Zillow Blog:Tim Geithner says Rent vs. Sell

Posted on June 3, 2009 by ARDELL

Very interesting article on the Zillow Blog about Tim Geithner’s home shown above.

I disagree with Whitney’s comment: “Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner claims to see signs of economic improvement for the nation, but the same does not appear to be true for his personal pocket book.”

Whitney, if Geithner thought the market was NOT currently improving and did NOT believe in the upward tend, he would be selling it now vs. renting it. By taking it off the market and renting it, he is confirming his belief that he sees “signs of economic improvement”, not the other way around.

California Attorney General Demands All Loan Modification Firms Register with his Office and Post a 100K Bond

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Jillayne Schlicke

From the Orange County Attorney General’s Office:

Oakland — Continuing his fight against scam artists who “prey on” vulnerable Californians, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued a directive forcing foreclosure consultants to register with his office and post a $100,000 bond by July 1, 2009. Those who fail to do so will be in violation of state law, subject to criminal penalties of up to a year in jail and fines ranging from $1,000 to $25,000 per violation.

“California is awash with con artists who prey on vulnerable families facing foreclosure,” Brown said. “By forcing foreclosure consultants to submit detailed information to my office and post a $100,000 bond, this registry will help bring long-overdue transparency to this shadowy world.” Up and down the state, scam artists pose as legitimate foreclosure consultants, promising homeowners they will prevent foreclosure. In reality, these scam artists charge huge up-front costs, but don’t provide an ounce of help.

Earlier this month, Brown’s office prosecuted a scam artist who provided hundreds of homeowners with forged bank documents and directed them to send their mortgage payments to accounts she had created, instead of the homeowners’ lender. Additionally, Brown’s office has seen a significant increase in the number of complaints from homeowners regarding foreclosure consultants.

The registry unveiled today will provide Californians with information about potential consultants and recourse in the event that a consultant violates the law. All foreclosure consultants operating in California must post a $100,000 bond and register with Brown’s office by July 1, 2009 and submit the following information:

– Name, address, and telephone number;
– All names, addresses, telephone numbers, websites, and e-mail addresses used or proposed to be
used in connection with their business;
– Copies of all advertising;
– Copies of each different contract the consultant will use with consumers; and
– A copy of its $100,000 bond.

Foreclosure consultants who provide proper information will receive a Certificate of Registration. Brown’s office, however, may refuse to issue, or revoke, a Certificate of Registration if the foreclosure consultant has made any misstatement in its registration form, has been convicted of fraud or misrepresentation, has been convicted of a violation of the state’s foreclosure consultant laws, California’s false advertising, unfair or deceptive practices laws or other laws dealing with mortgages. If the company violates the law, a court may order restitution to victims out of proceeds from the $100,000 bond. After July 1, 2009, consumers can call the Attorney General’s office to determine whether the company they are considering dealing with has been issued a Certificate of Registration.

There is more in the press release including the names of several companies busted by his office. California is asking all “foreclosure rescue” firms to register which includes the pre-foreclosure scam artists and also loan modification firms. I wonder how long it will be before Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna makes a similar move towards foreclosure rescue companies? Unlicensed loan mod firms out of California continue to make a run for Washington State homeowners (based on the phone calls and emails I continue to receive about this company which sends paperwork to another loan mod firm under a different name for processing,) even though loan mod firms doing business in WA State must be licensed under DFI.

Do you think this registration system will help California homeowners? Should we consider a similar system for Washington State?

Good Faith Estimate – Protecting Your Earnest Money

Posted on June 1, 2009 by ARDELL

Protecting your Earnest Money Deposit starts before your offer is written. I highly suggest you do the following, before going out to look at homes for sale. It’s a little unorthodox, but very effective.

1) Ask your lender to base your pre-approval on the current interest rate PLUS. I’d say +.50% to +.75% at this time. Use the higher number if the going rate is 5% or less at the time of the pre-approval. If the going rate is 5% (rates move in 1/8ths) have the lender qualify you as if the rate is 5.75%. Give yourself a little breathing room for rates to fluctuate while you are looking at property and making offers. You don’t want the fact that rates are moving up, to stress you into making bad choices about other things, during the process.

