Category Archives: Seattle Real Estate Guide

Seattle has many wonderful communities and on the blog posts below you can out stories that talk about some of these communities. If you’re looking for more information about communities then considering checking out our post on relocating to Seattle.

Paying a fair price for the home you buy.

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One of the problems with today’s real estate inventory of homes for sale, is that it is difficult to determine if the asking price is a fair price. Today I received an email noting that the price of a home was reduced by $200,000. It is today $300,000 less than the day it went on market about three months ago.

Think about how scary that is to a would be home buyer! Someone could have paid $300,000 more for it than the asking price today, and who knows? That “new reduced price” could still be $300,000 more than someone will end up paying for it. This is particularly true of the home I am referring to in this post. (as an agent I cannot mention the address, and will have to delete it from the comments if someone else guesses it correctly. Let’s stick to the general point of the post and assume many homes fit this broad description.)

I want to talk to you today about a totally out of the box approach to buying real estate. It isn’t necessarily a new concept, it is simply the same strategy used in the hot market. In the hot market when there were 3 offers “in” when you wrote your offer, you automatically attached an “escalation clause” saying “I will pay X$ more than the highest offer up to X$ cap price”.

There are two homes on market, one each for two of my clients that my clients like, but we are agreeing that the asking price is too high for that home, and higher than any buyer will be willing to pay. In the meantime the seller is not ready to take an offer at what we consider to be a “fair” price for the homes in our “saved homes” watch list. We, the buyers and I, have attached a price to the homes that the buyer would pay, that is substantially less than the current asking price.

The way the market works generally, is buyers save these homes and wait for the price to come down. On the one hand they are afraid someone else will buy it at the price they are willing to pay. On the other hand they don’t want to get into a negotiation stance that might draw them above what they are willing to pay.

Let’s use a hypothetical. Let’s say the asking price is $999,950 and your price is $875,000. It would be fairly simple to put in an offer of $850,000 or X$ more than any other offer received with a cap of $875,000 in the next 30 days. Offer may be withdrawn anytime prior to acceptance or extended at the end of this 30 day period.

Many years ago during the last market like the one we are in now, I did something like this for a client. Slightly different. It was an abandoned very nice home. The owner did not have it on market as a short sale, they simply moved out when they stopped making their payments and moved out of State. The Bank had not foreclosed, and so the Bank could not sell the home or even consider offers to purchase. There were many people who wanted to buy the house. In fact one of the agents whose clients wanted the home, sent that client to me (which is how I got the client in the first place) as they could not determine how the buyer could get the house, it not being for sale. In fact half my business that year came from local agents who sent me situations they could not figure out in the weak market. Odd, but true 🙂

I wrote an offer at a ridiculously low price, which was also the highest price my client could afford to pay. The buyer was willing to give it his best shot, realizing that his best shot might not be good enough. I wrote the offer and sent it to the bank, who did not own it. I wrote a response time of 30 days. Every 30 days I had the buyer and his wife come into my office and rethink whether or not they still wanted that house at that price. If they said yes, I had them sign a short 30 day extension to the offer. This went on for nine months.

One day the Bank was within the time range when they could foreclose on the house. That’s one thing people don’t understand about short sales. The bank can’t always foreclose when they want to foreclose, and the person who put the offers into that file is not the person who opened the file to start the foreclosure proceedings. Banks can’t always answer your short sale offer when you want them to. The day the bank was ready to start the foreclosure process, they opened the file and found an offer inside with nine 30 day extensions. Rather than begin the foreclosure process, they called me and accepted my client’s offer.

There was never a for sale sign on the property as it was technically never for sale. My buyer client asked me to put a sold sign on the property so that would be buyers would stop going inside it while we were “in escrow”. I went over and put a sold sign up. Within two hours 21 people called screaming that they wanted to buy that house, but their agent or attorney told them they had to wait until after it was foreclosed on. One even told me he had already purchased new kitchen cabinets for it, and they were sitting in his basement.

I know there is an old saying that “the early bird gets the worm”, but in a market like this one we need to fall back on a completely different idiom. “patience makes perfect”. If you do the right things while being patient, you just might end up with a perfect result for you and your family.

Should you sell your home?

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houseFive to one, more people are asking me if they should sell their home vs. if they should buy one. That said, I have more buyer clients than seller clients. Those buyers are simply not asking IF they SHOULD buy. The most difficult scenarios are those who need to do both at the same time, who cannot buy unless they sell, and who don’t want to put their home on the market until they know where they will go if and when it sells.

