Thanks for a great 2019.
November 2019 | Home prices ticked up in October
Landlord: 101
I am often asked for (non-legal) advice on being a landlord, so I decided to put together a short guide to being a landlord. This is not intended to replace the expertise of a property manager. If you don't have time to manage your own property, hire a professional! But if you want to save a little money and don't mind the legal risks, here are a few basics that I've shared with clients over the years.
October 2019 | Shifting sentiment among buyer
September 2019 | The market slows heading into Q4 | Should you refinance?
August 2019 | Home sales slowing as we head into fall
July 2019 | Second quarter market reports are out!
June 2019 | Seattle market update (early summer edition)
March 2019 | The spring market has arrived | How do contingent offers work?
Trading up
Americans have more equity in their homes than ever. But using that equity toward a down payment on your next home isn’t as simple as you would hope, and can involve significant risk. My aim in this post is to help you learn how to protect yourself by using a home sale contingency (aka “contingent offer”) to buy your next home, or to consider other options that might make sense for you if you’re looking to move.
Wrapping up 2018
I'm thrilled for all of my clients who made moves this year. Some bought their first home; others moved up to homes they may not sell for decades. I helped two friends from grade school make "move-up" purchases with what will soon be their own elementary-school-aged children! Read on for more stories from 2018.
Does remodeling pay off?
Pondering a remodel? Did you know some projects actually pay for themselves when it’s time to sell? Remodeling Magazine just released its 2018 Cost vs. Value report, which provides a detailed analysis into how much popular remodeling projects cost—and the value they add to your home—in various regions across the county.
Good bones: the inspector's perspective
Good bones: the architect's perspective
Selling Your Home Without an Agent
News headlines make it seem like selling homes is easy. Plenty of folks probably wonder whether they need a real estate broker at all. But most DIY sellers leave thousands of dollars on the table by skipping important steps when selling their homes because they don't have the tools to handle marketing their home or negotiating the best deal.
Q1 2017 Market Report
Unless you’re living under a rock, you know that our region is growing like a weed in a swamp. Windermere just released Q1 market reports for Seattle, Mercer Island and the Eastside. The median home price in King County just hit $600,000 while Seattle’s median reached $700,000, double the 2012 level during the recession. If you bought a home five years ago—or two years for that matter—you should be sleeping well!
Remodel Series: Part 5 | We’re Done!
This is the last post in a series meant to shed light on the mysterious (and seldom exposed) process of remodeling. I hope these posts are useful to you if you’re considering a remodel of similar scale; I think they’ll lend insight into the challenges and decisions we’ve faced during our project and, of course, the reward at the end.
Remodel Series: Part 4 | Design
We started this project thinking we had a strong sense of the direction our design decisions would take. But designing a home is much more about solving problems than going shopping, so we hired a designer (our architect’s wife) on an hourly basis to help us out. We were worried about choosing trendy finishes that would look dated a few years down the road or would be impractical for our active household.
Remodel Series: Part 3 | Choosing Cabinets
Cabinets are a big deal. I’ve seen 2-year-old cabinets that look like tired and unreliable. Our 1959 home in West Seattle has original cabinets that have held up incredibly well and look great. Beautiful, durable cabinets are really important to us because we hope to make our kitchen the hub of our new home.
