Rain City Guide

It’s Time for another Top Ten! Those of us who have been to 100 too many home inspections can practically stand behind a home inspector and mouth what he is going to say next, when it comes to these “Top Ten Things A Home Inspector Almost Always Says”. No we don’t do [...]

My very first entry here on RCG discussed the manner in which a buyer and their buyer’s agent negotiate the buyer agent commission. Being a “Discount Broker” and Negotiating are not one in the same. A “Discount Broker” usually has a set fee or menu of services with set prices. Many traditional brokers have a [...]

I was quite encouraged by a phone call I received yesterday from an agent wanting to discuss how to approach fee negotiations with a buyer. Not how to object to the subject. Not how to respond if a buyer raises the topic. But how to introduce the concept of negotiating the fee to a buyer, [...]

Nine times out of ten when someone asks me this question, the house does not actually have a .25 bath. The mls here in the Seattle area requires us to count bathrooms in a specific, and somewhat outdated manner, causing many homes to appear to have a .25 bath that do not. 
I will shortly be [...]

In the under $500,000 market, good properties are flying off the shelf. In the last two weeks, we were chasing properties with our client in multiple offer situations from Bellevue to Edmonds. It’s a tough market to work in and gets very discouraging to our buyers. When a market is this hot it always [...]

We are, for the most part, in a “normal market”, meaning that in some segments, it is a Seller’s Market, while in another segment, in the same city and price range, it is a balanced to Buyer’s Market. I used this sample to show how, in a small geographic area and price range, you [...]

Anytime you see a house listed FSBO at over $200K below market you gotta wonder what’s going on. This particular one on Craig’s list was just down the street from my home so I decided to take a look.

$307000 - 4 bedroom fhouse or sale by owner
4 bed 2 bath completely remodeled inside in desireable [...]

… just by bringing bagged lunch and brewing your own coffee. Ignore your raises to save the rest. Also, lots of calculators including a balloon calculator.

Seems to me that misinformation fuels many of the conversations regarding relationships between agents and consumers in today’s real estate marketplace. So let’s take a crack at one of Craig’s comments in #48 of Dustin’s post.
“If the mls were “open” - i.e. anyone could list - then agents will have an even harder time [...]

Where to invest next in Seattle/Eastside neighborhoods? I’ve been thinking about the list Seattle Metropolitan Magazine came up in April (see below). With gas prices up, rapid transit going in, I think the next hot spots will be along those rapid transit routes like what happened in San Francisco and Portland.
Here are 2 lists, one [...]