I ask three questions when someone calls or emails me asking if they should sell (now).

1) Why are you thinking about selling it?

2) When did you buy it?

3) Have you “cash out” refinanced it since you bought it, and if so, when?

When you read articles like this one, and see that Seattle Area home prices are at April 2005 levels (I agree) and peaked in May of 2007 generally (I say July 2007, but close enough), it should tell you that if you purchased during that timeframe, and even between April 2005 and present, it is highly unlikley that you will be able to sell it without bringing money to closing.

Funny…no one talks much about “bringing money to closing” these days, though it happens probably at least as often as a “short sale”. Everyone assumes “upside down” homes are “short sales”, when in fact many sellers simply walk into closing with a check the same way that buyers do. Even people who are qualified to do a “short sale”, often have to bring money to closing. Just because the home sold for less than was owed, does not automatically mean that the difference was waived permanently or temporarily. Sometimes the owner pays it in full, and sometimes the owner pays it in part.

Let’s take a somewhat ludicrous example to make that point. Say the net proceeds of the sale is $500 short from covering all expenses. Likely that $500 is going to be paid by someone, and not worth going through the “short sale” process. Another example: If someone is making their payments, has $100,000 in the bank and makes $120,000 a year and is “short” $20,000, not as likely that the lienholders are going to approve a short sale. That “seller” should be bringing $20,000 to closing. This is VERY important for agents to understand as many are listing homes as short sales simply because the amount owed is in excess of current fair market value. That is NOT the only criteria to “selling short” without bringing the needed difference to closing. If the owner can choose to stay in the home if they are not approved for a short sale, if they have the means to stay and plan to stay if they are not approved, that home should really not be on the market.

Given the knowledge we have that current prices are at April 2005 levels, give or take, let’s apply that to a specific example:

Should you sell your home if you bought it in January of 2004, and are relocating with your family to another State? Let’s say it is a 2,400 sf home in Redmond in X neighborhood, for example. I see several sales in the tax records of 2,400 sf homes in that neighborhood in the 1st quarter of 2005, all selling at approximately $530,000 which is about $100,000 more than they sold for in early 2004. Cost of sale is about 8%, so let’s call expected net proceeds after sale and possible repairs at inspection at about $90,000. Always best to round down to worst case scenario. Let’s call it $75,000, because you don’t want to put your house on market with the highest of expectations. Great if you get them, but not great if you have a vacant house on market for 6 months because you “want” $90,000 net proceeds.

If you would sell it if you could walk away with $75,000 plus your down payment back, then yes you should probably sell it. One reason you might want to rent it is if you want to “leave the door open” to possibly coming back if you don’t like your new job in that new State.

If you refinanced that same house in 2007 for $650,000, then you likely want to rent it for some period if you can, so you can take the loss as a write off by turning it into a rental property vs. a primary residence before you sell it. Check with your tax accountant before putting it on market for sale.

I can’t go through a lot of examples here in the blog post, but know that:

Why are you selling it?
When did you buy it”
Did you do a cash out refinance after you bought it?

are the three most important questions to be answered, that the person who is advising you needs to know before answering the question.

If an agent says “YES! You should sell it!” without asking these questions before answering, that probably means they just want a listing so they can get buyer calls from the sign and advertising, and use your home as “inventory” to get buyer clients. 🙂

Predatory Short Sale Negotiators

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I received a call the other day from a consumer who was in the process of purchasing a short sale home.  The homeowner has defaulted on her mortgage and the trustee sale auction has been postponed a few times now that this buyer’s firm offer has finally reached the lender’s loss mitigation decision-maker.  Once the offer was accepted by the seller, the homebuyer was surprised to learn that there’s a third party involved, a “Short Sale Negotiator” who is charging an additional $9,000 fee on top of the real estate commissions paid to both the agent for the seller and the agent for the buyer. The Short Sale Negotiator is demanding that the homebuyer sign an agreement that the homebuyer will be responsible for paying the $9,000 fee.  The homebuyer emailed me asking what I thought of this additional fee and could I offer some advice. 

The first thing I did was to find out the name of the Short Sale Negotiator company, the owner of the company, and the person who is doing the short sale negotiating. I discovered that the negotiation company is owned by the same person who also owns the real estate firm where the listing agent works.  I also ran the name of the short sale negotiator and discovered that this person IS a licensed real estate agent. 

