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107 Seattle Neighborhoods – via Seattle Met

Paul Allen’s Island For Sale for $13.5 Million via Seattle Times

Seattle Real Estate – New Construction Price Per Square Foot via Seattle Bubble

Seattle Short Sales and Bank Owned Property “Distressed Homes Discounted at 37.4% in Seattle Area via Aubrey Cohen of Seattle PI Interest to note that this just happens to be the number I called as “bottom” back in Aubrey’s piece written in February of 2009 – Agent Predicts Housing Slumps Demise. “She (Ardell DellaLoggia) said distressed sales were going for about 37 percent below peak…”

What I actually said was that those that were going for 37% under peak were at bottom…and that eventually all would gravitate to that as the median sold price. Apparently we have arrived at that point per Aubrey’s latest Article on Distressed Property Sales at 37.4% under peak.

December is the new start date for the toll of the 520 Bridge, so ignore the “this summer” in this video. But the explanation of the how and why should be quite useful for users of the bridge…of which there are many.

How long does it take for a house to sell? is one of the most commonly asked questions. Before answering the question, I usually have to change it to How long does it take to get an offer?

Sell/Sold = Closed.

From the time a home is listed, the expectation is that the seller will get an offer within 30 to 60 days. In fact for property owned by 3rd parties, like a relocation company or bank, they often ask the agent for a “30 day price” and a “60 day price”. Most private sellers don’t recognize this distinction and think their home is “worth” a set amount and the asking price has nothing to do with time. It does.

“Time to Sell” involves two controllable issues:

1) Asking Price

2) Property Condition or “Presentation”.

To that people usually ask “What about Location, Location, Location?” Location is not “controllable”, so price and Condition must compensate for Location Weakness. Usually moving the house to someplace else is not an option.

Below is an example of a home I helped to sell within 5 days.

To me that is called a “30 day price” vs a “60 day price”. When does a seller NEED to sell within 30 days? Usually when they are in contract on another home with a “Home Sale Contingency” clause requiring them to sell their home within 30 days in order to get the home they are hoping to purchase. There is no such thing as a 5 day price or a 10 day price. I basically use a 30 day price and hope for an offer within 30 days. A “less than one week” price might be to “under” price it, and generally that is not an option, though some use it to try to get “multiple offers” vs “a buyer”, it should not be done without written consent to the strategy from the seller, as that can easily backfire on a seller.

Back to the Question: How long does it take for a House to SELL? It took 4 days to get an offer…5 days to acceptance and “In Escrow” and more than 30 to actually be SOLD. It can take many, MANY weeks before it is listed to get the Condition and Presentation to a close to perfect result.

So how long it takes to Sell from LIST DATE does not usually include how long it takes to get “it” ready to be listed in the first place. That varies greatly from one house to the next. It usually takes a minimum of 10 days. The Max was 6 months or so, but that is more about the seller being ready vs the house being ready. I usually want the flyers to be ready by the time the sign goes up, and for the sign to be up the day the property goes into the mls system. That’s the goal.

Listed 3/28/2010 – Offer Accepted 4/2/2010 – Inspection Complete and Satisfied – CLOSED 5/6/2010.

So when people ask: “How Long Does It Take For A House To Sell? …do they mean CLOSE?

Usually not.

Days on Market = measured to the date of an Accepted Contract. Not to the Day of Closing.

THE MORE NORMAL TIMEFRAME IS THE 60 DAY PRICE.

It depends on the market. In a Super-Hot market, the expectation was an offer in 30 days. Example would be Spring-Bump season of 2005 and 2006. In Balanced market conditions, the expectation is an offer in 60 days. No offer in 30 in a HOT-”Seller’s” Market may mean a price reduction is needed, though more often the market came up to meet the price if it was only “a hair” off.

In a Balanced or even Buyer’s market, no offer in 60 days is more telling than in 30. Often that depends on the time of year as in December vs April.

Below are two examples. One “Sold in 60″ and the other “Sold in 71″. Fairly “Text Book” and recent case examples. They both started out as “60 Day Prices”. The 30 Day Price noted above is the exception to the rule, as most sellers are OK with a 60 Day Price, as under-pricing it is to be avoided. That leaves us with “being smack ON” or over. Of course starting with the “right” price is the goal, but the market does not always agree.

