There were only 14 Broker Open houses in all of area 710 today which is the typical tour day for the area. Even though the last three weeks especially have been extremely quiet in Seattle real estate overall, I would still have expected just a few more since area 710 encompasses such neighborhoods as Laurelhurst, Windermere, Ravenna, Hawthorne Hills, Wedgwood, and more.

As it was, the highlights of the trip were High’s listing in Laurelhurst and Mary’s listing in Windermere (I liked the pool). I also enjoyed the Seattle brokers I was touring with – Molly Cartwright from Cooper Jacobs Real Estateand Steven Brown from The Dwelling Group.

So what has happened with Laurelhurst real estate lately?  4 Laurelhurst homes have sold and closed in the last 30 days according the the Laurelhurst listings out of the MLS this evening.  They are as follows:

• 3822 42nd Ave NE :  3/ 1.75,   2,050 sq feet,  0.110 lot size,  Built in 1926,  Sold: 11/30/10,$265.85/sq foot,  66 DOM, Original List Price  $599,000/ List Price  $550,000/Sale Price  $545,000….SP%LP: 99.09%
• 145096 5025 Nicklas Place NE 3/ 1.50, 2,480 sq ft,  0.145 lot size, Built in  1947, Sold: 11/30/10,$257.66/sq ft, DOM 15, Original List Price $659,000 /List price $659,000/ Sale Price $639,000…. SP%LP: 96.97%
• 145391 3802 47th Ave NE 3/ 2.50 ,2,570sq ft, lot: 0.165, built 1928, Sold:  11/23/10, $/sq ft: $362.65, DOM 82, Original List: $719,900/ List $719,900/ Sale $932,000 …..SP%LP129.46%
• 118227 5120 NE 54th St 4/ 2.50, 2,490 sq ft, lot:  0.301, built  1946, Sold: 12/03/10, $/sq ft: $261.04, DOM 67 , Original List: $769,000/List: $724,900/ Sales Price: $650,000, SP%LP: 89.67

We have at least two Cooper Jacobs Real Estate Brokers that I can think of off hand who currently have Laurelhurst buyers looking for the perfect property.  Unfortunately, the inventory is low – please let us know if you are thinking about selling your Laurelhurst Home.  realestate@cooperjacobs.com

Laurelhurst MLS Sold Listing CountMedian Price for Laurelhurst homes that have sold:  $644,500

King County Overall Ending in October 2010

Eastside Overall Ending in October 2010

One Seattle home had in it showing instructions to please give the seller and hour and a half notice. No problem – I made the phone call like a good girl and left a message with the time I wanted to preview. As I read further on, the agent only notes instructed me not to go show unless I got a call back. At appointment time I had not gotten a call back yet so I called the listing agent and asked if I could go take a peek. He told me no and that I needed to wait until she called me back. Guess what. I am still waiting. My buyers will pass on this one most likely since they can’t buy a home they can’t see.

One seller hesitated and said to call his agent. I thought okay – maybe with the strange Matrix software conversion in the MLS their house might be sold, but he could have told me that himself. I went ahead and called his agent as instructed to find out about previewing the home. Instead of telling me whether or not it was available to preview she began to interview me about who my perspective client is and how qualified they are. WOW.

Client info is privileged. My client confides in me and their information is PRIVATE. Your job is to tell me:

1. Is the home available or not?

2. Does the seller want to sell it or not?

Listing agents, it is none of your business who my client is or what their qualifications are. That is MY job. I don’t waste my time with nonqualified buyers or I would not be in business. You should be able to reasonably rely on my abilities and qualifications as a Realtor to screen my client. Maybe instead, you should focus on helping your seller make sure that their home is readily available for a buyer who is ready willing and able to buy their home. This is why sharing listing data (when it works) is so successful and is why we all share information in the NWMLS.

These are just a couple examples. Overall, I think there are two problems clogging up real estate in Seattle this Spring. The lending environment has opened up so I won’t blame lending on this issue. Brokers need to train their agents to make showing easier – greasy wheel and such, and those listing agents need to make sure that the sellers are allowing buyers and buyers agents to show these homes.