Example: If you have salaried income of $95,000, you qualify for a payment of roughly $2,375 if the rate is 5%. Take the $375 off for taxes and insurance, and make sure you check that $375 a month against the taxes on the house you make an offer on later in the process, and the amount the lender assumed as the taxes when doing the pre-approval letter.

After deducting RE taxes and Insurance, we are looking at a monthly payment for Principal and Interest of $2,000 which gives you a loan of $372,500 at 5% and a loan of $342,700 at 5.75%. If you are planning to use an FHA loan, deduct $5,500 for the upfront MIP that you are likely going to finance, and that gives you a loan amount range of $337,200 to $367,000, depending on the interest rate at the time you lock it. Add the 3.5% downpayment, and you are looking at a sale price of about $355,000 to $385,000.

Remember that your approval is based on a % of your gross income and you qualify for a monthly payment, not for a sale price. So if you qualified for a house price of $385,000 (and the letter is absolute max within the lender’s assumptions), and they assumed taxes and insurance of $375 and the real taxes and insurance are $500, you no longer qualify for the sale price on your pre-approval letter. Likewise, if they used an interest rate of 4.875% and maxed out the price of home based on that rate, and rates are 5.125% when you lock, you won’t qualify at the sale price noted on your preapproval letter.

By asking the lender to use current rate PLUS X when issuing the preapproval, you can worry less about rates fluctuating while you are busy trying to find the right house, and making the best deal.

These days, the very best deal OFTEN has RE Taxes higher than the amount assumed when producing your preapproval letter, making this issue of importance moreso now than it has been in the last 10 years. Plus lending guidelines are stricter, so a slight variance out of the assumptions can clearly make the difference between loan approval and denial, moreso now than in the last 3-5 years.

Make sure your pre-approval is based on a higher interest rate than today’s “going rate” and higher annual real estate taxes. The reason this is MORE important today is many people are buying short sales and foreclosures. The better the “deal”, the more likely annual real estate taxes are going to be higher than a lender will estimate as an area average for that purchase price. So if you are Woo-Hooing about the fabulous price you just negotiated, it’s a good sign you need to check the ACTUAL RE Taxes against the lender’s original assumed monthly tax amount.

2) Get a Good Faith Estimate along with your pre-approval letter. Before you even begin to look at property, you want to be sure you have the total cash you will need to close escrow. While a Finance Contingency may protect you if Step 1) is done incorrectly, it will not protect you if you do not have the funds to close escrow. If your loan is approved, but you can’t close because you don’t have the amount of money escrow tells you to bring to closing, the Finance Contingency will not protect your Earnest Money.

Again, this is a little unorthodox, but I have found this method to be essentially foolproof. So much so, that I have been able to guarantee that there will be no surprises at closing, unless the buyer elects to buy down the interest rate for reasons other than needing to do so to qualify.

Don’t just look at the bottom line monthly payment, interest rate and cash to close on your Good Faith Estimate (GFE). Turn it into a “working” document by converting the format to the official HUD 1 you will see at closing. This gives you the added comfort of seeing BEFORE you start looking at homes, exactly the same Closing Statement you will be facing the day you go to sign your closing papers.

Find a blank HUD 1 and print it out. I always do these numbers by hand in blue ink, so I can clearly differentiate it from the forms that come later in the process. I have seen many and varied formats for Good Faith Estimates over the last 20 years, but the final closing statement, the HUD 1, has been virtually the same from year to year and even from State ot State.

I just printed one out directly from the HUD website. Always round the numbers up, and get the numbers directly from the source as much as possible. I expect lenders to be absolutely accurate when “estimating” their own charges, so the lender fees on the Good Faith Estimate should be accurate. BUT when they are estimating 3rd party costs on the Good Faith Estimate, such as Title and Escrow charges and even County recording fees, I often find those numbers to be underestimated. Remember to add the Home Inspection fee, which is almost never on a GFE.

Every time a sale closes, I double check the actual costs against my own original estimates. By getting your numbers directly from the source, and rounding up, you will not likely have any surprises at closing, in fact most often, the amount you need to bring should be less than you originally anticipated.

