Author Archives: ARDELL

About ARDELL

ARDELL is a Managing Broker with Better Properties METRO King County. ARDELL was named one of the Most Influential Real Estate Bloggers in the U.S. by Inman News and has 34+ years experience in Real Estate up and down both Coasts, representing both buyers and sellers of homes in Seattle and on The Eastside. email: ardelld@gmail.com cell: 206-910-1000

Negotiating The Offer Part 1 – The “Homeless” Seller

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[photopress:250px_Tug_of_war.jpg,thumb,alignright]It is a popular perception that every seller wants top dollar as their primary objective.  In my experience that is not always true, and in fact is often not true at all, at the time the offer is being presented.  Let’s take a step back first to see where the perception comes from. 

When a seller is speaking with agents before the home goes on market, it is true that the discussion focuses on selling the property at the highest price, in the shortest amount of time and with as little inconvenience to those occupying the home, as possible.  Agents are trained to speak in these terms, and so that is how the discussion generally goes.

At the time the offer is presented however, if there is a lengthy discussion, that discussion is often not about the price at all.  Even when the discussion is about price, the underlying pressure on the price is often about something else entirely, like the cost of temporary housing for the seller.

For many sellers, the minute they accept an offer on their home, they are immediately, though temporarily, homeless.  I can’t tell you how many times a seller has looked up at me after signing the offer and said, “I guess I’m homeless now”.

Often when a seller is picking on every minutae detail of the offer, it is because they do not know where they are going.  This is a dangerous situation for a buyer, as the seller often wants them to “make it worth their while” to leave.  You might think it was obvious to them when they listed their home for sale, that they would have to leave.  Trust me, the reality in that moment when they pick up the pen to sign your offer, that the minute they sign it they will be “homeless”, hits them like a ton of bricks IF they do not know where they are going.

Any good negotiatior considers the factors on the other side of the table when preparing the offer, or during the give and take of the negotiation process as new information becomes available. While 30 day escrows have become the norm, does that really give a seller the time they need to find their next home?  Often the seller can’t make an offer on their next home until their home is sold, or at least in escrow. If you are willing to give them the time they need to know where they are going, and match up the closing dates so they don’t have to go to temporary housing, you often will win out on price.

If you are currently renting, adding an extra couple of weeks or more to the escrow time can actually save you money.  Go out to the date where you will not be paying rent and interest on your mortgage simultaneously.  Giving the seller time to negotiate the offer on his next home can be a winning strategy in multiple offer situations and even get you the house you want at a lesser price than other offers on the table.  Consider a longer close or a post occupancy agreement when writing your offer. (Some lenders will not permit a post occupancy to exceed 30 days on “owner occupied” financing, so check with your lender before agreeing to anything longer than 30 days past close of escrow, even if longer is only by a couple of days.)

Giving the seller the peace of mind that they can stay in their current home until they are moving into their new home is generally worth up to at least $5,000 in price and sometimes as much as $10,000.  If the seller has two offers on the table, one with an escalator up to $460,000 and one at $450,000 straight up with no escalator, they often will accept or counter the lower offer, if it provides them with the ability to find their next home before having to leave the house.  Sometimes something as simple as letting the seller keep some things in the garage for a week or two can make the difference.  Sometimes giving them the entire weekend to move can make the difference.  Sometimes splitting the weekend, giving them all day Saturday to move out and leaving you all day Sunday to move in is sufficient.  Often these little things prevent the seller from pulling extra had on the price to compensate for his uneasiness and inconvenience.

The perception that the highest price on the table always wins out, is erroneous.  A seller who faces being “homeless”, will often select the offer that affords him the option to stay until he closes and can move his belongings into his new home, even if that offer is not the highest price on the table.

Hair Raising Fears of a Housing Bubble!!!

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[photopress:hair.JPG,thumb,alignright]It is very difficult for young people today to buy with confidence. There are some very real fears, and justifiably so, that housing prices can not and will not continue to rise at the levels they have in recent years. Some ask if they should wait until they have saved 20% down. Historically, most people have bought their first homes with less than 20% down for good reason. There are no guarantees that interest rates will not rise. Interest rates are still, historically very low. How would you feel if you waited to purchase only to find that prices were still high and interest rates were 9.5%?

Renting when you are a family with children has its risks. What do you do when one day the landlord knocks on the door and says “I’ve decided to sell the house and you all have to move out in 30 says”?