If your listing agent is doing some screening with prospective buyers as they try to make appointments to see your home, then you need another listing agent. There are of course rare circumstances – maybe you are Brad Pitt or in one case I represented an NFL star and all their expensive and sentimental football memorabilia was around the house. Those are outstanding cases, but overall your listing agent should not make it more difficult for a buyer’s agent to show your home!

Seller Tips for showing: If you as a seller are going to put your home on the market, then do everything in your power to make sure that every buyer interested in it can see it. You do not want them to go on to the next house and put an offer in that one because you wouldn’t let them see yours…I know putting your home on the market is stressful and difficult. I personally was a crazy woman the last time I had to go through it, but it is just part of the process and will pass eventually. There are some things you can do to make it easier – especially if you have kids or pets (I have both). I am happy to email you a set of tips I wrote up if you think it might help (courtney@cooperjacobs.com), but just hang in there! Your new house will be great and you have to get through this! You want every buyer possible to see your home in the best light!

End RantJ

Nestled on the banks of Lake Union, Eastlake offers some of the best Seattle floating homes with gorgeous Western views and easy waterfront living. If houseboats are not your thing, though, Eastlake has a great combination of affordable view condos, older charming homes, cute duplexes, and new townhomes – some with cool Green home features like solar. Living on the West side of Eastlake Ave seems to be the most popular choice – anywhere on the West side provides you east access through a series of mini parks at the end of the streets – Roanoke& Lynn Street are great places to throw a kayak in and go, but there is also a little known tiny public dock for boats to launch and run into Pete’s Market where you will find one of the best selections of wine in the city.

Eastlake Real Estate is a great Seattle waterfront choice that is close to it all! Interested in anything Downtown Seattle related? Well Eastlake is probably the best place to live for a combination of smaller neighborhood living and urban amenities. The streetcar can take you into Downtown Seattle and South Lake Union is still developing, but has some of the attractive Seattle suburban perks like Whole Foods! Want to go to a Sounders or Mariners game? It is all at your doorstep while still being close to I-5 for easy commuting if you need to head out of town.

Looking for easy living and low maintenance out of the suburbs? Eastlake is my number one recommendation and Eastlake homes have a lot to choose from! You can find easy no maintenance homes and wonderful spaces – some great townhomes, too. If you want more maintenance and closer waterfront living, then go for a houseboat – they are relatively affordable compared to other real estate today and what better way to enjoy Seattle’s waterfront living?

©Cooper Jacobs Real Estate Services: Seattle Real Estate, Courtney Cooper is the Designated Broker, Seattle Realtor, EcoBroker, and member Built Green 206-251-5948

Highlighted Seattle Suburbs:

Shoreline, WA: Shoreline is really close in to Seattle and a great place for schools, parks, and more! Shoreline real estate

Lynnwood, WA: Properly priced Lynnwood real estate is really moving right now! This city is also celebrating its 50^th birthday with lots of events all year long.

Mountlake Terrace, WA: Mountlake Terrace is having major changes right now, from the solar Transit Center to major rezoning to give the downtown core a facelift, this Seattle Suburb is a great place to look for close in Seattle commuting and affordability. Highlights: Amorn Thai on 56^th is the best Thai I have ever tasted and Cinebarre is moving into the old Mountlake 9! Look for great things to come for Mountlake Terrace! Mountlake Terrace real estate

Lake Forest Park, WA: Lake Forest Park is a treed paradise right next to the city and on the banks of Lake Washington. This is a great city for nature loving tree enthusiasts. Lake Forest Park real estate  or make sure and check out Seattle homes, too!

Coming Soon: A new map based search to find all homes listed in the MLS right on this site!

Short Sale Sellers: The bank is going to want to see proof. You need to have copies of pay stubs, bank statements, tax returns, etc. to document your financial situation. It is also helpful to have copies of significant medical bills if they have played a part in the situation. You will need to hand write a permission slip for your agent to be able to speak on your behalf to the lien holder. Make sure that your Realtor asks for a short sale package right away from the lender so that you can get things moving faster.