Always use worst case scenario when calculating your monthly payment and your Cash needed to Close BEFORE you go out looking for homes. This will insure that your real case scenario will always be brighter by comparison.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you do not have enough cash to close, that often means the agent needs to include a credit toward closing from seller to buyer IN THE OFFER. So doing this after you are in escrow…is too late.

Often there will be changes DURING the process that can throw these numbers off. By doing the numbers yourself, by hand, as I do, the little red flags will pop up as changes are proposed during the process.

EXAMPLE 1: Closing date is the 25th of the month, so the cash to close on your Good Faith Estimate has 6 days of interest at $55 a day = $330.00.

Two days before closing the seller asks you to extend close to the 11th of the next month instead. These discussions happen all the time WITHOUT the buyer knowing that the $330 for 6 days interest will increase to 20 days at $55 a day or $660. In reality it costs you less, but for practical purposes it costs you more with regard to “cash needed to close”. ALSO, often the lender doesn’t know the date was extended until they are sent the addedum changing the close date AFTER both the buyer and seller have signed agreeing to that change. If they only locked the rate to the day of closing or until the 3rd or 5th of the next month, you could end up with a different interest rate by signing the close date extension, and in this period of volatile rates they will likely hold you to the HIGHER of the two rates.

Again, if you are buying a short sale or bank owned property, the extension of close date may not be something within your control. You can’t MAKE the seller close on a given day, regardless of contract provisions. So being qualified from the beginning at a higher rate becomes a necessity vs. a preference, if you plan to close escrow.

EXAMPLE 2: You receive your Good Faith Estimate and it says you qualify for a sale price of $300,000. It says your total costs will be $13,000 of which $5,000 is up front MIP, which will be financed. Total cash needed to close is $18,500 and you have $15,000.

Two months later you make an offer on a property and it is accepted. No one told the agent that the approval assumed the seller would be paying $3,500 toward the closing costs, and it is now too late to rework the agreement with the seller. Escrow fails for insufficient funds to close, and seller keeps the Earnest Money which is more than the $3,500 you needed to complete the transaction. You don’t get the house AND you lose $5,000.

It is very important that you turn your Good Faith Estimate into a working document, and not just file it away as another piece of paper. THE AGENT WRITING YOUR OFFER DOES NOT GET THE GOOD FAITH ESTIMATE, unless you personally give it to them, or instruct your lender to send it to them. There are many assumptions made by the lender when producing a pre-approval letter. If the real facts don’t match those assumptions at time of offer and acceptance, it will likely be too late to turn back the clock, and that can put your Earnest Money at risk.

Bellevue College Real Estate (College Credit Division) Winding Down

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Jillayne Schlicke

Bellevue College (formerly Bellevue Community College) use to be the go-to place for real estate courses that also counted towards college credit. I must have referred hundreds of people to BCC during the last decade. The slowdown in the real estate industry has hit this program hard. But it’s not because real estate agent students aren’t taking classes. Instead, the majority of students I met during the classes I taught during the bubble run up were students who had entered the state workforce retraining program. These folks were laid-off workers from Boeing or technology who were training for a career in a growing industry which at that time was real estate and mortgage lending. The students I met had plans to become loan processors, loan originators, escrow closers, or appraisers. “Real estate sales? Yikes! That’s 100% commission,” they said. Instead most were looking for stable monthly income with a regular paycheck. All were extremely excited to be learning about the real estate and mortgage industries. The classes were also sprinkled with people who were already in one side of the industry but were wanting to learn more. For example, a title insurance employee who wanted to move into her company’s escrow department or a loan processor who wanted to become a loan originator.

Teaching community college students is radically different than teaching Realtors and loan originators in other venues. First of all, community college students actually WANT to be there. They are generally very motivated to learn and they are also very tired having just worked a full day before the evening class. In order to make evening classes work, you need keep the students energized and interested, which makes for a totally fun, adrenaline filled classroom once the pace is set.

