Category Archives: General

Bedtime Stories…

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What I enjoy most about our home are the many places where our family gathers to share stories. Some of the places include our the kitchen table, our computer room, and our deck. But the place that I’ll always associate most closely with epic stories is our living room.

Taken by itself, our living room is nothing unusual. It is not too big, not too small… It includes two couches, a rocking chair, and a fishtank that takes up way too much space. What makes our living room is not the stuff or the size, but rather the time that our family spends here almost every evening reading stories.

Sasha's Book Shelf

We’ve spent countless hours observing Harry Potter (barely) make it through the 5th year of school… We’ve helped and been helped by Aslan in the land of Narnia an numerous occasions… We’ve been fortunate to travel along with Laura and her family from Wisconsin to the Oklahoma Territories to Minnesota to the Dakota Territories…

I only have to think of the many enjoyable nights we’ve spent sharing stories with a roaring fire in the fireplace and the rain pouring outside to remind myself why I love our living room!

Please feel free to join us on the day’s leading up to Valentine’s Day as we romance our homes by discussing some of the many ways we love our homes and neighborhoods.

Romancing the (City) Home

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In September, my wife and I bought a condo/townhouse across the street from the Pike Place Market. There’s lots to love — the beautifully landscaped interior courtyard (it’s in Market Place North), the great neighbors, the not-so-grueling commute (a 7 minute walk). However, best of all is living by the Market. Last night on Rick Steves’s travel show, he featured Paris in the springtime. Accompanied by a Parisian guide, he walked around the Rue Clare neighborhood to the many food merchants (the butcher, the fromagier, etc. etc. etc.). The Parisian talked at length about the superiority of such merchants in comparison to a supermarket. “Hey!” we said, “it’s just like our house!” Now if only my cooking skills approached the food resources at my doorstep…

We love you, Home! Happy Valentine’s Day! xxoo
Tiff and Craig

Fruit at Pike Place Market

"Anatomy of a Real Estate Transaction"

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Basically, a 30 day transaction (which is the norm in the Seattle area) should break down into three phases.

Phase 1 is the buyer’s “Due Diligence” portion and should last about 10 to 14 days. By halfway through the transaction everyone should know that the property is SOLD and there should be no “ifs” left. Preferably this happens within the first 10 days.

Phase 3 would be the last 10 days or “closing” phase, which on the West Coast is a process, as opposed to an “event”. Loans should be approved, Loan Docs on their way, signing appointments scheduled.

Phase 2 is in between the two and involves the agents and escrow and Title Company and lender. Once they get the go ahead that the buyer is finished with their due diligence, the home appraised OK, the lender has everything he needs from the buyer and the loan is approved, the process starts moving toward Phase 3 and the closing.

The entire description of the transaction appears on my blog. It is too lengthy to bring over here and is color coded, so a buyer can read the green parts and know pretty much what the buyer needs to do, vs. what everyone else might be doing.

Most of what the seller does in the real estate transaction, is done by the time the property is “under contract”. I will do the “Getting a house ready for market” and the “Anatomy of an Offer to Purchase” when I’m finished with the steps in the transaction, post.

I would appreciate it if anyone who can spare the time will look over at the post on my blog and see if it is “user friendly”. Make comments there to help me edit it. I think it will be a usefuly tool for buyers to have before they make an offer, as well as during escrow. It might also be useful for new agents to get a better “feel” for what happens after the offer is accepted.

I appreciate your taking the time.

Thank you.

My Home

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“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

My heart will always be connected to the place my daughters where born, and where my wife and I have watched them grow. There are a thousand memories that have blended with this place. In many ways our home feels like a trusted partner that has help us along the way.

Romancing the Home

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I’ve been inspired by Bill Wendel of the Real Estate Cafe to explore the theme “Romancing the Home!” during the next couple of weeks that lead up to Valentine’s Day. My hope is that some of the contributors (and readers) will use this as an opportunity to talk about the things that we love about our homes!

[photopress:girls_walking.jpg,full,alignright]I’ve had a great email correspondence with Bill for a while now and I always find him to be exceptionally knowledgeable and full of inspiration. Last year, he built a Valentines Day blog that is filled with wonderful stories including one about the Valentine’s Day parties that he would celebrate with his daughter every year.

When real estate blogging, it is so easy to get caught up in the investment value of a home that we can easily overlook some of the more subtle benefits. No matter how hard we try, most of us choose our home based on considerations that go beyond getting the best deal… Maybe we want on a home with a fireplace… Or a home in a nice neighborhood… Or a home with a great school system…. Or a home with a large kitchen. All of these things represent features that make our homes special.

So what makes my home special? Things that come to mind include our family room where we spend many nights reading stories around our fireplace, our neighborhood filled with great kids, and our garden where we’ve spent many a wonderful spring day after a rainy winter.

I encourage you to share you’re stories as well as check back in over the next two weeks as we spend a little time romancing our homes!

Watching the Dow

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It has been a very long time since I was in the Trust and Investment business. I don’t read the Wall Street Journal every morning anymore. But I do watch the Dow.

Every time it reaches close to the next level, as it is now, I get excited. It’s like watching a runner getting close to the finish line. Today we are at 10,953.95! It’s been over 11,000 before. But I keep thinking, it can’t get to 12,000 if it doesn’t get over the 11,000 mark and stay there.