Readers please note that WA State’s regulators recently changed the real estate licensing laws and there’s a great FAQ section here that answers the question: Does a Short Sale Negotiator have to be a licensed real estate agent? The answer is yes, or a licensed loan originator or otherwise exempt from licensing such as an attorney. (Clicking through from the link, scroll down to “doing business” and see the second question.)

So we have a licensed real estate agent who is earning money as a short sale negotiator who works for a company owned by the same person who owns the listing agent’s real estate company.

There are a couple of things that come to mind here. First of all, isn’t there a bit of a conflict of interest for the real estate broker/owner of that company?  Where are your duties? To the home seller, whose listing you’re charged with overseeing, or are your duties to the buyer, a client who signs the agreement to pay your other company $9K?  What are the duties of disclosure to BOTH the seller and the buyer?

For example, if I’m the seller in this transaction, charging a buyer an extra $9,000 out of pocket might preclude a number of qualified buyers to make an offer….unless I hold back this information until after the buyer has emotionally fallen in love with the home and is already arranging the furniture in his/her mind.  That seems manipulative.  Why not tell all possible prospects up front what the short sale negotiator’s fee is: Make it mandatory to display this extra fee in the PUBLIC comment section of the multiple listing service. 

You might be thinking: “Yes we could disclose this god-awful fee to the public this but that’s not in the best interest of the home seller.”  Well, okay but what happens if you end up attracting a lot of buyers but they all walk when told of this high third party fee? Now the listing agent has wasted everyone’s time.  It’s like if someone asks me out on a date and then later he tells me he’s married.  Come on! Hey, some women might say yes and it’s nice to know up front how big of an a-hole a guy is.   I say the listing agent would actually be attracting the right kind of buyer if they disclosed that their Short Sale Listing comes with baggage.  It seems to work fine for the married guys who post personal ads on craigslist day after day.

More: If there is an affiliated business arrangement going on between the two companies that are owned by the same person/people, then a RESPA-required Affiliated Business Arrangement disclosure form should ALSO be required so that the home seller and home buyer are aware of the dual company ownership. Part of that AFBA disclosure form should state that the homebuyer understands that buying this home means he/she does NOT have to use this particular short sale negotiation firm and is free to select another short sale negotiation company to do the same or similar work.  However, since a ‘short sale negotiator fee’ might not necessarily be classified as a “settlement service” then this rule might not apply. HUD are you listening? It’s highly possible that the next time a federal regulator makes it out to Washington State, the Seahawks will have won the Superbowl. Knowig this, we should look to the state regulators for assistance.

For a home buyer, a big red flag would be if the listing agent demands that you use this affiliated short sale negotiator. Demanding that a buyer use a real estate broker’s affiliated company is a licensing law violation as well as a violation of federal law when those companies are a title, escrow, appraisal company, and so forth. So why not a short sale negotiations company also?

Even more: Is the listing agent receiving part of that $9,000 fee? One way of structuring this is for the owner of both companies to promise the listing agent something like this: “if the lender cuts your commission, don’t worry, I’ll give you a portion of that $9,000 negotiator fee.”  Unearned fees are not allowed under RESPA.

Even worse: Is the short sale negotiator splitting the $9,000 with the home seller?  How fast can you say “Mortgage Fraud is now a Class B Felony in Washington State?”

The other logical problem that comes up for me when I see an additional fee of $9,000 is this: what work is being done for NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS?  That’s an awful lot of money. I could install all new vinyl windows in my 1959 house with that kind of money. I could put this in my teenager’s college fund. I could accomplish a lot with $9,000 so why would I want to pay that kind of money to a short sale negotiator?  Is this like extortion/payola in order to get that particular house for that price? 

Maybe not.  What is this third party negotiations company doing for their $9,000?  Wait, let me go find out. I’ll read their website.  Gee, there’s nothing on the website telling a consumer what their company actually does for that fee but the pictures of their team tell me they’re all good looking guys under 30. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing business with good looking guys under 30 but it should make us wonder how much experience the negotiator has at short sale negotiating.  In 2009 I believe we added ten million “short sale experts” in the real estate industry.

My advice to the consumer: Negotiate that fee down to somewhere around $1,000 to $2,000.  If the home is that close to the auction date, tell your real estate agent that you’re going to buy the home at the auction if the lender won’t approve the short sale and if the negotiators won’t go for a reduced fee.  Most of the third party short sale negotiators out there are paid much less than $9,000. 

