Your chance to own this cute and spacious 2 bedroom home in an excellent and quiet West Seattle neighborhood. Tranquil and well-established garden entry with roses, peonies, lilies and more. Updated kitchen with new cabinets, counters and stainless appliances. Relax in front of the cozy brick fireplace. Close to Lincoln Park and other West Seattle amenities. Fully fenced yard with detached carport.

 

     

     

8007 39th Ave SW, Seattle WA 98136

http://findwell.vflyer.com/home/flyer/home/2615721

 

Contact info:

Kevin Lisota

findwell

206-462-6200

info@findwell.com

Warm and inviting, come and see this 3 bed, 2.25 bath, 1970 sq ft home in Kenmore! Conveniently located with easy access to both Seattle and the Eastside. Beautifully remodeled kitchen with high-end appliances, new cabinets and granite countertops. Updates throughout, including new windows, carpet, six-panel doors, crown molding, trim, fresh paint and beautiful landscaping. Daylight basement with wet bar and rec room is perfect for parties. Additional room downstairs makes for a nice office. Enjoy entertaining and BBQ’s outside on the expanded deck. Large yard is great for the kids. Home is located in the desirable Northshore school district.

     

     

 

8629 NE 169th Pl

Kenmore, WA 98028

Visit Listing Website

 

Listing Agent Contact: Michael Wilson

info@findwell.com

206-462-6200

You just landed a fancy new job at a big name company. They have put together a generous relocation package to move you and your family across the country, and you are excited that they are picking up the tab. They even offered to help you with the costs of selling your home and buying a home in your new city. Sounds like a great benefit, right? It is, but you may be surprised at who is actually paying for relocation benefits when you buy or sell a home.

When you buy or sell a home as part of a relocation, your company will say that they will pay certain fees associated with those transactions. If you are selling your home, they may pick the cost of your real estate commissions or other transaction fees. If you are buying a home, they may help to pay for your loan fees or other transaction costs. I spent a long time in the corporate world, and until I entered real estate, I believed that all of these expenses were being paid for by the employer, since that is what they would lead you to believe. As it turns out, corporate relocation programs use a “referral fee” system with a select group of real estate agents who offer to redirect some of their commissions to the relocation company in return for the relocation company sending them leads. While these large corporations may front some of the bill for your housing transactions, a big chunk of it actually is paid by your real estate agent! Let’s take a look at how it works.

You are moving to Seattle and are looking to purchase a home for $500,000. Your company puts you in contact with the relocation company who has a list of real estate agents to choose from. On the purchase of a $500,000 home, those agents would typically earn a 3% commission or $15,000 to represent you as a buyer. However, to be part of the list of relocation agents, they must accept a “referral agreement” to pay the relocation company a referral fee when they earn a commission. A typical referral fee is 30% of their commission, so in this case they would send $4,500 to the relocation company. What has the relocation company done to earn $4,500? They haven’t done any work, but function as a mechanism to funnel these funds back to the employer to pay for your relocation benefits. Maybe your company offered to pay your 1% loan origination fee. You probably took out a $450,000 mortgage, paying $4,500 for that origination fee. Want to guess where that money comes from? You’re right, most of it is paid for by the referral fee that your real estate agent paid, NOT by the company you are working for.

The first question that comes to mind is “why would a real estate agent give a whopping 30% of their income to a relocation company?” The agent is willing to sacrifice their commission for two reasons. First, they are provided with a highly-qualified buyer who is immediately ready to buy a home because of their relocation. Securing customers like this is difficult in real estate, and agents are willing to pay for the privilege. Second, the commissions are still large enough to make the transaction financially compelling for the agent. In my example above, the agent would still earn $10,500 for selling a $500,000 home.

You may also wonder what the relocation company has done to earn 30% of the commission. Surprisingly they do nothing in the transaction. Their sole purpose is to manage their stable of real estate agents, direct relocation clients to them, and mostly ensure that agents follow through with payment of their referral fees. In turn, they funnel the bulk of these proceeds back to the employer to defray the costs of these relocation expenses.