I remember being at my desk back on “Black Monday” October 19, 1987. I was one of the few Investment Officers at the time who wasn’t an MBA. In fact, I think I was pretty much the only one in history to be an Investment Officer without a college degree of any kind. While I had attended the Wharton School of Business at night, I didn’t take the electives that would give me a degree. I was often the only woman in the room as well. But it didn’t seem to matter that day as all of the MBAs around me were sweating and stammering as all of the phones were ringing off the hook and people were screaming and yelling with the DOW plunging 22.6% in one day.

Finally one of the guys came to me and asked why I was so happy and why my phone was ringing, but I appeared to be having pleasant conversations while they were all ready to slash their wrists.

For some unknown reason, the week before Black Monday, I was selling off everyone’s stock. I had decided it was time to re-balance and take profits and bring everyone back to their original stock position. People who had originally invested 40% of their portfolio in stock were up to 80% stock due to the market increase. I just got it into my little head (I was pregnant with my third child) to sell them all back to 40%. That put all of my accounts into large cash positions, which I used to buy back into the market at the lowest point it has ever been to this date. I think it dropped from 2,500 to 1,750 or so that day.

On days like today, watching the DOW inch past the 10,950 mark, I am reminded that just having good gut instincts about things, has served me well for many years. Not much unlike real estate. Sometimes you just know.

Good night.

Follow the Money…

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Have you ever wondered where mortgage money comes from? Years ago, the money came from your local banker. If your credit was good, and the bank had the available funds, you had yourself a home loan, and you diligently made your monthly payment to that same bank.

These days, the majority of all conforming home loans begin the same way as they did years ago, but they now follow a trail that most often leads to three major institutions: Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association); Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation); or Ginnie Mae (Government National Mortgage Association), then on to Wall Street.

Please understand that there are many variation of this, and I’m speaking of standard conventional loans. Depending on a many circumstances, some loans follow different pathways.

We begin the process with a mortgage professional as we always have. We answer the questions, jump through the hoops, and sometimes feel our whole life is being reviewed, but all goes well, and we end up with a home loan. Now it’s here that the trail can take some turns.

If you placed your loan with a bank, it frequently appears that your loan is still with that bank, but in most cases the bank is simply “servicing

Trulia Lands in New York

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I just got an email announcing that Trulia launched in New York!

Congratulations Pete and Sami! I know that was pretty high on your list of ToDo items!

Are you wondering what Trulia is?

I wrote a post on their service when they launched in California. In general, they have one of the nicest interfaces around for real estate search. If someone is looking for inspiration on how to build a tight real estate search that is focused on providing a maximum of useful information to buyers, they they need to look no farther than Trulia to see how it can be done.

Trulia Launches New York

So is there anything wrong with Trulia? I only have two qualms about their service. One, they launched in New York before Seattle! 🙂 and two, they don’t have a comprehensive database of homes (The California agents I’ve talked to have all mentioned that Trulia does not include a lot of homes that are available and did include a lot of homes that had already been sold.)

With those two caveats in place, it is my opinion that they have one of the most interesting real estate search tools available!

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DOJ-"opt-out" and a war with a "discounter"

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A new Broker opens an office and has no listings yet. He goes to area brokers and asks if he can advertise their listings in his “window” to help get him started. Mostly they say yes. They are not trying to force out the competition and they are more than willing to help him.

Now they walk past his office and they see their listings in his window. No problem. Until they see this big sign on top of the houses for sale, which are their listings. “Our Mission: To reinvent the existing residential real estate business — an ANTIQUATED, INEFFICIENT, and COSTLY system of selling homes!!”

That is an actual statement from a website. It used to be pages and pages of “Help us fight the GREEDY brokers! Join our CAUSE!

Well, do you think the local brokers wanted their listings in that “window”? Would you? So the “window” is the internet, same difference isn’t it? That guy was using their listings to show homes on his site because he didn’t have any listings yet, and badmouthing them at the same time. Does that seem right to you?

The brokers didn’t opt out against this company because he was a discounter. They opted out against this guy because he was advertising their listings (VOW site showing other broker’s listings) while at the same time badmouthing them and calling them greedy SOBs! That’s the kind of “mud” that causes the “opt out” provision to be invoked against a “discounter”.

The local brokers said get my #%$## listings off that guy’s site now!

What do you think? Do you think the brokers should be forced to let this guy put their listings on his site, while he badmouths them on the site at the same time? I don’t think so. But I’d like to know what you think.

This is what the DOJ suit is about. The DOJ is trying to remove that right of brokers to say, OK, you can use my listings. But don’t sling mud at me from behind the picture of my listing! If you do that, I’m taking my picture out of your “window”.

Of course we could break his kneecaps, but opting out seems like a better answer 🙂 The brokers “opted out”. The new company didn’t have any homes to show on his site. He cleaned up the site a lot, though the Mission is still as it appears above without the CAPS, and a compromise was reached. Opting out is a negotiation tool to prevent companies from getting started on other broker’s listings while slinging arrows at them. There is another group involved. Same theory. EBAs. But they are “Johnny come lately’s to the suit”, so let’s stop at this example.

Tell me how you feel about all this.