The example above is an EXACT sold in 60, according the the manner in which the mls calculates “Days on Market”.

Listed 11/16/2010 – Offer Accepted 1/16/2011 – Inspection Completed 2/5/2011 closed 3/1/2011

This house was built in 1918, and had a problem more specific to older homes in Seattle vs The Eastside, namely tree roots in the sewer line. It took many trips by various professionals to resolve that issue, hence the abnormally long inspection period. Again, “Sold in 60″ refers to the List date to Contract date. From that perspective, no price change was needed to receive the offer that was accepted. But we did reduce the price just before the written offer came in from $599,950 to $579,950. It had no consequence to the person who bought it. The main reason was to make sure there weren’t other offers between the $560,000 sold price and the new $579,950 asking price, even if those ended up in “backup” position. A classic…priced at a 60 day price and sold in 60 days.

The house below was sold in 71 days.

Listed 1/13/2011 – NO offer by 60 days on 3/13/2011

With no offer in 60 the price was reduced by $10,000 on 3/17 and an offer was received and accepted on 3/25.

Great CLASSIC example of reading the no offer in 60 days to mean you need a tweak. Only $10,000 difference and an offer was received in about a week after 60 days of nothing. It CLOSED on 4/21/2011.

That should give you a good idea of how long it should take for a house to sell. The answer is 60 days. IF the first 60 days brings no offers, then the change you make AT 60 should be all that is needed. If that change does not work for the 60 days AFTER the change…then you need another change.

Sometimes that change is condition vs price. In the last example we had no grass and likely would have had to sod it if no offer came from the $10,000 price reduction. We would have done that from the beginning…but as you can see…it was snowing. We couldn’t sod as the weather conditions didn’t allow for that. The interior condition and presentation were perfected before it was listed. It looked GREAT! The holdup was the landscaping, and there’s only so much you can do with that when it’s snowing.

When getting your home ready for market, the appearance of the kitchen is one of the most important things you need to do. In a standard $200,000 home (not including the land value), $30,000 to $50,000 of that value is in the kitchen.

The difference between the kitchen showing well and showing VERY BADLY

is about $10,000 for most homes.

Kitchens are actually the easiest part of the house to “stage”.

Shouldn’t take more than ONE HOUR!

Here are some worst case scenarios of the “start” point.

THESE ARE NOT PICTURES OF MY CLIENTS’ KITCHENS!!!

I never post BEFORE pictures of my clients’ homes. Only the AFTER photos for obvious reasons. I love my clients and wouldn’t embarrass them. I got the above photos from an UGLY PHOTOS page on a stagers site. Apparently they don’t like their clients as much as I like mine. LOL!

I KNOW. YOU ARE SAYING: “NO WAY! THESE KITCHENS CAN BE STAGED IN ONE HOUR!”

First let’s look at a few AFTER photos of kitchens I have helped my clients stage.

I am not a “STAGER”. I am a Real Estate Agent

But together my clients and I turn their kitchens into the kitchens below.

STAGING YOUR KITCHEN IS 1, 2, 3 – EASY PEASY

Well, easy for me. Not so much for the owner.

STEP ONE – 15 MINUTES

Honestly, the owner of the home usually needs to leave for that 15 minutes. It makes them too nervous to see me do this. I take EVERYTHING that is visible OUT of the Kitchen and put it outside of the room. Just outside of the room and in a place where it will not be visible when I take my PHOTO for the mls. The MLS photos have to be ready before the property is listed for sale so I can make the flyers and upload them to the Public Search Site access point. So ONE HOUR to PHOTO READY!

I put these things into two piles. One has anything I might use for staging

and the other has things I know I will not need for staging.

(This is not part of the “staging” Step One – But worth mentioning here. The Owner of the home can come back inside at this point and start sorting what I have put OUT of the kitchen. The owner can sit in a chair and sort into a WHITE BAG for Goodwill or Salvation Army or other “give away” place. A BLACK BAG for trash and a MOVING BOX for KEEP. Very Important to have these three things at the ready. White…give away. Black…throw away. Cardboard Box…KEEP. If you don’t know…put it in the KEEP for now as you will be sorting the KEEP boxes later.)

