits a couple times a week. A competitor had built up a large repository of “pocket listings” for the Beverly Hills area and then stuck them behind a registration wall… of which he visited regularly.
Being a Rain City Guide kinda guy, I’m not keen to put things behind registration, but I am fascinated by the idea of putting together a page of pocket listings as a resource for Seattle area agents and consumers. If you’re an agent who serves any area supported by the NWMLS and you’d like to advertise a pocket listing on RCG, let me know in the comment below.
If I get 5 or more pocket listings in the comment section of this post in the near future, then I’ll assume there really is demand for such a tool in the Seattle area and I’ll start up a new page (right between “About RCG” and “Seattle Agent Recommendations”) for pocket listings.
Here’s the only information I need from you:
- Neighborhood
- One to two sentence description of the listing
- Contact information (name & phone)
For obvious reasons, I’m assuming that most agents won’t want to list the address of the pocket listing, but if you want to include that information as well, all the better. And just to be clear, this is a free service of RCG. Assuming it becomes a lot of work, I may charge a nominal fee to cover my time and/or automate the system, but I honestly don’t see that happening in the near future.
Are there rules for getting your pocket listing on RCG? Most definitely! But I don’t even know what they are yet. However, I will definitely figure out some rules if people start abusing the system. Some potential rules that come to mind: (1) Only allow agents to list their top 3 pocket listings, (2) must let me know if a pocket listing gets listed on the MLS and/or (3) must let me know if a pocket listing is no longer available. But even those rules aren’t hard-and-fast yet until I get some feedback from the community.
So, if you are an agent intersted in getting some additional exposure for your pocket listings, let me know!
Fishing season is officially open! June 4, 2008
To this title you might ask, “which salmon is available?” Well, I’m not really talking about fish with scales and fins here. What we’ve noticed over the past month is that the fishing with low offers is getting pretty common in a lot of price ranges. These occurred in neighborhoods ranging all over the area too including Greenwood, Phinney Ridge (x2), Bellevue (Bridle Trails), and Mercer Island.
Some of these properties I can understand the desire of investors to lowball and get a bargain. One of these homes I had listed was already priced to be a good value for the neighborhood so my clients completely ignored some extremely low all cash offers from an investor because they weren’t THAT motivated to sell - meaning, we’d only been on market for about 30 days. Now, 2 years ago being on market that period of time would have made some people nervous but, realistically, most homes take longer than just a few hours to sell or even just a couple of weeks. So, we ignored the first 2 ridiculous offers and another one came along (still low). We put forward a counter with a very small price change and the buyers took it. WAKE UP CALL! We’re not in a buyer’s market in the Puget Sound region. We’re in a balanced market.
What I’ve noticed in talking with all of the agents submitting offers for these various listings I have is that they’ve all bought into their client’s mindset of thinking that “it’s a buyer’s market” and they should be able to really drop prices via their offers. But the agents aren’t helping their clients by doing the work associated with helping “sell” those offers.
Yes, there are some sellers out there that are still hanging on and desperately wishing for the days of the high flying markets we had for 5+ years, but reality is kicking in for most and the scales are becoming more balanced. This isn’t the rust belt where the economy has sunk and houses have sunk lower. If you’re a listing agent you had better be able to justify your pricing. And, if you’re a buyer’s agent you should do the same for your offer. One lowball offer we received my partner went back and asked the guy to submit his comps that supported the offer. The agent’s reply was, “well, I don’t have any, it’s just what they wanted to offer.” Our client almost completely ignored their offer except for some details we pointed out that led us to believe they’d accept a counteroffer with a minor price change - and it worked.
Another listing had an agent providing comps but they just solidified my client’s view that our pricing was right on. We did go ahead and submit a counter with a faster closing date and some small concessions that we expect will be accepted.
I will admit though that with a couple of my buyer clients, who are not in a hurry to buy, we’re doing some of this offer roulette. We submitted an offer on a MI house for about $100k less than asking price but we also put forward our pricing analysis and comps that supported the price point. The house had had several large price drops based on other agent feedback as well and it was definitely a cosmetic fixer. It might have worked out for my clients except that the house got another offer the same day - it was still a very low offer but not as low as ours so the seller started negotiating with them. But, that’s okay because my clients are willing to wait for the right deal for them. This house was going to need roughly $200-400k in updates over time so from a cost perspective the price we offered was what they were willing to spend knowing the costs they’d incur later.
Having watched the low offers come in for one of our listings my client provided the impetus for this post by saying in an email, “well, it looks like fishing season is officially open!” I’m glad that she’s got a good head on her shoulders and a good sense of humor too. These are the clients you really enjoy working with especially when you can have sensible discourse with regard to your work together, market conditions, strategy, and more.
Happy fishing! 
8 New Seattle Neighborhood Blogs Added to Neighborhood Round-Up May 29, 2008
Since my last Neighborhood Round-Up, we have 8 new Neighborhood blogs added to the Rain City Guide Blogroll. When I go through the existing blogroll reading the neighborhood blogs, I am always looking at their blogrolls to find new ones to add to RCG. Two weeks ago I emailed Dustin the most recent ones I found, and he added them…did ya notice?
So I want to introduce our 8 new Neighborhood blogs, please welcome….
