Rain City Guide

February 25, 2008. The NWMLS has received information (Thurston County area) concerning a male individual who looked at homes with an agent — all of the information he provided about himself and his employment was false. He claims to be a buyer’s consultant with the Federal Government, a PhD in Physics, his wife a professor [...]

Safety is always a concern of mine for both me, my team, and my clients. Oddly enough, agents work in a profession where we and our clients are frequently targeted for a variety of opportunistic crimes such as burglary, assault, rape, and murder. Recently, notices went out from our local MLS letting agents [...]

FHA insured mortgages have received a stigma in past years for creating a challenging transaction.  Sellers seem to prefer conventional financing, even subprime financing, over an offer with an approved FHA buyer.   
The Federal Housing Administration was established in the 1930s following the Great Depression.   These innovative low down payment loans were intended to help more people become home owners with intentions [...]

When ever I’m working with a home buyer who may be considering new construction, I know I might lose them to the builder’s in house lender.   Often times the builder will offer an enticing credit to the buyer’s closing costs only if they obtain their financing from the builder’s preferred lender.   
How can having a Loan Originator [...]

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 [...]

Before everyone jumps into the pool, every agent and owner must “LOOK before they LEAP”.
The Zillow Zestimate WILL appear, of course, in the same space as your “Property For Sale” listing. The printed data is also picking up the erroneous square footage info and number of bedrooms and baths from the tax records. [...]

Ardell’s recent post on FSBOs was courageous as you won’t see many agents talk about how one might sell a property without listing it. While it may be a bit counter intuitive to some agents, one reading the post should come away feeling that Ardell (and others like her) are not in the business [...]

I find that most people who track countywide stats, looking for bubbles and market trends, are not people who are buying and selling property. Anyone who is actually buying or selling property knows, that countywide stats tell you both everything and nothing. It is in the small subsections of any given market that [...]

At first glance it might appear that Greg Swan and I are like-minded when it comes to commission issues. but not so. Greg and I do agree that the buyer should not be led around thinking they are getting a free ride compliments of the seller, and we are both part of a growing [...]

When determining how to structure an offer on a property, one of the key considerations is, “How scarce a commodity is this home?” How scarce it is to you, depends on the parameters you have set, and why you like this particular home, which varies from person to person.
If the property is unique because [...]