I’ll be teaching the last four real estate courses for Bellevue College this summer that are offered as “college credit” classes: Land Titles, Beginning Escrow, Advanced Escrow, and Real Estate Investments. Note that Bellevue College will still offer continuing ed real estate classes. After the college credit program winds down, I hope that Kristen and Margaret save all the syllabuses and learning objectives from all the other classes (because for the next instructor coming in, this is really helpful.) It’s only a matter of time before the program starts up again. Our industry is and always will be cyclical. There will eventually be another big demand for real estate and mortgage related education at the college level. The curriculum might not look the same as it did in the past, but the demand will come. Maybe we will see the program shift into their continuing education division. Then the big question will be how to market to existing real estate licensees. Most of the Realtors I know don’t immediately think of Bellevue College when thinking of options for their clock hour classes. It’s typically a last minute decision. Maybe we’ll see some interest from real estate agents who need to take evening continuing ed classes due to another full time job. But the question is, how will BCC reach these potential students?

I remember a job I held back in the mid 1990s with Pacific NW Title up in Everett. Our County Manager Chris Schulz had a requirement that every single new hire take the beginning Land Title Institute course before our first performance review. We were not able to receive a raise unless we finished the course. I can remember reading and doing the take-home quizzes on an airplane, and on the weekends, but I finished in time. Even though I complained about having to spend the time doing the work, I gained a tremendous amount of knowledge about land titles.

I taught a class onboard the Point Ruston floating sales office last Wednesday and we talked about real estate being one of the least trusted professions. I had the group brainstorm about why they thought this was true. Most every group had one answer in common: Too low of a barrier to entry. I wonder if the upcoming changes in the real estate licensing laws are enough.

In the future, I’d love to see more Washington State institutions of higher learning offer four year undergraduate degrees in real estate and mortgage lending finance. The UW and WSU both offer undergrad degrees in finance. I wonder how those programs are doing. Perhaps a demand for real estate and lending education at the higher ed level would only come if it were required. I’d like to think that it will be someday.

A Small Window of Opportunity for Washington State Unlicensed Loan Originators (Correspondent Lenders aka CLAs)

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Rhonda Porter

June 1, 2009 Update: I just got off the phone with someone in the licensing department at DFI. They hope to have more information available soon for mortgage originator licensing. Some details are still being worked out. From what I could gather from my conversation this morning, the main advantage for licensing now vs. later is that you will have more time to complete the clock hours, take the exams and to be able to spread out the costs for said classes and exams. I sincerely apologize for misinterpreting DFI’s site on the requirements for LO licensing…I wish I could line out my title of this post!

In April, SHB 1621was signed by Governor Gregoire requiring loan originators employed by correspondent lenders/consumer loan companies to obtain a Washington Loan Originator License by July 1, 2010. The State passed SB6471 last summer which had “unintended consequences” causing some loan originators who were regulated by the Mortgage Brokers Practices Act (and therefore licensed) to become defined under the Consumer Loan Act–allowing those LO’s to be “unlicensed”. With the passage of the SAFE Act, the State is stepping up to National laws which include CLA loan originators.

So my fellow mortgage professionals who are employed at correspondent lenders, here is an opportunity for you: if you submit your application to become licensed by July 30, 2009; you’ll reduce your education requirements by 12 hours and pass one less exam.

Here are the requirements to apply for a Washington Loan Originator Licenese from DFI.

All applicants (regardless of when you decide to sumbit your license) must complete Form MU4 via the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry (NMLSR) and submit one fingerprint card, pay $155 licensing fee and…

LO Applications Submitted by July 30, 2009 (in addition the above):

Pass the PearsonVue Loan Originator test
Complete 8 hours of approved continuing education by December 31, 2009.

Or you can wait until after July 30, 2009 to submit your LO Application and in addition to the above requirements:

Pass the State and National exams.
Complete 20 hours of approved continuing education by December 31, 2009.

Do you really like to procrastinate? Opt to delay this process until January 1, 2010 and you still get to pass both exams and complete the 2o hours of CE prior to submitting your license prior to the July 1, 2010 deadline. (DFI ask that you submit license no later than April 1, 2010 to allow processing time).