Short Sale Buyers: Have your Realtor ask if the short sale is an approved short sale complete with an element of hardship. The seller’s agent won’t always know the answer to this question because the lien holders don’t fully approve a short sale without a contract for sale, but in some cases there may have been a previous offer that was approved but fell through. Every situation is different! My last Seattle suburbs short sale closed in a little under a month from the time we wrote up the offer, so a long wait is not necessarily always the case, but more of the norm. Most short sales will take at least a month to get approved and sometimes many more months. Patience pays in these cases except that while you are waiting other offers can come in and kick you out of first position. The newer MLS addendums do a lot to alleviate this problem because they do specify whether a seller can accept other offers while waiting to hear an answer about yours.

The bottom line is that a short sale is a good option if you truly do have a financial hardship and need to sell your home –they also are a great opportunity for a patient qualified investor. If you are interested in Seattle short sales or Seattle real estate, please email me at realestate@cooperjacobs.com I know of a lot of great opportunities with short sales right now and I would love to share with you!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/383884_housing18.html

Buying up some of these new construction houses in the coming months might be a great way to get ahead when 2012 rolls around…. Plus the builders are thinking more short term and trying to off load these properties with many perks alongside them.

Check out some of the newer developments in South Everett, Bothell or Lynnwood for easy examples of what is out there: Seattle Suburbs Listings

If you are interested in Seattle real estate, please feel free to get a hold of me: Courtney@CooperJacobs.com

©Cooper Jacobs Real Estate Services, Seattle Realtor serving Seattle neighborhoods & Seattle suburbs, e-PRO, member Built Green

Now is a great time to spruce up your yard and make your curb appeal gleam. A few extra touches can go a long way in making a buyer choose your home when they are out looking at real estate. I have a giant six to eight foot tall rockery that backs to a six acre forest. We fenced out the forest at one point, but the top of the rockery is like its own forest. Between my work schedule here and there, I have spent the last month alongside my husband and anyone else we can sucker into helping. We have pulled weeds, laid down multiple layers of landscape fabric, and planted in low maintenance plants like lavender. It is a big project – the rockery is very long – it runs the entire length of our lot. We are only a third of the way through because we are both so busy.

Your project doesn’t have to be so intensive – just a few bits here and there can make a huge difference when it comes to first impressions. Weeds gone and a few spots of color can go miles. Go for broad strokes rather than really detailed labor. It might not look like much, but if you were to take a before and after shot, you would definitely see it! The added perk? Our weather is perfect for this kind of activity – no sunburns or overheating, and no water starved struggling new plants. I want my summer, too, but at this point, looking at the silver lining is vital to sanity!

Good luck! Happy weeding!

Interested in Seattle real estate? Seattle suburbs real estate? Seattle short sales? Seattle foreclosures? realestate@cooperjacobs.com

Courtney Cooper ….For all your Seattle Washington Real Estate Needs! Seattle Area Real Estate Agent: Broker and Realtor serving North King & South Snohomish County.  Seattle Real Estate and Seattle Suburbs!  Cooper Jacobs Real Estate Services:   Experienced REALTOR with a background in accounting – I love my clients and work hard for them! Please call me if you are looking for a home or investment property (including short sales, preforeclosures, foreclosures, and REO properties) in Seattle (Ballard real estate, Crown Hill, Phinney, Ravenna, Maple Leaf real estate, Green Lake real estate (Greenlake), Greenwood, Northgate, Lake City,University, Sand Point, Laurelhurst, Windermere, Fremont, Wallingford, Queen Anne, Westlake, Eastlake, Lake Union, Downtown, Madison Park), Shoreline real estate, Edmonds, Brier real estate, Lynnwood real estate, Mountlake Terrace real estate, Lake Forest Park real estate, Bothell real estate,Redmond, Kirkland, Mill Creek real estate, Everett, or other Seattle Suburbs real estate!

Deep Cleaning: Hire a housekeeper to come in and really get down to the nitty gritty! Most of us live with messes that we don’t even see and an outside professional eye will really help!

Simplify things: Basics like cleaning and sprucing the place up are important, but also really weeding through the stuff in your house is vital! I can’t tell you how many times I have taken a buyer through a house crammed full of stuff and had them run out thinking it was not the house for them. All these possessions we have really make our houses feel smaller than they are – the buyers feel this!

Staging – Hire an ASP to help you move your furniture around to make it the most ideal for being shown on the market. Make sure it is a Stager who has exhibited success and is recommended by your REALTOR.

More Seattle Selling Tips.