Corporate HR departments and relocation companies will tell you that this system has existed for many years and works to the mutual benefit of both the employer and the real estate agents. The employer gets to defray some of their relocation costs, which are usually quite expensive. The real estate agent gets a reliable stream of new business with little to no effort. However, I can’t help but think that this system is inherently flawed. It feels deceptive that the employer claims that they are paying for your relocation, which is only partly true. It is also a sad statement on real estate commissions if the typical Realtor feels comfortable giving away 30% of their income. Surely that is a sign of over-inflated real estate commissions.

If you are in the midst of a corporate relocation, don’t let this deter you from taking advantage of your relocation benefits. However, as an educated consumer, I would have a conversation with your real estate agent about how they are being compensated and how referral fees are being shared in the process.

You cannot buy a home in the State of Washington if the county recorder’s office is closed, since your deed needs to be recorded there to make the transaction official. Rhonda Porter reminded me of this in her blog today. If you are looking to close a real estate transaction in King, Snohomish or Pierce county, you need to be aware of both public holidays and furlough dates. Due to budget cuts, these county offices are closed during various days of the year.

If you are planning to close on a home purchase or sale around these dates, you will want to make sure that your mortgage and real estate professionals stay on top of things and get your paperwork completed early. The upcoming July 4 holiday is particularly problematic in King County, since you have July 3 as a holiday and July 6 as a furlough day. Let’s say you are slated to close on your new home on July 2, so you would probably be scheduled to sign your documents on July 1. It is all too common that lenders need a “couple of extra days” at the end of the process, or sometimes your lender happens to miss the wire deadlines because the loan review took too long. A simply delay like this on July 1 would cause your closing to slip until July 7. With your movers scheduled during the extended weekend, you can imagine the hassle that a last minute delay like this will cause.

Here are the furlough and holiday closure dates to watch out for during the remainder of 2009:

King County	Snohomish County	Pierce County
July 3	July 2-3	July 3
July 6	Aug 14	Sept 7
Sept 4	Sept 4	Nov 11
Sept 7	Sept 7	Nov 26
Oct 12	Nov 11	Nov 27
Nov 11	Nov 26-27	Dec 25
Nov 25-27	Dec 24-25
Dec 24-25

This weekend I presented an offer directly to the seller in their living room. It has been over a year since I have had the opportunity to present an offer from my buyer face-to-face with the seller, and I have to say that it is a little sad that this method of presenting offers has largely disappeared in real estate. Scanners, email and fax have made it all too easy to just send over an offer with a simple cover letter. Let's face it, it can also be a major hassle to drive all over town to present an offer in person.

I am one of the biggest techno-geeks out there, and love the fact that technology can simplify our real estate transactions and save time for our buyers, sellers and agents, so it surprises me a little bit that I actually miss the opportunity to present offers directly to sellers. I think what it boils down to is that the sale of a home remains a highly emotional event, particularly for sellers that have lived in a home for many years. Of course sellers want the highest price and best terms for the sale, but there remains a set of intangible factors that sellers still consider. Many sellers want to know more about the buyers. Why do they love my house? Will they take good care of the home where I raised my family? What are the real reasons that they are offering less or asking me to help pay their closing costs? All of those are intangible, emotional factors that are simply lost in the cold, hard text of a real estate contract sent via email. It can be tough to share those sorts of nuances in your cover letter, and anything you share with the other agent is filtered and potentially lost in translation.

I guess I’ve also seen some of my greatest real estate successes happen with face-to-face negotiation. The first home I ever bought, and the home I still live in now, was bought this way through a long, painful negotiation with a seller who had owned the home for almost 30 years. She was very particular about who she sold the house to, and it was a multi-week exercise in trust and relationship-building that ultimately led to a successful purchase. Sometimes that is what it takes to buy a particular home.

I can’t say that I’m advocating for more in-person presentation of offers, because I believe that the trend is clearly in the other direction. However, I will take the opportunity to present my client’s offer in-person when given the chance. Sometimes those little interpersonal, emotional factors can make all the difference in a successful real estate transaction.