Anyone who can qualify for the first time buyer program at First Tech, should consider that option. It is an excellent program, with almost no loan costs and a very low interest rate. Take the time to find the very best loan program that you can and work on your credit score to insure you can get the best possible rate available.

When selecting property, try to convince yourself to buy that diamond in the rough. This way if values do not increase, you will still be able to sell at a profit. Buy the house that needs a lot of cosmetic fixes, but has good curb appeal and is in a decent area. Consider all of those areas that have only increased by 10% or 15% but border on areas that have increased by 30%. Buy that “old people” house in a great neighborhood that everyone else is turning their nose up at because it has sculptured carpet and pinch pleated avocado drapes.

The one sure way to buy with confidence is to ignore the cosmetic issues and don’t be fooled by heavy “staging” that might lure you into paying too much for the house. It has never been more important to buy wisely. It has never been more important to avoid making choices based on creature comforts like “needs nothing”, totally remodeled or brand new, less than 15 minutes to work. Don’t get tangled up in these creature comfort premiums, unless you are willing to face the fact that the tradeoff may be having to sell for less than you paid when you need to move.

There are still plenty of values and many of them require a little TLC like paint and landscaping. Be the smart buyer who isn’t crying the blues in a year or two if prices level out or take a dip.

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[photopress:heathbillboard_1.jpg,thumb,alignright] Russ and my exchange regarding whether or not Broker’s will ultimately have to deal with complaints about an agent’s blog, reminded my of this “Got Real Estate” Billboard.

It had mixed reviews nationally. Given Wendy works in Belmont Shores where lots of people have seen her with her husband and children, and dog of course, in her bikini, it really wasn’t a big deal. But it made national news when she was fired because of the billboard. Another broker picked her up immediately (no pun intended) and she actually got a lot of business in support of her, when people heard she was fired.

In agent forums, a lot of people from those landlocked states thought it was indecent and unprofessional. But in Belmont Shores CA, someone walking around in a business suit and pumps would actually look weirder than someone walking around in a bikini. When I worked in Manhattan Beach, I had to change my whole wardrobe. I actually stopped traffic when I walked around in my East Coast business attire, pinstriped business suit and white sneakers, like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. My broker told me I had to ditch my Philly digs if I was going to “work the beach”. I compromised and bought some really cool black Sketchers.

What do you think about Wendy’s billboard ad?

Duvall – Single Family Home – $350,000

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WOW! Robbie’s new super duper Zearch site is very, very COOL! But let’s put it to the test. I checked my listing in Duvall and I didn’t have a light blue dot. Seems to me a single family home for $350,000 should have a light blue dot, no? Now I’ll do a post on it and see if the post link shows.

[photopress:1.jpg,thumb,alignright] First error is that the photo that shows in Zearch is not the photo that shows in the mls as the main photo. This is a glitch in the mls system and not in Robbie’s search tool, so I have to go into the mls and erase all of the photos and reload them to correct it. Even though when I pull up the mls, I see the photo shown here of the actual house, downloads, including Robbie’s, pick up the OLD photo number one. The only way I know to fix this is to empty the entire photo cue and start from scratch. Let’s see if that works.

[photopress:2.jpg,thumb,alignleft] One of the problems with all of the available public sites is that people who are looking for reasonably priced single family homes think they do not exist. If you are not familiar with Duvall, for example, and do not realize that it is within “target range” of Microsoft and other densely populated areas, they might never search Duvall. All search engines should allow you to put in a radius of where you WORK!

[photopress:3.jpg,thumb,alignright] Here’s a question. I took this great photo of the flowering plum tree on the front lawn before I listed the property. A couple of weeks later when I put it on the market, the flowers were gone. Early spring flowering trees sometimes only bloom for a few weeks. But I love this tree in bloom! Do I have to go take a picture of the way it looks now with all reddish leaves and no flowers?

[photopress:4.jpg,thumb,alignleft] Also, I took a lot of the photos before it became vacant and before I listed the property. Do photos need to show the way it looks today, without that table and chairs?

[photopress:7.jpg,thumb,alignright] This was my “original” photo number 1, which is the view FROM the house, not a picture OF the house. I have since changed that some time ago to photo number 7 or so. But the dowloads, including Robbie’s, show it as photo number 1 as if the mls has some kind of memory bank that doesn’t update when I change the order of the photos in the mls, and only remembers that this is photo number one when doing a download.