Wanting to find the perfect house in a Seattle Neighborhood? Looking for Seattle Suburb Real Estate? Interested in Brier real estate? Lynnwood WA real estate? Mountlake Terrace real estate?  realestate@cooperjacobs.com

Courtney Cooper ….For all your Seattle Washington Real Estate Needs! Seattle Area Real Estate Agent: Broker and Realtor serving North King & South Snohomish County.  Seattle Real Estate and Seattle Suburbs!  Cooper Jacobs Real Estate Services:   Experienced REALTOR with a background in accounting – I love my clients and work hard for them! Please call me if you are looking for a home or investment property (including short sales, preforeclosures, foreclosures, and REO properties) in Seattle (Ballard, Crown Hill, Phinney, Ravenna, Maple Leaf, Green Lake (Greenlake), Greenwood, Northgate, Lake City,University, Sand Point, Laurelhurst, Windermere, Fremont, Wallingford, Queen Anne, Westlake, Eastlake, Lake Union, Downtown, Madison Park), Seattle Suburbs Homes in Shoreline, Edmonds, Redmond, Kirkland, Brier, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, Lake Forest Park, Bothell, Mill Creek, Everett, or other Seattle Suburbs!

Seattle real estate and light bulbs? I have noticed that while showing homes, my Seattle buyers are pretty impressed with the houses that do take the time to be as green as possible. Little things like changing over to these energy saving light bulbs can go a long way in the buyer’s eyes – believe it or not!

We had little money to put down and were required to get a loan that took out mortgage insurance (PMI). This included a huge chunk up front in our closing costs as well as a substantial amount each month. After four years of paying the PMI and after being a real estate agent, I learned that you can get the PMI dropped. I realized that we had enough equity in our home to warrant removing the PMI (PMI is usually put in place to protect the lien holder in case of default when a buyer has less than 20% to put down on a sale),so I started calling the mortgage company to try and get information on removing the mortgage insurance. I wanted to reduce our payment by that PMI monthly premium. What I found out was shocking.

The mortgage company was quite hesitant to even talk to me about removing the mortgage insurance and tried to persuade me into a refinance instead, but I persisted. After nagging them for weeks, the mortgage company finally gave me my account numbers and told me I needed to call the people in charge of my mortgage insurance policy. I did and when I gave them my “policy number” I was told that this policy did not exist. I went back and forth in a circle between both of them via the telephone and mail for another few weeks before it was finally discovered that:

The mortgage company had collected the upfront premium as well as the monthly premium and then forgotten to actually take out the mortgage insurance policy. After four years, they still had not taken the PMI policy out on my loan! Just to give you an idea of how much money I am talking about, it was almost four thousand dollars! Four thousand dollars! Who loses that? Now I have my accounting degree and have done the books for companies so I am wondering one thing: Where could that money possibly have been applied to?

Obviously, they dropped the PMI “coverage” and payment amount from my monthly bill, but guess what else I learned from FHA? If your mortgage company does not take out a mortgage insurance policy on your loan, they have to refund that money to you IN FULL. Yee haw! Not yet. It took at least another six months to see that money and I had to fight for my right to it. When the mortgage company refused, I sent a letter to everyone I could think of including the Office Of Thrift Supervision’s Consumer Affairs Department. This apparently did the trick because while admitting no wrong doing at all, the mortgage company referenced my letter to the Office of Thrift Supervision and agreed to refund my money in full as “a gesture of customer goodwill”. HMMM

Are you trying to remove PMI coverage? Be persistent! Keep an eye on the comps around you and don’t be afraid to really argue your case!

I haven’t gotten all the way through my studies, but I checked out a development yesterday that has been sitting for a while. Suddenly, the entry sales sign changed and it was claiming to be “Built Green”. This bugged me because except for the really energy efficient siding on the houses, they really don’t seem to be very green. In fact, I know for a fact that the builder got into trouble by knocking over a bunch of trees without getting proper permits. I got inside and almost all of the floor was marble and the off gassing from the MDF made my eyes water.

I need to find the Built Green police and report this one! In the mean time, it is a good lesson to Seattle buyers who are looking to buy green. Buying green should not be about getting more customers in for a few buzz words, but rather changing the way people are living. Selling something that couldn’t possibly be that green in spirit really seems like bad business to me. Just my two cents.