STEP TWO – 30 MINUTES

Clean It! Best to have a couple of cleaning ladies do this while the owner is sorting her “stuff” in the other room and I am choosing my staging pieces. Sometimes I put the wall pieces up while the ladies are cleaning the sink and counters. Remember this cleaning is for STAGING and PICTURES. That’s one of the reasons the owner shouldn’t be doing it, unless it was already done before Picture Day. No cleaning out the refrigerator or the cabinets at this point. Just clean what will show in the pictures.

STEP THREE – 15 MINUTES

Clean and empty is not good enough. You need to bring in some nice looking things. Some of the owner’s things and some of yours. I tend to use the same things from one person’s kitchen to the next, so it’s simple to place them. I know them well and have used them many times to the same purpose.

Let’s talk about the photo above for a few minutes. That is the home of a client who has two children and still lives in the house. Well not anymore, because I sold the house. In this case  I asked the owner what she used every day that we could not put away. The toaster oven or small microwave in the left corner there. Neat..clean…found a home for it.  The three canisters with coffee, tea or some other every day use item. Actually she only need the middle sized one, but since I had to leave one of them out, I incorporated the staging to include all three. They used to be ON the counter and I used them to decorate the shelves to the left of the window.

Took everything off the top of the cabinets that the owner was not using and were just “clutter” and placed a few of my pieces there. I like to use a splash of a bold color at the top of the cabinets to draw the eye up and give the feeling of HEIGHT in the room.

Granite Counters were a big selling point in this particular home, so they are clean and visible!

Hardwood Floors also a big selling point, so we cleaned those up and removed ALL area rugs that were hiding one of the key selling features of this home.

Left the owner’s bamboo plant…because it is good luck.

Would have removed the tiles to the right of the cabinets, but the wall behind it would need to much fix up and touch up. So we left that to after the property was in escrow and worked around the hanging tiles that did no good but no harm either. You have to work with what you’ve got to live with sometimes. Don’t BOG DOWN the time frame by obsessing on the unimportant.

I almost always put a little something over at least one doorway. Again, keeping the eye UP is an important point in staging a home.

Sellers tend to look DOWN too much.

Buyers don’t do that until they are pretty sure they are going to buy the house!

There you go…Easy, Peasy, ONE, TWO, THREEsie! You have plenty of time while your home is in escrow or while it is on market to sort…NO SORTING on Picture Day!

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To Hire ARDELL to buy or sell a home, call 206-910-1000 or email ARDELL at ardelld@gmail.com

Landscaping a Seattle Area Home can be relatively easy and low maintenance, if you choose the right plants to start with. Many of my clients are from other countries and somewhat unfamiliar with what the plantings are when they purchase a home. They also ask questions about what to add after they move in to enhance the property and for their own personal enjoyment.

Spring Flowers are very important to the annual cycle of happiness in Seattle. We do suffer a bit here from lack of sunshine (you may have heard). Consequently ringing in Spring at your home with the appearance of some of these early Spring beauties can really enhance your home and your overall disposition while waiting for the sun to come out. Almost all Spring flowers are perennial and bloom automatically in your garden each Spring. Nothing better than a “once and done” project.

My favorite early bloomer is the Cherry Blossom Tree. Nothing says “Sunny Days Ahead” with more exuberance than the famed Cherry Blossom tree. Sometimes they are actually Cherry Trees that bear fruit, but they can be awfully messy. I see those in the Green Lake area. Most often they are ornamental, non-fruit bearing, cherry blossom trees. The trees shown in the photo are at The University of Washington. Should you plant one at your house? Generally the visual of the pink trees in early Spring is very dramatic. I would wait until you have lived through a Spring at your new home to see if there are any already in the immediate vicinity. Sometimes someone else’s cherry blossom tree nearby, to get that wonderful feeling of Spring in the Air, is better than having your own. But by all means, if there are none nearby for you to enjoy, plant one. Smack dab in the middle of thefront lawn is as good a place as any. You will be happier and you will bring that happiness to your neighbors as well. If your neighbors already have some that you can enjoy, send a little thank you note in appreciation for the joy their tree brings to you.