When agents pull up this listing they see a completely different photo (the first one above) than the public sites. Again, I think this is a Rappatoni glitch, and not a Zearch glitch. I also think I know how to fix it.

Woohoo…I feel like a techie fixing download problems! Not bad for a “Granny”!

Inman asks – Not Allowed to Blog?

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3/23/06 “Hi Ardell — I was reading the RCG today and noticed a comment of yours under Russ Cofano’s blog entry that I thought was really interesting and something I’d not given much thought before. You mentioned about joining the big brands and said they won’t let you blog so you’re not jumping on board right now.. is that true? Do brands really dictate stuff like that? If so, I think Inman News might look into this more. With all the push for blogging in the industry lately, this seems peculiar..Just wondering.. thanks! Jessica Swesey, Inman News.”

While I told Jessica almost a month ago that I would do a blog post on this topic, I have to admit I thought the question was a little naive. Almost every truly vocal person in the industry is either a designated spokesperson for a company or a “one man show”. The people I know who have been on Good Morning America or quoted in the paper, are usually the owners of the company. This is true in every industry. If you are an employee of a large company, you are told that if anyone from the press contacts you, you have to refer them to the one person in the company who is designated to speak with “the press”. There are exceptions, especially if your are spouting out only GOOD things, like “There has never been a better time to buy a house!”

So the question isn’t can everyone blog, but who can pull your plug? This goes back to blogging being public and in many ways a form of adverstising. Under State Law, in every state in the country, an agent must have the name of the broker/company on every “advertisement”. Consequently an agent either has to have an anonymous blog where the agent’s name does not appear, or a blog with both the agent’s name and the broker’s name. An agent, though an independent contractor, cannot be a “cowboy” and do things on their own without supervision. The broker retains the right to both see anything that the public can see, usually in advance, and also retains the right to veto its printing.

So how do you blog everyday if the broker doesn’t have time to review and OK your content every day? You can have an insipidly bland blog that simply backlinks to other news items. Even then, many companies do not want you to “advertise” their “competition” or “discounters”, by mentioning them by name. So all of the HOT news on Zillow and Redfin and Lending Tree, could be off limits, because they don’t want one of “their own”, boosting the popularity of these other companies by mentioning them at all.

In real estate forums, when agents want to talk about Zillow, they call it “Z”. Theory is that by even whispering their name in private, you send out spiders into the search engines that cause Zillow’s name to be spread and the website’s popularity to be expanded exponentially.

Anyone who wants to truly discuss the future of the industry in a way that does not simply spout out accolades and full service fees, cannot blog via first person in a blog unless they do it anonymously. But is this NEWS? Can an AT&T employee blog about the future in a way that points out that there are improvements to be made by their employer? Can even a Microsoft Employee be quoted in print that they think Google should win the Inman Award for Innovation? Very naive of someone to think that the First Amendment applies to the little guy who has a “BOSS”.

Back around March 23rd, I interviewed with a company that treats their agents as employees. They weren’t sure if I could blog, but they were sure that I couldn’t “talk to the press” ever. Since your blog entries can be lifted and quoted by the press…they felt that it was possible that blogging activities would be limited or possibly even prohibited.

So the question isn’t whether or not you can blog, the questions is what are you allowed to say in the blog? I’m sure even Jessica has to run her content by someone to be approved, before it can be “printed” and available in the public eye.

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT!

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OK Rain City Guide Contributors! It’s time to PUMP UP THE VOLUME! IT’S “SWEEP’S WEEK”!

[photopress:puv_1.jpg,thumb,alignright] Actually it’s “Sweeps MONTH!” Everyone start posting away to show those Inman judges what a multi-faceted group we are!

And RCG FANS, go into that Inman site and nominate away!

I’ll have to come up with some insider juicy stuff…or controversy…what do you think will get the judges attention?

As Good As It Gets

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[photopress:dragnet.jpg,thumb,alignright]

*

DRAGNET STYLE

Just the FACTS, M’am

Monday 10:05 P.M. – email – Hi Ardell, my name is “Jack”. I just moved here from X and am on a mission to find a house before June when my wife and children join me. I thought I could do this using the internet but I’m finding this more and more difficult as houses I like seem to disappear almost as soon as they hit the market. I just read some of your articles including the one titled Using the internet to buy your new home and you made me realize that I need help. I’m pretty sure I know what I’m looking for and where I want to live. Here goes: Quiet and clean residential neighborhood, good elementary school. Single family house with 3 bedrooms with an additional room for an office. Two car garage. Ramblers are not my first choice. My budget is _ and am pre-qualified with my bank. MLS# 26xx is a good example of a house I like that is currently STI. Is there hope? Can you help me?

