Seattle Real Estate:

It’s a sign of the times that this question has been coming up a lot lately. Before the market took its current turn, bank owned transactions were pretty uncommon and short sales where downright rare.
Bank Owned Commissions Work Like Any Other Sale

Learn more about bank owned homes in the Seattle area - read articles, search [...]

In the same week that a potential client asked us if we charged any fees on top of our commission, I read the following:
“Although questions about their legality remain, a growing number of real estate brokerages are charging consumers flat fees on top of their traditional percentage-based commissions.”
We can add this one to the list of [...]

You’ve probably heard about the First Time Home Buyer tax credit of up to $8000.  How does it work?  Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions compiled by the Washington Association of Realtors.
A quick summary:

First time home buyers
If you (or your spouse, if married) have not owned your principal residence for the past [...]

We’re hearing a lot about values of bank owned homes these days. There has been debate in some circles on whether or not foreclosures and/or bank owned homes should be used as comparable sales for determining market values in an area.
Naturally, this has led to a great deal of interest in the appraised values of [...]

It’s not surprising that we’ve been getting lots of questions lately about bank owned real estate in the Seattle area.  One question that keeps popping up in various guises has to do with qualifications to buy a home that is owned by a bank.  For example:

“Can first time buyers purchase a bank owned home?”, or
“How [...]

When you’re conducting a Seattle real estate search, how can a potential buyer tell details about the ownership of the home?  It’s tough - sometimes you can tell based on the information that is supplied online, and sometimes you can’t. 
In this market, we’re seeing lots of real estate listings with varying situations with ownership:

Check If [...]

Inquiring minds want to know how agents get paid on new construction, or least one person in our viewing audience is curious about it.
In most cases, Realtors get paid commission off either the sales price or the base price.  What’s a base price?  Different builders define the term base price in different ways, but it [...]

A question from our viewing audience:
“How do you pronounce Rion?”
Alex and I are often asked how to pronounce our last name.  Shortly after we were married, I crafted the following memory device.  It has served us well.
“Rion.  Like Lion, but with an RRrrrrr.”
It almost always gets a laugh and it’s so goofy it helps people remember [...]

I found this article in the Seattle Times “Make your home less inviting to mice.” The article offers some very good advice. There is one suggestion that I wouldn’t necessarily take unless that was all I had to work with. It says “Steel wool makes a good temporary plug.” Sadly it has been my experience [...]

I try to keep track of the searches people type into search engines to end up at our site.  From time to time, someone ends up visiting based on a question or certain search term that we touch on, but don’t necessarily cover in depth.  Recently, I noticed a new one that falls under that [...]