Here’s some help with the math:  I asked the consumer to ask the short sale negotiator how many hours he’s spending on this file v. how many hours he’s working on those biceps. Consumer says the SSN said he’s spent 10 hours so far on this transation! !! !!! Wow! Well! Okay then, let’s divide $9,000 by 10 hours.  That’s a going rate of $900 per hour. That’s probably close to the hourly rate charged by the Johnnie Cochran law firm for litigation cases and I’m fairly certain that this licensed real estate agent negotiator doesn’t have as much experience or education as the JC legal team.  Counter back with $100/hour and settle around $200/hour max.

I am betting they’ll take the $2k.

Ask for the negotiator’s $2K to be put on the HUD I Settlement Statement as a seller’s closing cost.  There’s a chance the lender will pay it.  If not, the buyer needs to as himself: Is this house worth $2k out of pocket at closing?  It’s also important for the buyer’s new lender to know about this additional fee. Insist that it’s paid out through escrow and shows on the buyer’s side of the HUD I Settlement Statement if the lender refuses to pay it as a seller’s cost.

Buyers: do not agree to pay any money after closing, on the side, without disclosing this additional amount to all parties including the lender. 

Predatory Short Sale Negotiators: The world is watching you.  I wonder if your dreams are haunted the way I was haunted after watching The Hurt Locker.  Soon your predatory fees are going to explode in your face. Oh, and loan mod salesmen thinking that being a short sale negotiator is the next big way to “make six figures with no experience,” please go back to the used car lots. I’m sure there are some openings at the Toyota dealerships.

Seattle Condo Market – Lender says “more insurance mandatory”

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Lenders and the condo market are still in a world of gray. No market can stabilize if the rules keep shifting faster than we can keep up with them. This frustrates both buyers and sellers, as some of these changes come into play while someone is in escrow, and the lender did not foresee the “complication”.

We are seeing this more with condo purchases than with single family homes. One of the reasons I have not done stats on the condo market for many, many months, is that all of the cards are NOT on the table with which to draw conclusions. Lenders are very, very tough on the condo market, and increasingly so.

Before I get into the “more insurance mandatory” piece of this post, I am seeing other complications with condo financing.

1) Conventional sellers wanting higher than usual downpayments and/or PMI companies refusing insurance on the difference between the down payment the lender will allow and 20% down. In the high end condos, some lenders are requiring 30% down payment if it is a condo and the resultant mortgage is a jumbo loan after the 30% down. In the lower priced condos, the lender may allow a 5% or 10% down, but the PMI won’t insure the remaining 10% or 15% to get to an 80% LTV in some cases.

2) SIGNIFICANT changes in HOA dues or special assessments caused by the “NEW RULE” that makes it mandatory for a condo association to have a Reserve Study. The net result of the reserve studies done by condos that had never before done one (some did even when it was not mandatory) is that they are finding they are grossly underfunded as to reserves. This is creating an increase in dues (in some cases double) to catch up on insufficient reserve requirements, or outright special assessments when the study points out deferred maintenance items.

BE VERY CAREFUL when valuing a condo based on “The Comps”!!! If the comps sold when the monthly dues were $185, but the dues are now $365 because a Reserve Study was done that indicated insufficient reserves, the PRICES of “the comps” need to be adjusted to compensate for the increase in dues since those condos sold.

Now to the topic of this post “Lender says: More Insurance Mandatory”. A recent comment on one of the lender posts (Rhonda’s) asked about the ability of lenders to require the buyer of a condo to have a separate policy. This additional requirement, if noted while in escrow, can cause a sale to fail if the additional unanticipated monthly amount increases the buyer’s ratios as to monthly payment outside of the pre-approved status. So VERY important.

A short history on this issue. Traditionally lenders ONLY required a copy of the Association’s Master Insurance Policy in order to close escrow on a condo purchase. The buyer of the condo was not required by the lender to have additional insurance over and above the HOA Master Policy.

Over the years I have seen the Deductible Amounts of the Association Master Policies increase from $1,000, to $5,000 to $10,000 and in some cases as high as $20,000. The Master Policy no longer covers the condo buyer and buyer’s lender as it once did due to these increases in deductible amounts. After 911 and Katrina a lot of insurance companies (due to weakened financial position generally) decided not to insure Condos at all. The number of Companies willing to provide a Master Policy to Condo developments (especially old ones built in the 70s) dwindled in some cases from 100 or more to a small handful.