Monday 11:15 P.M. – email – Yes “Jack”, I can help you. But right now I am going to sleep. Will set up a strategy for you to be in a home that you like, before your wife and children arrive, in the morning. Best regards, ARDELL DellaLoggia

Tuesday 8:16 A.M. – email – “Jack”, What I would like to do, rather than speaking with you on the phone, is meet you at the STI house you sent me. If they are having any problems with the current buyer, we might be able to do a backup offer. I would also like to see if you really DO like it, by seeing it together. I’m assuming you have never been inside of it. ARDELL

Tuesday 8:32 A.M. – email – I work at _ and usually finish at 5:00. I could meet you at the house around 5:45.

Tuesday 9:09 A.M. – email – Let’s meet tonight at 6 p.m. at xxx Ave. I would like to see this house, and the STI house in the same neighborhood, together this evening…ARDELL

Tuesday 9:28 A.M. – email – OK. See you at 6.

Tuesday 10:15 A.M. – called listing agent of STI house. Buyer and Seller in heated negotiations over inspection issues. Will likely resolve them but seller starting to hate buyer, and so might be amenable to a buyer swiitch out. Long shot but doable. Then called listing agent of the other house I was showing, twice, determined it might sell at the same price as the STI house even though it was priced $25,000 higher. Already had an offer that didn’t end successfully.

Tuesday 6:00 P.M. – Met “Jack” at 6 as planned. Saw both houses. We both hated the STI house that looked great in the internet pictures…BUT was terrible! We both loved the other house. Asked why he hadn’t seen it on the internet. Said price was $25,000 over his max. We all drove back to my house so I could look over the comps while my partner fixed “Jack” some dinner. Told him I couldn’t promise, but I thought it would sell at the same price as the STI house if we could tie it up before the weekend. Talked till after 10:00 P.M. Wrapped it up for the evening at 10:15 P.M. so I could get something to eat besides the cookies I had at the Home Inspection. Always hire a home inspector whose wife bakes cookies.

Wednesday 8:18 A.M. – email – “Jack”, I would like your thoughts in the morning light. Before I talk with the listing agent this morning, your thoughts would be appreciated. ARDELL

Wednesday 8:32 A.M. – Jack called and said he and his wife decided to make an offer..

Wednesday 10:00 A.M. – Found new listing on the same street that came on while we were talking the night before at 8:28 P.M. emailed new listing to Jack.

Wednesday 10:43 A.M. – email – had an excellent conversation with the listing agent and started “pre-negotiating the offer” She is running over to see the new listing too. The new listing has a smaller square footage of just over x squre feet on both the first and second floors, so I don’t think it is a better house for you than the one we we saw last night. Now that I see how much smaller the new listing is, you may not need to see it, but I will see it either before or after my inspection appt. today. I did get a lot of details regarding the offer he did receive and where it soured and ended and what happened. Call you later.

Wednesday 11:41 A.M. – email – It would appear that an earlier closing date, rather than later, would be a plus to keep the price no higher than target price.99% sure we can keep it down to $10,000 over, or even $5,000 over, but smack on target price will be tough, but I think doable.Going in at anything less than target price would result in a higher counter than going in dead on target price. Leave no room for a counter. I will pre-negotiate that we are coming in with “final and best”, but leave $5,000 to $10,000 room, just in case. Offer needs to be written and submitted by 7-8 tonight, response time for seller tomorrow night or Friday night (before the weekend) and a close date of X. Just a few things for you to think about before I call later.

Wednesday 12:14 P.M. –Ran through new listing on the way to my home inspection appointment. No good. First house much better. First house $30,000 more than this one, But I think we can get it for $25,000 less. Called Jack. We agreed to meet to write offer after he got out of work and I finished my home inspection appointment.

Wednesday 4:56 P.M. – email – Just got back from the home inspection and am working on your offer. ARDELL

Wednesday 6:00 P.M.- My partner, Kim Harris, met Jack at new listing just to be sure he hated it as much as I did and also went back to “the” house, while I was putting the finishing touches on the offer, including calling the seller’s agent for a third time in one day to let her know I was faxing the offer by 7:30.