The yellow blooming Forsythia is another awesome Spring is HERE! planting that is easier to find a place for and maintain than a full tree for many homes. It is a shrub or bush vs a tree. It blooms every year and early in the year with bright yellow blooms. You can trim it to most any shape from it’s natural form with light trimming as shown in the photo, to a well formed squared off border hedge.

A full hedge of them would be gorgeous in Spring, but like most Spring Flowers, their season is short lived, and in our area of Seattle, that season is often gone by the time you are spending a lot of time outdoors. For that reason I don’t recommend it as a hedge planting.

I like just one in the back corner of the yard that you can see from inside the kitchen and family room and trimmed to a reasonable size, as it is not the most attractive plant when it isn’t in bloom and solid yellow as shown above. Best if your lot in the back is on the high side as they like full sun and well drained soil.

Staying with SPRING FLOWERS we move to Bedding Plants, which for Spring Flowers is usually a bulb plant.

You generally plant Spring Bulbs in clusters as shown of 3 to 5 bulbs per cluster, and you plant them in the FALL or WINTER to grow in the Spring.

Daffodils and mini grape hyacinth grow really well here, as to Iris, though Iris bloom later than the others. Crocus are the earliest, but be sure to plant them in a very visible spot as they are low and easy to miss if put in an obscure position on the property. Someplace right outside the front door is great. In the back away from everything…not so much. Use Iris there as they are very tall and propogate. Some daffodil – narcissus varieties propogate more and better than others, so plant accordingly. Not getting into a lot of “use and care” here, just enough to know where to plant them in the first place.

Tulips are lovely, but honestly, they grow better in places that have more of a Winter Season then Seattle does. For that reason they can often have a droopy short life here. You can do things to counteract that, but too much trouble. A few daffodils are OK, but don’t make them the mainstay of a Seattle Spring Bulb garden. They like a much colder Winter Season than we have.

Skipping the obvious Rhododendron and Azalea spring flowering shrubs until the end.

SUMMER!

Of course we love, love, love our Seattle summers. Summer is mostly for Annual Bedding Plants, meaning you have to go out and buy them and plant them every year. Don’t overdo it or it will become too much of a chore. For full sun you want begonia or geraniums. For part shade you want impatiens. If you do only a few here and there, those are the best choices as pictured below along with some hosta and privacy hedge plantings.

A few notes. Begonia likes the sun and is best used when backed by a low boxwood hedge as shown.

Geranium is the best Cheap Splash of Color, but they tend to like to be in a pot. Full sun is good. Don’t forget to pinch off the dead heads at the base to promote new flower growth throughout the season.

Impatiens, I love them, but they like shade. Don’t plant them in full sun under a mailbox. They need water, so best to cover with mulch in a shady area to preserve the moisture level.

Love hosta, many awesome varieties, they are perennial and come up year after year and are great for spacing between your annual flowers. They do have a flower of sorts, but best to pinch those off to keep the energy going to the plant until it is nice and bushy. It can burn up. so not too much full sun. Near a fence is good for part shade.

Love arborvitae for privacy, and awesome if you buy a house that already has a full grown privacy hedge, but remember to plant a photinia or firebush in front of them, as the base of them tend to be a bit ugly as the age. Keep the red hedge low and square for contract to about 3 feet high or so and plant forward enough to keep it trimmed along the back instead of growing into the arborvitae. You can plant annuals there instead, but a lot of work for the short season.

Last but not least is the Washington State Flower, the Rhododendron and it’s relative the Azalea. To my mind there’s nothing better than a healthy rhododendrun plant or azalea bush, and noting sadder than a “sick” one.