Settle into this quiet, like-new home in the Highlands! The front of this beautiful home faces a park-like green space perfect for the pets or kids. The home’s open floor plan is ready for entertaining - formal and casual living spaces + gourmet kitchen, formal dining and kitchen nook. Upstairs you will find 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms (1 master) with a bonus area for office / media / study space, or convert to a 3rd bedroom. Home features hardwoods, granite tile, stainless appliances, deeded guest parking, tile floors. Come see what the Highlands has to offer!

    

 

           

1944 NE Katsura Street, Issaquah, WA 98029

MLS# 29087751

Visit http://findwell.vflyer.com/home/flyer/home/2595845 for more information.

Very interesting day for today's hall of shame entry, with photos from multiple properties.

The first entry is a “surprise” half bath. What appears to be a normal bedroom closet, opens to find a toilet and sink! It was so small that an adult would not necessarily fit!

     

 

The second entry comes to us from a home that advertised a “luxurious hot tub”. While we were there, two workers showed up to repossess the hot tub!

 

And our last entry came from a home that took some creative liberties with construction codes. Notice the plants next to the hot water tank? Yes, the tank was OUTSIDE!

It is time to update our blog readers with our statistics for the month of May 2009. Sales activity is way up, though it seems concentrated in certain segments of the housing market right now.

Sales Activity Strengthens

Improving on an already strong April, findwell agents were super busy with home tours and placing offers. Spring is a traditionally strong sales season for real estate every year, but we’ve seen some surprising strength in certain segments of the market.

• findwell agents led buyers on tours of 145 homes, a 51% increase from April. Overall, home tours are up 116% from February and March levels.
• fiona, the findwell MINI Cooper, clocked 1323 miles on home tours.
• The number of offers submitted and received by findwell increased 150% over April.
• 38% of offers placed in May were on bank-owned (REO) properties or short sales, an marked increase from April.
• We had two transactions fail in May. The first transaction was a vacant land purchase that didn’t work out when the engineer provided a negative feasibility study report. The second transaction fell apart on a new construction purchase where the builder was more than 6 months behind on their promised completion date.

Sellers Continue to See More Traffic

• findwell sellers averaged 15 showings of their property for May, a 66% increase from April.
• Our agents received direct feedback from 74% of agents who showed our listings.
• For 2009, findwell’s listings have sold for an average of –0.7% off of list price and are currently averaging 54 days on market before accepting an offer.

Some Competition Returns

In an unexpected turn, our buyers got outbid four times this month! Most of the competitive bidding situations seem to be occurring on single-family homes in the <$400k price range. While most of these homes are not being bid up over list price, we had one notable exception on a bank-owned property. The bank priced the home at ~$75k under market value, which resulted in 11 bids in one day. The winning offer was likely +$70k over list price!

Customer Quote of the Month

“Thanks for the great job helping me to buy my first home! I didn’t realize that it was going to be such an adventure to buy a home, but you guys were pros. You kept things on track and got the deal done, even when it didn’t look like it was going to work out. Also, thanks for the extra help during the inspection process. You really went above and beyond my expectations by seeking repair bids and ultimately coordinating a bunch of repairs so that the house was ready for us to move in on the closing date.”

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

We continue to see more and more people engaging with us via social media, such as our blog, Facebook or Twitter. In fact, we got our first customer from Twitter just this month!

I recently sat down and interviewed Michael Wilson, the first agent we hired at findwell, to get his impressions after his first year with us. Michael has been a rock star agent for us, negotiating great deals for his clients and going the extra mile to make sure that his clients are 100% satisfied with their home buying or selling experience. He came to us from RE/MAX, a traditional real estate brokerage, so there have been some big changes for him.

Kevin: What is the biggest change about being a findwell agent?

Michael: The hardest part about being a traditional agent was worrying about where my next client was going to come from. I was 100% responsible for my own marketing and prospects, and quite honestly it was the part of the business that I couldn't stand. I’d much rather spend my time helping people to buy and sell homes, but found myself usually spending 50%, sometimes up to 75%, of my time looking for the next customer. I think that is a pretty common experience for many real estate agents. findwell’s model has been a great change. They take care of all marketing and lead generation for their agents, freeing me up to spend close to 100% of my time on the best part of the business, which is helping people to buy and sell their homes. It’s been great having new customers just fall in my lap.