Wednesday 7:00 P.M. – Jack and my partner returned. Jack signed the offer and left so I could prepare the cover note to the contract and fax it. I need to be alone when I write the cover note and call the listing agent.

Wednesday 8:34 P.M. – email – Seller’s agent was very impressed with the simplicity of the offer and the fact that we included the initialed legal description and the signed page 5 of the Form 17 up front. She assured me that there are NO other offers at this time. We should hear something tomorrow, and I will of course call you as soon as I hear something.

Thursday 10:05 A.M. – email – CONGRATULATIONS! RIGHT ON TARGET PRICE! NO COUNTER!!


I sit back with my smoke and wonder if it is pure coincidence that the first email came in Monday at 10:05 P.M. and the final on Thursday at 10:05 A.M. If I were a gambling girl, I might play that 10-05…but I ain’t.

(music)

(credits)

How many emails does it take to buy a house?

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I belong to an agent oriented forum with 17,000 “participants”, many “lurkers”, from all over the Country and Canada.  I have been “speaking” there since 1998.  At least once a year a newer agent there asks the question: “What is the average number of emails per transaction?”.

Of course it is possible to go from start to finish with no emails at all, I guess.  Hasn’t been my experience, but I’m sure it is still humanly possible for that to happen.  Last year I had one that took close to 400 emails AFTER the transaction closed, to solve an after sale problem.  None of the emails were from the other agent in the transaction :-), though I did copy him on every email response to his client.  I was the seller’s agent.  I also had many, many phone calls and meetings, in addition to the 400 emails, and all turned out “well”. 

“Rule” is I can never contact someone else’s client in the transaction, but I must answer honestly, if that client calls me.  Usually I do tell them I will respond to their agent and their agent needs to be the one speaking with them.  But when they say their agent isn’t responding to them, I am left with no choice but to handle both sides until the matter is resolved.   I apply the same rule to email, usually.  I never email the other agent’s client in the transaction, nor do I copy the other agent’s client during the course of a transaction.  But if someone else’s client emails me directly, I respond directly, with a copy to their agent.  When you consider that those 400 emails were often directed to at least 6 people, that is 6 times 400 communications or 2,400 communications!

In my experience, the “average” transaction takes between 150 and 200 emails.  This is only my side of the transaction, so if the other agent in the transaction has the same experience, that would be 400 per transaction. Many of these copy multiple parties and only count as 1 email to 4 people.  Emailing escrow with copies to the other agent and my client, for example. This does include emails from the day I meet a potential client until the day they close on the property, and afterward if and as needed.  It does NOT include emailing property to them from the mls, as those emails do not show in my Outlook data.

Blogging is trimming down the number of emails needed to complete a transaction!  Since 1/1/2006, when I began blogging, I have noticed that many of my clients already know a lot more than they ever did in the past.  They already understand more about various transaction details, having read my blog before they contacted me.  I find they also read it during the transaction, and sometimes I direct a blog post to a specific issue at hand in a generic way.  This way I not only help my client to understand what is happening in the transaction, but the general public at large at the same time.

That being said, everyone, agents and consumers both, need to undersand that an email is “in writing”.  There are still times when I need to pick up the phone to say something that I am not willing to put in writing.  A good agent needs to know when to send a letter or a card by snail mail, when to email and when to pick up the phone.  Each of these communication mediums have their place in the transaction, and it is an art to know which to use when.

Top Ten Obstacles to Selling a Home

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In David Letterman style, let’s list the top ten things that make a buyer say “let’s get out of here!!”, when I am showing a house. 

 

NUMBER TEN: DEAD BUGS LYING AROUND!  That being said, I have to admit that not only have I sold properties with dead bugs lying around, I have bought them myself.  Often people will exterminate a home after moving furniture out and then put in new light carpet and put it on the market vacant.  After exterminating a home, dead bugs can appear for weeks afterward, and with no one living in the house, you find the dead spiders lying on the brand new light carpet.  “I said light, bright and airy NOT light, bright and buggy!” 

NUMBER NINE: SKEEVY CREEPIES!  You know, those things that make you just a tad nauseous.  Like when you open the shower curtain and there’s black gunk in the corners of the tub and along the caulk line, or in the grout spaces.  Or that thick, heavy layer of soap scum on the shower door.