I put these last, when they truly could have been first, because I’ve seen more sick ones than healthy ones in the last few years. If you buy a house that has these, I urge you to nurture them, because the are the State Flower and they are gorgeous, but there are so very many sick and diseased ones around, it is truly sad. It’s not quite the season for them yet. They will be out soon and I hope you come to love them as much as I do. But I find that younger people don’t for some unknown reason, and they have become the “old people love them” plant. Sad but true. More people who buy homes want to get rid of them than nurture them back to health. But we’ll always have them at The Arboretum.

For a special client, here is a link to azalea planted over a rock retaining wall at The Seattle Arboretum. I can’t post the picture itself as it is a poster for sale. But it’s a good representation of how to Dress Up a Rock wall.

In fact I wrote this entire post for them. But I hope you enjoyed it too!

The Tim over at Seattle Bubble asks if the variance between sold prices and asking prices indicates that sellers are “delusional” about what their homes are worth. Not really. It’s more a function of whether buyers in that immediate vicinity are willing to pay that much for a property, even if it is in fact “worth” that amount.

Let’s use 98023 Federal Way compared to 98052 Redmond to note the large variance between two “immediate vicinities” vs the County-wide stats as a whole.

98023 – 84 properties sold in the last 90 days of which 35 were bank owned and 15 were short sales. so 50 of 84 properties sold were “distressed property”. Roughly 60%. 75 houses and 8 condos.

98023 – 314 Active Listings – 50 are bank owned and 121 are short sales. 171 of 314 properties are “distressed property”. Roughly 54%. 256 houses and 52 condos.

So over 1.5 year supply (19.5 mos) of condos and a 10 month supply of houses.

98023 – 71 of the 84 properties sold for $300,00 or less. 85%

98023 – 232 of the 314 for sale are $300,000 or less. 74%

Only 5 of the properties sold were $400,000 or more.
41 of the properties for sale are over $400,000.

Two years plus supply of property priced at $400,000 or more.

So as things sell off from the bottom, the % of higher priced property remaining on market increases.

That is not necessarily to say that the seller is delusional about the price he is asking for his property. It is saying that the majority of people buying in that zip code are not willing to pay that much for a property, regardless of whether or not that property is “worth it”.

For that much money they will live somewhere else. . (mixed condos and SFH)

Compare that to

98052 – 122 properties sold in the last 90 days of which 22 were bank owned and 8 were short sales. so 30 of 122 properties sold were “distressed property”. Roughly 25% 27 were condos and 89 were Single Family Homes

98052 – 339 Active Listings – 22 are bank owned and 40 are short sales. 62 of 339 properties are “distressed property”. Roughly 18%. 127 are condos and 180 are single family homes.

So a 14 month supply of condos and a 6 month supply of houses.

98052 – 7 of the 122 properties sold for $700,00 or more.

98052 – 34 of the 339 for sale are asking $700,000 or less.

14+ month supply of property priced at $700,000 or more
vs a 5.4 mo supply of homes under $700,000.

Again, that does not necessarily say that the sellers asking $700,000 or more are “delusional” about the price they are asking for their property. It is saying that the majority of people buying in that zip code are not willing to pay that much for a property, regardless of whether or not that property is “worth it”.

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(Required Disclosure: Stats in this post are not compiled by, verified or posted by The Northwest Multiple Listing Service – NWMLS – “The MLS”.)

Buyer Beware! Do NOT be impatient and go out buying things for your “new” home BEFORE it closes!

All too often people just don’t have the patience to wait to buy that new washer & dryer or new refrigerator or even a new hardwood floor! Yes, I once had a client buy all of the wood for the new hardwood floor prior to closing, and even try to store it inside the house he didn’t own yet. LOL…funny guy…gave me a few more gray hairs though.

All too often people forget that the mortgage lender used certain criteria as to:

1) The amount you owe to other people
2) Your credit score
3) Your remaining cash reserves after closing

in order to give you that “pre-approval” BUT, BUT, BUT they often CHECK that you have not CHANGED that scenario before they will FUND the loan ON CLOSING DAY!

If I had a nickel for every time someone said to me, “Why do they care if I?” I don’t answer WHY…I answer that they DO CARE!

New FNMA policies regarding even ASKING for “new credit” during escrow and prior to close, suggest that they WILL CARE even MORE in the future than in the past.

