Rain City Guide

It was a warm & lovely summer evening… Our hapless hero goes through his nightly ritual of sorting the junk mail from the bills when stumbles upon his annual “Official property value notice” post card from the King County Assessor.
Before I actually looked at the card, I thought, this shouldn’t be too bad. The local [...]

Larry asks: “ Isn’t it too simple a model to look at the sale price of a property by looking at the square feet of the structure? A property around Seattle, correct me if I’m wrong, has about half of its value in the land, and half in the structure. If real estate appreciates or depreciates. [...]

The rumors floated on Friday regarding Fannie and Freddie turned out to be true.  This first bailout proposal, released a few hours ago, has three parts.  I say “first” because there is no way that this is going to be enough to save what’s headed our way nor will this be the only time the government will [...]

In a recent Forbes article, “Best Cities for Bargain House-Hunters”, Seattle was listed as number 6 in the top-ten. At first I thought that was odd, since we have only seen a modest drop in housing prices compared to the rest of the country. And Seattle was just listed as having one of the “Most [...]

I grew up at 4950 Lancaster Avenue My parents purchased it for $7,000 in 1957 or so. They made nothing on it and it is now the hole that you see between the buildings. But they raised seven children there. I lived there from age 3 to age 20 or so when [...]

Frances Flynn Thorsen is raising 100K with the Web Women Giving Circle for CARE — a humanitarian organization that works with women to fight global poverty.
There is no good follow up item because everything else is void of the meaning in comparison. I recommend (1) following the links in the first point, (2) donate some [...]

My engineer friends are asking off screen for more details on a “scientific” approach to valuing property. You know, something they can put on an Excel Spreadsheet Here’s a fairly tried and true method of valuation here in the Seattle Area. This method was so accurate a couple of years ago, [...]

To some extent buyers, especially first time buyers, encourage receiving inaccurate information with regard to value and other home details, by asking the right questions at the wrong time.
Sellers understand that it takes time to work on a valuation. Rarely does a seller call and say, “I live at 123 Great Street, what is [...]

While “market value” and “appraised value” are not always one in the same, calculating a home’s value is both a science and an art, whether the value is being ascertained by an appraiser or a real estate professional.
The purpose of the valuation can actually have some bearing on the value itself. If you have [...]

When I wrote my “Baby Takes a Bow” piece which took about 30 seconds, I knew I was opening Pandora’s Box, and would have to back up my one liners with some extensive writing on each topic outlined therein.
My definition of Pandora’s Box is the one one that attributes “the box” to a “woman’s womb” [...]