Deb Bortner of DFI will be speaking about the SAFE Act and Washington State Loan Originator Licensing at two upcoming events:

June 4, 2009 from 4:00 – 8:00pm at The Venue on South Union in Tacoma. $50 includes dinner and wine from The Three Chicks.
June 19, 2009 from 12:30 – 5:00pm at Safeco Field – Ellis Pavilion in Seattle. $50 includes a ticket to the Mariner’s Game and lunch.

Both events include presentations on social media for mortgage professionals. I’ll be one of the speakers at Safeco Field along with David Gibbons from Zillow. 🙂 If you’re interested, you can get more info or register for either event with the Washington Association of Mortgage Professionals (membership to WAMP is not required).

As someone who’s gone through licensing, I can tell you it’s (an important) chore. Classes will fill up as the deadlines approach and I had the pleasure of being fingerprinted three times before I had a print that was acceptable. If you fail your exam three times (I wonder how often this happens); you’ll have to wait six months before you can try your luck at the exam again which means no loan originating for you until you have successfully passed your exams.

If you are originating mortgages in Washington State, I would not delay getting your Loan Originator License.

Google Wave – The Future is Now

Posted on May 29, 2009 by ARDELL

I am watching the video preview of Google Wave, which is the hot topic that was demonstrated yesterday at the keynote of Day 2 of Google I/O.

Interesting stuff, open source, and the preview is a means for people to start thinking about apps they might write to enhance the use of this product, before it becomes publicly available.

The multi-faceted communication possibilities are very exciting.

Seattle International Film Festival Review: Deadgirl

Posted on May 29, 2009 by Jillayne Schlicke

June is a busy month for families. Graduations, end-of-the-school year parties, summer camp registration, the end of spring sports and tryouts for fall sports, Father’s Day, yet I try hard to make time for….The Seattle International Film Festival. I’ve seen 5 movies so far and last night’s screening of Deadgirl is my favorite. I attended the movie with my nephew Josh and my daughter Miranda. All of us like the horror genre and the Deadgirl storyline sounded creepy:

Rickie and JT are high school outsiders, bullied by jocks and despised by the in-crowd. Though both would rather drop out than bear this never-ending misery, Rickie chooses to stay, if only to catch fleeting glimpses of JoAnn, his childhood crush and the current girlfriend to the captain of the football team. Then one afternoon, while cutting class, the pair makes a bizarre discovery in the darkest depths of an abandoned hospital—a beautiful young woman, neither living nor dead.

It would be easy to dismiss this film as exploitative but there’s way more going on beneath the surface. On the one hand, it might seem as though Rickie and JT are holding opposing moral positions and the directors use this as dynamic tension to move the film forward. But the way I see it, Rickie and JT actually want the same thing. The movie reminds me of another dark teen film, “Heathers.” Miranda says “Christian Slater’s character DOES everything Winona Ryder’s character wants to do.”

Director/Producers Gadi Harel and Marcel Sarmiento were there for the screening and took questions and answers afterwards. One of the movies that inspired Gadi and Marcel was “Stand by Me” based on the short story “The Body” by Stephen King. The Body was required reading during one of my psych grad school classes because it helped students understand the importance of developmental milestones. Rickie and JT are older than the kids from The Body and their curiosity about life and death goes down a more gruesome path.

Miranda asked about the significance of a certain shot containing a small flower that surely was meant to convey symbolism. Marcel was glad someone finally asked about that scene but refused to give away the meaning to the audience. Instead, he took her aside after the Q&A and whispered the meaning to her, and extracted a vow of secrecy. The rest of us will have to wait until the DVD release!

One of the questions was, “How did you obtain financing for such a creepy story?” Gadi and Marcel said that during the real estate bubble-run up, there was money available from people who had made plenty in real estate and those folks were the seed investors. Interesting. Times are different today.

Deadgirl will play again tonight at midnight at the Egyptian and again on June 5th, 9:30PM at the Kirkland Performing Arts Center.