Be patient.
Focus on being able to close on the house,
before running out to buy things FOR your new home.

Even if you use cash vs credit, you may be depleting your required cash reserve position. Just buy the house first. Ignore your impulse to run out and buy everything you need FOR it, before you actually own it.

A Reserve Study for your Single Family Home can help you avoid needing to finance home improvements by establishing a Reserve for Replacement Items, similar to the Condo HOA concept.

It’s fairly simple to do one if you know the basics. Below is a sample of one I put together with a certain house in mind. Explanation is below the chart.

Often people want to use a % of purchase price as the reserve amount, but earmarked savings as a reserve per item is a better approach. Otherwise you tend to spend the money on “wants” vs “needs” and still don’t have the money to replace non-aesthetic components of the home.

First you need to determine what is a MAJOR Component vs a MINOR Component of your home.
That depends on your overall finances more than the cost of the item itself. It also depends on the life expectancy of the item, as a lower cost item can cost more per year than a more expensive one. For instance a sewer pipe costs a lot more to replace than a hot water tank, but it lasts a lot longer. So the monthly cost to put in reserves for replacement may be the same.

You determine your MAJOR COMPONENTS by cost, and for most people would include items that cost $1,500 or more. But if your budget is extremely tight, you may want to include items that cost more than $1,000 to replace or even $500 to replace.

Let’s take Hot Water Tank as an example. Let’s assume it costs $1,200 and lasts 12 years. That means you need to allocate $100 a year or roughly $8 a month to it’s replacement cost. If you have an electric hot water tank, that’s about right. If you have a gas hot water tank, it will likely last longer, especially if it is a glass lined tank. Once you have $1,200 you can price out the cost of a replacement tank and STOP funding that component if the reserve equals the cost to replace, as that would be a “fully funded” reserve at that point for that item.

Some people will need more than others depending on their propensity to “buy the best” vs buying a replacement that is “sufficient”. A Reserve Study is a very personal document that you can tweak as time goes by.

A good way to update it is if you see your neighbor put on a new roof, as example, you can ask what it cost and update your Reserve Study accordingly.

Remember, the main purpose of the Reserve Study is to EARMARK funds so that you don’t go on vacation with your “ROOF MONEY”. If possible, it is best to keep your Reserve Study Funds separate from your other types of savings accounts.

Quickie on Major Components when making an offer to purchase a home.

I created this video to help people understand the meaning and purpose of Earnest Money, which sheds some light on why the amount is not always the same, even for the same buyer on two different properties.

Q: I’m planning to sell my home and read your article on using Pottery Barn Manchester Tan, but wondered why you used more colorful tones, like Paris Green and Fern Green and Hawthorne Yellow and Golden Tan in the Theater Room in that post?

A: Generally speaking, more square footage sells for more money. I think everyone agrees with that. Dark recedes and Light expands when it comes to wall colors. A dark red or blue room will always feel smaller than a white room.

That is why if your home is on the small side, you may want to stick with white.

But if it is a large home of 2,500 sf or more, and especially if you have nice white millwork, you will want to use a color like Manchester Tan for several reasons.

1) The slightly darker shade will make your white wood trims “pop” and highlight them.

2) One overall neutral color pretty much EVERYWHERE will make the home feel much bigger. White is too “cold” for a large home. It makes it feel too “cavernous”.

3) You want a color that won’t clash with the buyer’s furniture and accessories. Not everyone can go out and buy all new furniture for their new home. So you need a color that makes them feel like the things they have will go just fine in “their new home” which is now yours.

A Theater Room by definition is supposed to FEEL like you LEFT your home and went to the Theater.

So you want to be a little more creative and of course theaters are always darker than the lobby, so while you don’t want to go with the black or dark purple walls that I have seen on occasion, you do want to go a bit darker than the rooms of the home outside the entrance of the theater room.

These particular selections are a bit lighter than normal, because these are going into a basement room with no windows at all, so we are already dealing with DARK and want to create a bit more ambiance.

Try to put your carpet and all of the colors you will use on a samplet board like the one I made above, to get the full feel of how the colors blend together, before you begin the project.