Puget Sound Real Estate and Community Blog

Here’s an interesting clip from Larry King Live during an interview with Donald Trump. 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2961136074832015378

The Renton Community Marketing Campaign showcased the city and its brand “Renton. Ahead of the Curve” in a television commercial first aired during the NFC Wild Card game which the Seattle Seahawks won 35-14 over the Washington Redskins. The ad will also air during the Super Bowl XLII pre-game show. The ad Features John Keister, the contrite comedian who used to pan Renton for its blue collar image on KING-TV’s “Almost Live.” To read the press and download the ad click here. 

David Edwards

REALTOR

Keller Williams Realty Southeast Sound

Phone: 425-890-8045

E-Mail: david@davidjedwards.com

Website: http://www.davidjedwards.com

Blogsite: http://www.davidjedwards.com/renton-info-blog.asp

Mobile Site: http://davidjedwards.mofuse.mobi

David J Edwards is a full time real estate agent and REALTOR with Keller Williams Realty specializing in Residential Real Estate for buyers and sellers in Renton, Newcastle and South Bellevue Washington.

According to the Washington Association of REALTORS, the Washington real estate market is a stable and responsible marketplace for home buyers.

The foreclosure rates today are the same as they were 10 years ago. Fewer than one percent of mortgages end in default in Washington state.  As of Mid-June, sub-prime, adjustable-rate loans represented 20 percent of loans nationally, but just 6 percent of home loans in Washington.

According to the Washington State University Center for Real Estate Research (CRER), home appreciation in Washington continues to out-perform the rest of the nation with year-to-year price increases in every quarter since the spring of 1995. Home prices in Washington have increased an average of 8.1 percent since the same time last year. The demand for median-priced homes has never been greater.

The home market in Washington isn’t keeping pace with the growth of the state’s population, which is continuing to increase at 1.8 percent per year. According to the Washington State Office of Financial Management, the state’s population will increase by nearly one million over the present decade and reach 6.8 million by 2010. About two thirds of the growth is due to in-migration; the rest is a result of the growth of families now living in Washington.

The housing squeez is forcing some families to take on more debt than they should. Others compensate by accepting longer commutes than they want. Neither is a good situation. We need to provide a variety of home choices to meet changing market demands.

The key to stability in the residential real estate market is balance, where balance is about a six month supply of homes available on the market at any given time.

On the September 26th broadcast of the Today Show, Jim Cramer from Mad Money told Meredith Viera ”Don’t you dare buy now… you will lose money”. Realtor Associations across the country then demanded that NBC instruct Cramer to correct his statement.

The next morning on CNBC’s Squak on the Street, Cramer was asked if he would like to correct his statements on the Today Show… his only correction was that Seattle is still a good place to buy homes. If you’d like to see the video of Cramer’s correct and statement, check out the video by following this link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=533257614.

I am sure you are tired of listening to the doom and gloom of the national media. What is going on in Florida, southern California and other parts of the country does not represent the market in Washington.

Gary Keller is the founder of Keller Williams. His take on national real estate market reporting is this, “Residential real estate is not a national market product - it is a local one. To say from a national position that this is either a good time or a bad time to buy real estate is like saying the national forecast for the U.S. today is 92 degrees - it is a useless and irrelevant perspective. What is happening in your local market is all that matters.”

On that note, I can’t speak for the problems other parts of the nation are experiencing but this post is intended to help show the strength and stability of the Washington housing market specifically.

David Edwards
REALTOR®
Keller Williams Realty Southeast Sound
Phone: 425-890-8045
E-Mail: david@davidjedwards.com
Website: http://www.davidjedwards.com
Blogsite: http://www.davidjedwards.com/renton-info-blog.asp

David J Edwards is a full time real estate agent and REALTOR® with Keller Williams Realty specializing in Residential Real Estate for buyers and sellers in Washington’s Renton Highlands, Newcastle and South Bellevue.

Barbee Mill in Renton’s Kennydale neighborhood was the last operating sawmill on Lake Washington before it was shut down and sold last year to make way for new homes.

A family of Osprey had been nesting atop a piece of sawmill equipment that was to be torn down. According to Renton Magazine, the birds and their descendants had been returning to the nest at the mill annually for at least a decade so the owners of Barbee Mill built a platform atop a 25 foot pole upon which a video camera has been affixed, not far from the original nest site in hopes the birds would accept it. They did and this is their second year using the new nesting site.

Check out the live webcam by visiting http://www.appart.com/osprey/. The chicks have hatched and the nest is a flurry of activity. As of this morning, the site has had more than 90,000 visitors.

At one point, Osprey were an endangered species but efforts to address the cause of their dwindling population have proven succesfull and they are failry common again in much of the country.

David Edwards

REALTOR®

Keller Williams Realty Southeast Sound

425-890-8045

E-Mail: david@davidjedwards.com

Website: http://www.davidjedwards.com

Blogsite: http://www.davidjedwards.com/renton-info-blog.asp 

David J Edwards is a full time real estate agent and REALTOR® with Keller Williams specializing in Residential Real Estate for buyers and sellers in Renton and Newcastle Washington.

16 Minutes (60 Minutes Spoof)

The following is an excerpt from an article titled… “Point2 adds more fuel for compensation discussion” by Glenn Roberts Jr. which was published by Inman News on Tuesday, May 29, 2007. I agree with these comments wholeheartedly.

Morgan Brown, a blogger who owns a mortgage company in Irvine, Calif., stated in a blog comment that that the Point2 video was “uber-lame and unfunny.” He said later that Point2 “did a very shrewd thing” by creating a viral video that was targeted to their customer base. The video “generated buzz and surely won them more business by playing to a sensitive issue. On the flip side, the piece could potentially damage the industry by making full-service Realtors look catty and immature at a time when Realtors need all the ‘image’ help they can get.”

Ron Ares, an Oregon real estate broker, stated in a blog comment that the humorous take on the “60 Minutes” segment “fell a little flat.” He told Inman News that the “tone and content” of the original news program did leave itself open to satire; “the spoof doesn’t exactly provide a cogent response. I trust that enlightened consumers can determine the facts from the fiction … and the farce.”

And Athol Kay, a Realtor for Prudential Connecticut Realty, said the spoof was “unbearable to watch” and questioned whether the video’s discussion of Redpin pricing was “hate-filled smearing.”

A blog commenter identified as “Barb” stated that full-service real estate professionals “have been tolerating some pretty ugly labels of late,” and also offered up a statement that “isn’t mine, but it bears repeating: ‘There have always been consumers who prefer lower cost over quality. And there will always be agents willing to deeply discount their fees in order to gain their business.’ To criticize or disparage another member’s choice of business model is not consistent with the spirit of the Code of Ethics and unlikely to garner respect.”