NUMBER EIGHT: MAJOR FLOOR SQUEAKS!  I once had a buyer who loved to stand on these and rock back and forth like he was playing an accordian.  If I was in another part of the house talking with his wife, he would rock back and forth until it annoyed us so much we had to acknowledge where the noise was coming from.  These are usually fixable.  If it is squeaking under a rug, there are screws to put in right through the rug to resecure the subfloor to the joist.  The screw has a “break off” head that is removed once the base of it is screwed in.

NUMBER SEVEN: THE NEIGHBOR!  Good luck with that one.  I have found no cures for a neighbor’s dog who barks incessantly.  The neighbor with 8 junk cars parked on his front lawn.  The neighbor who has eight buddies drinking beers out front and lining up the empty bottles on the shared fence.  It’s not a good sign when I’m showing a house and the neighbor is whistling and saying “Hey Baby, Whatcha Doin’?”

NUMBER SIX: PILES OF DIRTY CLOTHES! I saw a really odd one tonight.  The house was completely empty until I got upstairs into one of the bedrooms.  One of the main features on the flyer was “remodeled master bath”.  When I got up to the master bathroom, the new jacuzzi tub was filled with dirty clothes, as was the floor of that bathroom and the closet and the bedroom.  Big piles of dirty clothes and towels.  Pretty weird for a vacant house.  Dirty clothes lying on chairs, on beds, on floors…once someone’s seen your dirty underwear, they don’t seem to be interested in buyng your house.

NUMBER FIVE: BIG DOG BARKING!  You ring the bell and no one answers except the dog.  He’s barking and growling on the other side of the door as if he’s saying “Do you feel lucky today?”

NUMBER FOUR:  DIRTY ROOF!  Huge piles of pine needles all over the roof or big mounds of moss growing on the roof and into the gutters.  Gutters jam full of pine needles.  If you live in one of those great places like Bridle Trails Bellevue with big tall pine trees everywhere, get out the blower and round up those pine needles!

NUMBER THREE:  BUYER STEPPED IN DOG POOP!  I know it’s been winter in Seattle and you haven’t been out in the yard for awhile.  In fact it was raining so much you just opened the back door to let Fido do his business, instead of taking him out for a walk.  And you haven’t wanted to go out in the rain to clean up after him.  But nothing says, I’m not buying this house! like the would be buyer stepping in mounds of dog poop in the yard.  Especially when you made him take his shoes off at the front door so he wouldn’t dirty your carpet, and now he’s got dog poop all over his socks and can’t put his shoes back on.

NUMBER TWO: PICTURES ON THE WALLS  Pictures, Pictures everywhere!  I know it looked great in that Pottery Barn catalogue when they took a whole wall and covered it with all different sized pictures in black frames.  Long ones, tall ones, short ones and wide ones.  Do you know what people see when they look at these pictures?  The holes that will be left in the wall when you take them all with you when you move.

NUMBER ONE: ODORS!  In my experience, this applies to all smells, both good and bad.  If you open the door and there is a strong smell of ANY kind, it is a problem.  That doesn’t just apply to pet odors and smoke or mustiness, but also bleach, pine cleaners, rose and floral scents, carpet fresheners or wall plug in room fresheners.  I can only think of one time in 16 years where I have sold the house, when I had to walk outside to get a gulp of fresh air after viewing each room.  If I feel like I am going to pass out before I make it up the stairs to the second floor,  the buyers and I are usually out of there before making it through the entire house.  Often these homes are vacant, and the owners or listing agents haven’t been inside the house, since they installed  “plug-ins” in every single room outlet, to mask some other foul odors.

Your help requested

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I would appreciate your help with the two requests below:

1) Visting Realtor from Jacksonville Florida is coming to Seattle for the week of the 4th of July.  Along with some recommendations of good restaurants, he is asking for some suggestions of what to do when in town that might interest his two sons age 10 and 15.  I have all girls and we always shop!  I haven’t a clue what 10 and 15 year old boys like to do in Seattle.  Looking for Rain City Fans to come to the rescue with some suggestions of what restaurants and activities you might suggest for “Bill and his boys”.

2) “Newly married Martie” is off on her honeymoon and landing here on May 4.  She needs a rental, two bedroom house that will allow two dogs.  Price range about $1,200 a month.  Her new husband will be taking a job at the airport, so way out of my area.  Around here a lot of rentals have signs in the windows or on the lawn and I write them down as I walk by to help people who are looking for rentals.  There is just no good one central place for rental info, especially when you want a house and have two dogs.  So anyone who spots a rental that might meet these requirements, please post the info so she can check in here when she arrives in town after her honeymoon.