Kevin: Would you say that you are doing more business now than when you were with RE/MAX?

Michael: It has been a huge difference. Not only do I have more time to work with clients, but I’m working with 3x more clients at any given time. I love being this busy and ultimately I’m a better agent because I’m able to do more transactions. Real estate is a business that you learn by doing. Each transaction presents unique challenges and scenarios, and I find myself learning more about real estate with every deal that I do. With my higher transaction volume, I’m positive that I’ve learned more in a year than I did in all my years at RE/MAX.

Kevin: How is the atmosphere different working at findwell?

Michael: When you work for a traditional real estate company, you are an independent contractor, not an employee. At findwell, the agents are full-time employees, with a requirement to be in the office during business hours. I was initially hesitant to give up my independence, but the atmosphere is way better as an employee. findwell agents don’t compete with one another and are encouraged to work as a team. I found teamwork at a traditional brokerage to be non-existent. It is a cutthroat, fend-for-yourself environment where agents won’t help each other and often will compete directly with you to take business away.

Kevin: Is it more fun working at findwell?

Michael: Real estate has always been fun for me, but I definitely love being part of a team with bigger goals. I can see the contributions I make not only growing my own career, but also contributing to help grow the company. findwell also makes sure that we both work hard and play hard. Whether it is an outing on a sailboat, the company holiday party, or simply an extra day off when we’ve been super busy, I like that they are looking out for our work/life balance, which is always hard as a real estate agent.

Kevin: You’re paid a salary. Every agent will ask if you could make more if you were paid strictly on commissions. Now that you’ve been at this year, what do you think?

Michael: The salary versus commission debate certainly was part of my decision making process when I joined findwell. My take home pay last year was very comparable to previous years at RE/MAX, and now I don’t have to worry about the huge peaks and valleys in my income as I wait for the next commission check to come in. I also don’t have to worry about covering the huge number of expenses of being an agent. findwell also has a bonus structure in place to help agents share in the profits when business is booming. I’m confident that once we see the real estate market pick up again, I’ll have a great opportunity to participate in the profits I’m helping to bring in.

Kevin: How do you compare the resources available to you previously at RE/MAX and now at findwell?

Michael: My broker at RE/MAX was very helpful on a variety of legal and real estate matters and certainly helped point me in the right direction. However, I can’t help but feel that most traditional brokers are all about attracting agents to their brokerage, not attracting customers to help their agents succeed. findwell has been much different. They are relentless about marketing by making sure to measure the ROI of every campaign they do. There isn’t a day that goes by when the company leadership isn’t trying to attract more customers for the team. They are also on the cutting edge technology-wise, actively engaging our clients on social media like our blog, Facebook or Twitter. I can’t help but think that this sort of marketing is the future for real estate agencies.

If you are looking for a great real estate agent in the Seattle area, you can contact Michael Wilson at mwilson@findwell.com

I received a peculiar piece of junk mail today. At first glance it appeared to be legitimate. It appeared to come from the Loss Mitigation Department at National City Bank. At one point, I had a mortgage with National City Bank, so I was intrigued enough to open it.

When I opened it, it instructed me to contact the loss mitigation department in regards to my existing mortgage. It claimed that they were “willing to negotiate the terms of your existing mortgage to a more reasonable monthly payment and rate of interest.” It then went on to claim that I had thirty days to contact them, otherwise I might “no longer be eligible for a loan modification.” Sounds like an attractive offer, doesn’t it? Problem is that my mortgage with National City was paid off close to three years ago! Pretty hard to modify a mortgage that no longer exists!

Now read the bottom line. “We are not an affiliate or nor endorsed by, nor associated with National City Bank”!! Clearly this is an offer to dupe unsuspecting home owners out of fees to try and negotiate a loan modification on your behalf. Clearly this company has not authority to “negotiate the terms of your existing mortgage.” Home owners need to be aware and protect themselves from schemes like this.