Insurance premiums for same coverage and deductible skyrocketed, BUT the condo associations did not want to increase the dues that drastically. Consequently in order to reduce the insurance cost and keep dues from increasing drastically, the Boards of the Condo Associations increased the deductible in order to keep the insurance cost in line with prior year premiums.

OK…that’s the history. It has always been advisable for a condo unit buyer to get a separate personal insurance policy to supplement the Master Policy. Each Association’s Master Policy has different coverage and so I have often suggested that the condo buyer use the same insurance provider, if and when possible, and always give the Master Policy of the complex to the insurance agent to determine what supplemental insurance is needed. Covering the difference between the huge deductible on the Master Policy is a need for everyone buying a condo, in addition to covering their interior responsibility and belongings.

Apparently some lenders are now requiring this separate policy in order to fund a condo mortgage. This is hitting some lenders by surprise. Surprise is not good, ever. BUT requiring the condo buyer to have a supplemental policy IS good and this change is not only for the better…but a long, long time overdue.

To answer the question “CAN a lender require this?” Of course the answer is yes the same as they can and do require “adequate” insurance when buying a house. The only change is that “adequate” insurance with regard to condos “used to be” the Master Policy only. Now in some cases it is Master Policy PLUS unit owner Supplemental Policy, and that is as it should be IMO.

King County Home Prices 2010

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King County Home prices in 2010 will have to escape two mega foreseeable dip factors, in order to keep in the 2005 – 2006 price range. Early last year I called bottom and the end of the downward spiral, when median home price for King County was at $362,700. The year ended at at a median price of $380,000, and early closings for 2010 are running at an unsustainable high of $196 mppsf.

What to watch for in 2010:

1) Prices should stay in the 5% this way or that range of $380,000. Expect a low of $361,000 to a high of $400,000. We reached that point in June of 2009 when it hit $399,000, and then backed off from there toward year end.

King County median home prices should stay within 5% of $380,000. If they move out of that range on the up or down side, it will be time to “take notice” of which way it is going out of the expected zone and why.
graph (31)

2) Even more important than staying in the 5% this way or that of $380,000 above, would be falling into 2004 price levels. Several times I have been quoted as saying that prices will maintain at 2005 levels, and so far that has been correct. We have a considerable cushion between current home prices and 2004 levels here in King County. For this graph I used median price per square foot, noting 2004 pricing as RED, the danger zone.
graph (29)

While I am still fairly confident that we will stay in 2005 – 2006 levels for the foreseeable future, I have a couple of concerns for 2010. The first, of course, is the end of the Tax Credit for Homebuyers. If we are high enough in that above $380,000 range as to median price by the time that happens, we should stay in the safe range when we take the post credit dip. If we trend down in the first quarter toward bottom, then the end of the credit will be a more worrisome event.

I am more concerned with how 2010 Assessed Values will impact home prices next year and beyond. While I agree that the County needed to back down those prices to cut back on the expensive appeal process, I see a dark cloud on the horizon. Many people have come to use County Assessed Values in some form or another when determining value and fair offer prices. The huge dip in Assessed Values from 2009 to 2010 could trigger a reaction from home buyers forcing prices into another downward spiral. We can only hope that people will look at Automated Valuation Models or “the comps”, instead of County Assessed Values. Dramatically reduced assessed values could have an unwarranted, unexpected and negative impact on home prices in the coming year. Only time will tell. That cloud may come and rain on us…or blow out to sea.

Barring a new event, look for home prices to be in the 2006 range for the strongest of neighborhoods and early 2005 range for the weakest of neighborhoods. Weakest being those with the most foreclosures and strongest being those with the least foreclosures.

East Home Prices by Style and Age of Home

North Seattle Townhome Prices by Zip Code

A Decade of Green Lake Home Prices and Sales Volume

(Required Disclosure – Stats are not compiled, verified or posted by The Northwest Multiple Listing Service)

Home Buyers: Please Be Aware of the Owners Policy on the GFE

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HUD had dramatically revised the Good Faith Estimate to a uniform document with summary of fees.  If you compare a GFE issued prior to 2010, one big difference is that buyers will not see a charge for the owners title policy–why? Because they generally do not pay for the owners title policy–the seller does!  Please don’t ask me why this is on the new GFE and why, if it’s not charged in our market LO’s must disclose it…I don’t have an answer…and don’t have the answer for why mortgage originators are held to the 10% tolerance when quoting this fee when it has nothing to do with mortgage origination.