Over at My Ballard , the struggle to FREE Ballard from 101 years of oppression is being marked with a free prize at Archie McPhee…just say the Secret Word!
Moving to Southeast Seattle, The Rainier Valley Post announces all (it’s quite a list!) the fresh goodness now at the Columbia City Farmers Market.
Central District News reports that a CD P-Patch will soon be growing from a vacant lot.
A Tree Grows in Capitol Hill…8 Block Walk is worried about a favorite Pocket Park tree.
How to bike to work from an island…photo essay from Surrounded By Water: A Mercer Island Blog
At The South Lake you can make your mark on a poll…”Do you pay to ride the S.L.U.T.?”
cap to the hill reveals a secret place…joe’s bar…to spend some time.
inBelltown …well, “it’s currently down while we undergo maintenance. We’ll be back online soon!”…is missing it’s RCG debut!
New Seattle Neighborhood Blogs…. Welcome to the Rain City Guide Blogroll!
May Day Seattle Neighborhood Round Up May 1, 2008
It’s May Day today in Seattle and hopefully we are now finally into Spring and warmer weather. To celebrate the return (not to mention the return of the Neighborhood Round Up after its unscheduled winter hibernation) are a few Seattle Neighborhood Blog postings on Spring….
Happy May Day Seattle!
Alki marks the time for Tulips at Pike Place Market, and Ballard Avenue marks an earlier, colder Tulip!
Over on Broadway Seattle the warmer weather is bringing fresh produce…another kind of “produce” is noted on Capitol Hill Seattle.
Arbor Day festivities last weekend in Issaquah Undressed. Market fresh produce is coming in May to SammaMishmash .
Kirkland Weblog and the False Spring Day on April 12th, and Spring brings color, blooms and babies on Queen Anne: All About the Neighborhood.
Spring brought more than flowers to Lake City Blog…Tweedy and Popp! And lastly, a different “sign” of the Rites of Spring in West Seattle Blog.
Thank goodness Spring is finally warming up!
Taking on KING/KONG… September 18, 2007
Yesterday I was interviewed by a KING-5 reporter, Kim Holcomb, and which I had written about on my blog at this post. I had jokingly referred to taking on King Kong but only because the news segment was shown on KING-5 and KONG-6 last night.
The news story was about how the market here is changing just a bit to more of a stabilized market. At the beginning of the report a seller talks about it being a “buyer’s market” but I wouldn’t necessarily agree with him completely. We’ve still got room to move before that happens and if anything we’re more balanced than the past 5 years. The segment did run on both KING and KONG stations and, from what my business partner tells me, it is one of the most viewed and forwarded links from the KING-5 website today. Here is a link the actual news story about the Seattle real estate marketplace along with pieces of my interview.
It seems we’re (Team Reba) getting a lot of press lately. I was interviewed in July for a story on blogging for the RE/MAX Times back in July (released in September) and just last week I was interviewed for a real estate investment magazine which will be printed in the November/December time frame. Now, if I could just get the interviewers to pronounce my name correctly…. 
How walkable is your neighborhood? September 17, 2007
In late August a press release was sent out by Mayor Nickels office regarding plans to increase sidewalk construction in areas of the city where there are none now. Many buyers I talk to on a regular basis tell me they want to live in neighborhoods with safe streets where they can walk to and from shops or to be able to take their kids safely to local parks, etc. I personally love having sidewalks in my neighborhood. An online tool that can be used to determine if your area has good “walkability” is this site: http://www.walkscore.com/
A large portion of the northern section of Seattle is without sidewalks since they were developed prior to being within the city’s borders (most areas north of 85th St). An article in the Seattle Times highlighted this area and others recently noting how expensive it is for cities to add sidewalks, but because city inhabitants have been vocal for it Mayor Nickels is going to give them what they want. Or is he?
Here is a link to the city’s current plan to add sidewalks, most of which is supposed to be funded by new construction: http://www.seattle.gov/DPD/Planning/Sidewalks_Improvement_Initiative/Overview/
Now, let’s compare that to a notice I received from the Master Builder’s Association as shown below. As I read it, the MBA doesn’t want to take on the responsibility for the costs of adding the sidewalks. If they do, they will, of course, pass it on to the consumer (buyer of their developments) and as a result the cost of the sidewalk will go up multi-fold because there will be added costs from the builder on top of the original cost to install. I don’t know if the city can get a “bargain” compared to the MBA developers or not but I would think that it would be inefficient for the city to try and manage all of the independent developments and the sidewalk needs of those as they happen ad hoc around the city. Perhaps if the “fee in lieu” were to go directly into a pot that could be used for ad hoc installing of sidewalks I’d feel better about it, but I’d also be concerned about whether or not that would be managed well too.
The Mayor’s Sidewalk Announcement
The long anticipated Sidewalks Initiative was announced today by Mayor Nickels and is available at: Sidewalk Press Release.
Should the proposal pass, sidewalks, curb and gutter would be required for all new development in Urban Centers and Villages and along any arterial. The threshold for the remaining portions of the city would be lowered to 3 units. For more detail, goto: Seattle Sidewalks.
The MBA is proposing a fee in lieu of program that would bank sidewalks and allow the city to contract with the lowest bidder to install all sidewalks—I assume the city gets a better deal than we can. The goal is for members to avoid the long and expensive SDOT review.
Thanks again for the suggestion.