Rain City Guide

A title rep sent me an email today that gave me a head’s up on a new site I’d not seen before called www.Zilpy.com. It looks a heck of a lot like Zillow but with data on rents instead of home values. I’ve been playing around with it a bit and while I [...]

I’ve been a big fan of Tamara Simon and her landlord focused classes for some time. She’s been kind enough over the years to provide slimmed down versions of them for my clients and other public classes I’ve sponsored over the past 5 years. So, today I’m giving her a plug for an [...]

An excellent class that is offered through the Rental Housing Association is coming up soon. Tamara Simon of Koss Property Management has a been a long time owner of her own business and well respected colleague in the real estate industry and a professional that we’ve referred many a client to for help with [...]

No, I’m not talking about a new abdominal workout but rather advocating that landlords be on top of things when choosing who to rent to. I bring up the topic to highlight that the majority of landlords don’t do this kind of research using instead a “gut check” to determine if someone is lease-worthy; [...]

The anecdotal evidence is out there when we have relocating singles, couples and families contacting us for help in finding a short term rental to stay in as they come to the Emerald City for a new job, school, or otherwise. Some of these folks are also looking for a 1-year lease because they believe [...]

So, I haven’t been on RCG for a while because I am gone from Seattle to Wichita, KS where I and my siblings are on hospital watch. My parents were hit by a drunk driver on Monday night and so I caught a flight here immediately since both of them were in the hospital with injuries. My [...]

I’m constantly amazed at how many people don’t get renter’s insurance when they are renting a house or apartment. Did you realize that if a major catastrophe happens to the property you’re renting that the landlord is not responsible for your belongings?  You should.
Renter’s insurance is relatively inexpensive for the peace of mind that it [...]

Thanks to John Cook post on Real estate timeline debuts, I found the greatest site for Apartments, Rentals, Sublets and Roommates I have seen. HotPads.com provides users with the ability to find dwellings based on Density, Per Capita and Median Age/Renters/Rent. They even use census data to color code their maps based on [...]

I’d like to open this thread up to a conversation on the health of the Seattle market…
but there is a catch. I will not allow it to dissolve into a conversation about racism, liberals, RCG, or faith. If you’d like to have a reasonable intellectual conversation, you are more than welcome to participate. If [...]

When moving to Seattle with the intent to buy a home, don’t overlook the option to do a temporary rental. The main benefit of a short-term lease is that it buys you time so that you can check out the neighborhoods, and ensure that you don’t make a hasty home purchase decision. The main disadvantage [...]