The fee for an owners title insurance policy is much more than that of a buyer’s policy. Typically the Seller pays for the owners policy and the buyer pays for the lenders policy which has a reduced rate (simultaneous issue). There are also various coverages available with an owners policy and the coverage that is required should be specified in the purchase and sales agreement.

Here’s an example of title fees for the owners (seller) and lenders (buyer) policies based on a $500,000 sales price (FYI LO’s: the owners policy is based on the sales price not the loan amount) and a loan amount of $400,000. Examples below do not include sales tax.

FEES BELOW NOT SHOWN ON GFE PRE-2010

Homeowners Policy (1998 ALTA): $1,192
2006 Standard Owners Policy: $1,053
Extended Coverage Owners Policy: $1,937 (not commonly requested)

 ALWAYS SHOWN ON GFE (because the buyer pays for it)

Lenders Policy (simultaneous issue): $647

So with a purchase price of $500,000 and a loan amount of $400,000; I would disclose $647 plus tax for my estimated title insurance fee for the borrower on my GFE–both now and before 2010.  Now I need to add over $1000 to this scenario on my good faith estimate even though the buyer isn’t paying for it…my closing costs on a purchase appear $1000 higher!  

And to add insult to injury, the title owners policy is included in HUD’s 10% tolerance bucket of charges.

The Talon Group offers this tip to mortgage originators quoting an owners title insurance rate (when you don’t know what the specified coverage will be on the purchase and sales agreement):

Lenders should quote the 1998 ALTA Homeowner’s Policy rather than the less costly Standard Owner’s Policy in block 5 of the GFE. The local Purchase and Sale Agreement defaults to the Homeowner’s Policy because of it’s superior title coverage. There is as much as a 12.5% difference in price between the two policies.

The lender’s policy (and escrow/settlement charges) are included in Block 4 of the Good Faith Estimate and the owners policy is included on Block 5.

According to HUD’s RESPA FAQ’s last updated December 30, 2009:

Q&A #3 page 27:

If the borrower requests an enhanced owner’s title insurance policy or an endorsement to an owner’s title insurance policy after the loan originator issues the GFE, the loan originator may choose to treat such a request by the borrower as a changed circumstance.  The loan originator may then choose to provide a revised GFE to the borrower to disclose the increased charges.  If the increased charges do not exceed tolerances, the loan originator may opt not to issue a revised GFE.

I take this as saying that if the borrower decides they want more expensive coverage after I have issued a GFE and I do not re-disclose the cost difference and it exceeds the 10% tolerance, I just paid for the difference…even though it’s a seller cost!

With a purchase transaction, if the borrower accepts the title insurance company as selected by the real estate agent or seller (assuming the company is not on my “list of providers”), then there is no tolerance as HUD views this as the borrower selecting the service provider (same is true with escrow companies).    Regardless, even quoting from my preferred provider, the fees on my good faith estimate look $1000 higher based on this scenario. 

At least until consumers and mortgage originators are accustomed to using the new GFE (and unless HUD makes additional changes) this is going to take some getting used to!

For the record, this post all of my posts are my interpretation and my opinions–this is not a substitute for your legal staff or your compliance department!

Recommendations for a “good” Home Inspector

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inspectorTrulia Voices is an excellent place to ask questions and also a good place for buyers and sellers to read other people’s questions and answers. Zillow has a similar feature, but I am not as familiar with theirs.

Today a Home Buyer in Seattle asked:

Does anyone have recommendation on a good home inspector – competent, reasonable service fee in seattle area?

The answers will likely continue to come in for days, and they are already an excellent resource for anyone looking for inspectors that are highly recommended by those who use them most often. Save the link, as these answers tend to come in for days and weeks forward from the day the question is asked.

Feel free to add your choice of inspector, either on the Trulia Voices linked questions, or the comments here on the blog.

Seattle’s Queen Anne Neighborhood Is Amazing

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Queen Anne has long been one of my favorite Seattle neighborhoods because of its easy proximity to Downtown Seattle while still maintaining a “small town” feel.