Sunday Night Stats – More bang for your buck

Posted on May 26, 2009 by ARDELL

Relocating to Seattle: Home Prices (King County only) by School District – I’ll start with the graphs:

split-entry-eastside-graph

mppsf-sd

I spent a considerable amount of time this weekend working on home prices by school district for a woman on the East Coast who is hoping to move to Seattle with her family.

My conversation with her touched on something that is very common, though not talked about much on real estate blogs. The reality that husbands and wives often disagree on priorities. Consequently you end up with a “want” list that can be near impossible to fill as in: wife wants a new kitchen and new baths in the best school for the children. Husband wants a single family home with at least four bedrooms and a yard for $350,000 or less.

It is very difficult, if near impossible, to search by school district on the internet. Narrowing it down to specific schools in a school district is even harder.

I started a series of posts by calculating the price variance of homes in six school districts. At the onset I eliminated homes over a million dollars and homes with lake or mountain views, and came up with these results as shown in the middle graph above. In order to evaluate where prices are currently vs. in previous years, I used March, April and May stats back to 2005, as I can’t search by school district prior to late February of 2005 as is explained in the linked post.

Next, I took the same timeframes but stuck the median of the three months combined (vs. separately) for each of those years as shown in the last graph in this post and explained HERE.

The 2009 data in the second graph above peaked my curiosity regarding the consistent spread between school districts seeming to go haywire in 2009, with half the school district home prices turning up and half turning down. While that may appear to be the market being “flat”, in reality UP vs DOWN does not equal “flat” to most home buyers and sellers, as they don’t get to average the two when buying or selling a specific home. That led me to this post and the graph below, to sort out median price changes from December of 08 to present.

Remember, these are school districts vs. cities, so part of Bellevue is in BE (Bellevue School District) and part of Bellevue is in LKW (Lake Washington School District). ISS is Issaquah School District, not the “mailing address” of Issaquah.

Given the recent inconsistencies, I moved to find a like kind product that fulfilled the “4 bedroom with yard” parameters of a family with a couple of children hoping to buy “a single family home $350,000 or less” in most of the available school districts, and came up with the split-enty or bi-level home (not split level home) described in this post. It has long been one of my favorites for “More Bang For Your Buck” and as the first graph shows, the same house can be had at different prices in various school districts.

The first graph tells you a lot. If you want the house with lots of upgrades for around $350,000, you more likely can get that where the median price for that style is in the $350,000 or less range. If you choose a school district where that home normally sells for much more than $350,000, you can still get that house, but you might have to sacrifice that newer kitchen or newer bathrooms as a trade off for the school you choose.

There is always a lot of controversy when discussing schools and which may be better or best. Consequently you don’t see much of that discussion anymore. The reality is that people who are relocating from thousands of miles away, look at homes on the internet, AND they try to choose schools using the internet.

Hopefully all of the data I put together will help one Mom and Dad sitting in DC with their current decision making process. As is my practice as a real estate blogger, I try to show you how I work for each client or potential client, and give you the benefit of seeing my thought process and the underlying data.

Last but not least…I know it isn’t Sunday :), but I try to tag all of my stat related posts here on Rain City Guide as “Sunday Night Stats” and on my blog as “Tracking the Market” so that people who like to follow those posts as a category, can do that via a one click link on both sites.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend!

(required disclosure) Stats are not compiled, verified or posted by NWMLS

Spring Home Improvement: Deck maintenance

Posted on May 24, 2009 by Tim

One of the things I enjoy about home improvement is trying out different products so see how they stand up to our Northwest climate. The project that my wife and I knew was on our top five to-do list was to remove an on-grade slab of concrete which was our patio. When we purchased our home the only access to the outside patio was through the garage door or walking around the house–a real drag that we had to change. After we installed an Anderson sliding door from the kitchen and dining area for easy access to the back yard where the concrete patio was, we put our savings in high gear for our on-grade deck where we could lounge and watch the scenery and enjoy our Summer-like weather we are now experiencing.

Spring 09' Copyright Tim Kane

I’ve repaired, cleaned and stained numerous decks for family and friends and after considering what products seemed to work well and what types of decks gave me the most frustration in repairing or maintaining, we settled on a composite deck system by Xtendex sold at retailers around Puget Sound. This decking is extremely dense and has a wood-grain feature that is embossed into the board lengths during the manufacturing process. My initial concern was that this would wear away, but after three years it still looks very good.