Queen Anne Seattle WAThe Queen Anne Neighborhood of Seattle is amazing from all angles – on the North slope there are lovely views of Ballard & Fremont over the canal and the Fremont Sunday Market is practically right there!  To the East is Lake Union with houseboats all along Westlake, the Bigelow Ave portion of Queen Anne Boulevard, Downtown Seattle views, and more.  In the Southeast, the newer QFC is just one of the factors that make this part of the neighborhood score high on WalkScore (my latest Queen Anne contract  in this area has a WalkScore of 94!!!).  In the shadow of the iconic Space Needle, Lower Queen Anne or Uptown is full of restaurants, pubs, and nightlife and has the Seattle Center at its heart.  West Queen Anne is perched high above Puget Sound and offers sweeping views of the sound, city, Space Needle, Mount Rainier, and pretty much anything else you want to see as it is one of Seattle’s highest hills.  Upper Queen Anne is the true heart of the neighborhood and a stroll or drive along Queen Anne Ave North will show you why.  This is the heart of the upper portion of Queen Anne and where you can find all of the offerings from local clubs, restaurants, and merchants. One of my personal favorites is Queen Anne Books.

Historical Queen Anne: Queen Anne

Queen Anne is one of the original Seattle neighborhoods settled and the history of it is quite fascinating!   A stroll around Queen Anne Boulevard is a great place to start.  Old Queen Anne Boulevard is a series of streets that form a loop around the top of Queen Anne – a crown around the top of the hill.  Many people don’t know about the Boulevard, but it has been around in one form or another for about a hundred years thanks to the citizens of Queen Anne at the time who pushed for it.   Queen Anne Boulevard is Queen Anne’s version of the Green Lake path although it is almost a mile longer at roughly 3.7 miles and shares its surfaces with cars.   Look for historical sites on the Boulevard including the Wilcox Wall on the West slope, but also notice that there are some of the city’s best views along the way!

Queen Anne Real Estate:

Homes in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood range from small co-ops and condos for under $200,000 to sweeping historical mansions priced in the millions, but the current median for listed residential (non co-op or condo) Queen Anne homes is $650,000 with a range of $325,000 to $4,890,000.  Although much of Queen Anne hill is made up of historical architecture, there are some really well thought out new construction projects on the hill – many that incorporate greener building products and that have incorporated the character of the surrounding neighborhood as well as the views available into their design.  Queen Anne has a lot to offer and can be surprisingly more affordable than one might initially have thought  in some areas.

Queen Anne Living:

This neighborhood is so livable!  The streets of Queen Anne are connected by a matrix of pedestrian staircases  (check out Thomas Horton’s map of them here) and sidewalks which lead to the wide array of  neighborhood parks, local grocers and shops, eateries, coffee houses, and more.  Transit is thoroughly incorporated into the infrastructure here with bus routes all over the hill.  If you are looking for a good no car option, than Queen Anne is definitely one of my top recommendations in Seattle, but obviously, with or without a car, it is one of my favorite Seattle neighborhoods!

An Alternative Approach To Home Buying

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Historically, a homebuyer first calculates how much home they can afford. They either do this on their own by calculating a % of their gross income, or they go to a lender who produces a home price “suitable” to their financial situation.

When you need a new coat, do you calculate how much coat you can afford? Sometimes, yes, if you are on a limited budget. But more often you simply buy one you like at a reasonable cost. Why isn’t home buying more like that? Probably because there is limited access to what “reasonable cost” is for a given area. Let’s take the time to study “reasonable cost” and also promote asking your agent this question: “Is the home I am buying a reasonable cost for this area, based on ALL homes recently SOLD here?” Remember, you are not asking for “3 comps”. You want to know how valid this price is for this particular area, generally speaking. In other words, you want to know if this is going to be a reasonable cost IF and when you have to sell the house you are buying.

When people are looking for a home to buy, they are mostly looking at homes for sale. They may look at homes that sold nearby “the comps”, but rarely do they look at a complete picture of what has sold vs. what is for sale.

Let’s look at how that may skew your perspective.
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A quick study of price in Kirkland looking only at homes for sale at this time (graph above), would lead you to believe that the Housing Market in Kirkland is 60% or so under $800,000 and 40% or so over $800,000, with about 25% over a million dollars.

Now let’s layer in the number of homes SOLD in those price ranges in 2009 YTD (graph below). You will quickly see that 66% sold for under $600,000 vs. 60% under $800,000, and over a million is not 25%, it is more like 10% of the current “market”.
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Now we get to the part my clients find MOST annoying about me. Let’s look at the home you are buying from the standpoint of you being the one trying to sell it. You cannot focus on a home’s weaknesses unless you can switch your mind from buyer to seller. Honestly, most of my buyer clients can’t do that no matter how hard they try, especially if they are first time buyers, and so I have to do it for them. But the visual below helps drive home the point that you may fail to sell this home you are buying today, even if you do all of the right things when it comes time to sell it.
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There are many ways to use this information. First I’m going to ask you to look at the worst statistic in the graph above. I know most readers of this post are not in the $1.6 million plus price range. But look at this segment so that you can more easily “get” the point, and then apply it to your price range.

Green = Only 9 sales above $1.6 million

Blue = 44 people are currently trying to sell homes above $1.6 million

Red = There were 116 Failed Attempts to sell a house for over $1.6 million in 2009 YTD

IT TOOK 116 FAILED ATTEMPTS TO SELL 9 HOMES!

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN (116) FAILED ATTEMPTS IN ORDER TO GET NINE (9) N I N E homes to SOLD!

(Funny, I just checked that for the umpteenth time because it is so startling, and now there are 10 vs. 9. Still, same point.)

Sorry for yelling, but I wanted to make sure you got that point 🙂 What is a #FAIL? It’s a cancelled, expired or “Sale Fail Release”. That is not 116 properties. One of those 9 homes that sold could = 5 or more failed attempts to sell, before it actually sold.

Only the first two price segments, homes sold for $400,000 or less, had fewer failed attempts than homes sold. That’s roughly 1/3 of all homes being purchased in Kirkland. That means 2/3rds of all home buyers will likely have a difficult time selling. The degree of difficulty increases as the price increases.

You may ask “Do all agents look at the #FAIL stats?” The answer is “used to be”. Factoring in the “Failed to Sell” properties when doing a Comparative Market Analysis became a little “old school” during the hot market. Fewer properties failed to sell, and fine tuning a home valuation prior to making an offer was not standard modus operandi. I remember a new agent coming to me in 2005 asking “Where’s the button I push to tell me the home value?” I laughed; they did not. 🙂

I was trained to note “for sale” in blue, sold in “green” (real $) and Failed to Sell in Red as in STOP! But during the hot market there was no STOP sign and no brake peddle, for the most part. Newer agents were rarely if ever taught how to use the brake peddle, nor did one come with the training.

Let’s look at why that was.

In 2001 in Kirkland, 555 homes sold at $300,000 or less with 364 #Failed attempts.

In 2004 in Kirkland, 291 homes sold at $300,000 or less with only 50 #Failed attempts.

By 2006 in Kirkland only NINE (9) homes sold at $300,000 or less and only 1 #Failed attempt.

Who could train an agent how to value a property and how to consider the #Fail rate in a market like that? Why would you? So most agents who got their license in the last 5 years have a tendency to ignore the #Fail rate. Hopefully this post, in addition to assisting buyers and sellers of homes, will also suggest to a few agents that #Fail rate is immensely important to the home valuation

There is no button to push to tell you what to do with those #Fails. Valuing a home is returning to the “art form” that it once was, with subjective consideration of the #Fails. So back to the question: What is a “reasonable cost” for the area where you have chosen to buy? It’s a combination of the price paid by the majority of home buyers in that area AND the #FAIL rate for that price.

Take a look at Bellevue, for example. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in Bellevue is getting qualified at $1.5M and then trying to find the house closest to work that fits that price. You may end up with a McMansion on a busy road. A “McMansion” is not just a big house. A “McMansion” is a big house “worth” $1.5 million, stuck in the middle of an area where 90% of the homebuyers pay $500,000 give or take for a home. Perhaps taking that same house out of there and putting it in 98004 in the right location, transforms it into a home at “reasonable cost” for that area.

I’m using a somewhat ludicrous example to make a point, but buying an $800,000 home in an area where 92% of homebuyers paid $500,000 or less, can be equally “unreasonable”. Maybe not when you are buying it, but when it comes time for you to sell it.

Take a look at these graphs of Redmond. What seems to be the “reasonable cost” there? Different people will look at that same chart and answer it differently. About half the people paid $500,000 or less. If you only want a new house, you may work up the graph to only include homes built since 2003 or so. But do your homework. Work up a graph and don’t stop at “homes for sale” as shown in the first graph in this post.

An Alternative Approach To Home Buying may be deciding WHERE you would like to live, and then paying a “reasonable cost” for that area, even if that price is much less than you “can afford”.

When you need a new fleece hoodie, it really doesn’t matter that you can afford to pay $5,000 for it, does it? You’re still probably going to pay about $100 or less for it. If you look hard enough you can probably find a fleece hoodie for $5,000, or get someone to custom make it for you. But why would you?

Required Disclosure: Stats in this post are not compiled, verified or posted by The Northwest Multiple Listing Service.