We purchased our deck and railing system at Dunn Lumber. The color that worked best for us was Redwood. I’ll be the first to admit this deck has taken a beating both with fireworks landing on it (and being launched from thanks to a creative son), numerous food spills, ice, snow (and me shoveling it off with…a shovel), and deck furniture. This past Fall and Winter weather was as brutal as I can remember since we’ve lived in our home. A lot of grime and dirt built up since last Spring when it was last cleaned.

Grime vs clean

See the pictures of how clean this deck looks after three seasons. I used a mild detergent and then pressure washed the decking. About 750 sq. ft was cleaned in about 90 minutes start to finish. I couldn’t help but look at my neighbors house (Joy, I hope you don’t read this post and if you do I’ll buy you a Mocha) where their decking looked haggard, worn and peeling paint everywhere. To have a wood deck refurbished, stained and railings painted would cost a bundle and the refurbish cycle would have to be close to every other year depending upon the quality of the materials, workmanship and finish. Washing down our decking is about the only maintenance I have to look forward to for a number of years. I we had to do anything all over again it would be to change the fastening system from what we have (Stainless Steel Top screws) to a hidden fastening system.

Detergent w/ pressure washing

clean deck

Good luck to all the D-I-Y ‘s this Spring and Summer.

Seattle International Film Festival!

Posted on May 23, 2009 by Jillayne Schlicke

This past Christmas, I bought my nephew Josh a 20-pack gift certificate to the Seattle International Film Festival and we’ve been surfing the SIFF movie sorter finding all kinds of films that are on both of our “must see” lists. Last night we saw a Midnight Adrenaline showing of “I Sell the Dead.” Yes, more zombie movies are on my list to see with Josh including “Zombies of Mass Destruction” (filmed in Port Gamble, WA) and Dead Snow.

This afternoon, I took a four-pack of teenagers to see “Spring Breakdown” and star Rachel Dratch (from Saturday Night Live) was there for a meet and greet. It was hilarious! Josh had a chance to meet Rachel and get her autograph and I must say he practically levitated for the rest of the day. After Spring Breakdown, we raced to the Uptown on Queen Anne to get in line for “Paper Heart” starring Charlyne Li and Michael Cera. It’s a documentary/comedy/romance about Charlyne’s real life quest to find out why she doesn’t believe in love. The film was wonderful and everyone with my group gave it a 5 on the 1-5 rating scale for the audience choice award. Tomorrow both my nephews and I will be heading down to the U District again to see Kevin Spacey in “Shrink.”

I don’t spend all my time with teen-friendly films and neither should you. For gratuitous sex and violence, I’ll be catching “Dowloading Nancy” with my gratuitous-sex-and-violence-film-festival-buddy Ron. Our pact is to ONLY see movies with gratuitous sex and violence each year. I try to see the opening and closing night galas with my friend Kyoko who always entertains me with stories about what it was like when she was a UW student in the early 70s when the film festival was first getting started.

Another favorite genre is horror. Josh and I will be catching “Deadgirl” which created a buzz at the Toronto Film Festival and “The Hills Run Red.” I wish I had time to see more psychological thrillers but alas, business calls. If only I could take three weeks off work every year. You can search the SIFF film sorter by website by genre, program, director, country or venue. The calendar will give you a quick look at what films are playing where and when every day. SIFF even has an iPhone app for the festival. I recommend buying tickets online and printing your ticket vouchers in advance. That way if the movie you want to see is sold out by the time you arrive, you’re rewarded for planning ahead by exchanging your vouchers for tickets at will call and get in the ticket holder line! All the SIFF volunteers have been amazing at helping me with various questions. My only complaint is having to constantly pay for parking at every venue which really adds up.

Come say “Hi” if you see me at Four Boxes, West of Pluto, Burning Plain, Worlds Greatest Dad (filmed in Seattle), Cold Souls, or The Clone Returns Home and I hope everyone is enjoying our awesome weather this weekend!