Estates Northwest: Seattle Real Estate Blog

Builder perks here from Sterling!

I was please when I got my latest Sterling flyer from Matt -

Sterling Savings has extended their awesome 3% up to $20,000 towards your closing costs program for qualifying Seattle area properties.   

Purchase and sale contracts need to be written prior to 1/31 and close by 2/26.  This credit is a great way to help finance a new home - there are some great projects that qualify, too! 

Let us know if you need more details or want to look at some of the great places that qualify!  There are some wonderful Queen Anne townhomes that I know of that fit right into the program - some listed - some not yet.  You can also find additional home listings for the neighborhood here: Queen Anne real estate

Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood has had some beautiful sunny days in the last weeks and West Queen Anne is particularly gorgeous perched over the Puget Sound.  This picture was taken the day after Thanksgiving for anyone who doubts we get sun in the winter at all. 

Here is your West Queen Anne real estate update for the December 2009 home selling market.  You can find West Queen Anne real homes for sale and other Queen Anne real estate on my site if you want to see all current listings, but here are the numbers for tonight:

West Queen Anne homes for sale:  Currently there are 47 West Queen Anne homes for sale in zip code 98119.  They range in price from $340,000 for a home on the far West slope near Smith Cove on 14th to $4,890,000 for 602 W Highland which is a newer Queen Anne home in the very perfect spot on that gorgeous Southwest slope.  The average price in zip code 98119 for homes on the market right now is $1,004,633 and the median is $650,000.  The average days on market (DOM) for these is 97 days.  There is also one home marked contingent in West Queen Anne priced at $1,185,000.

Pending homes in West Queen Anne:  These are homes that have received offers on them.  There are 12 pending West Queen Anne homes on the market right now ranging in price from $349,950 to $1,075,000 with and average price of $696,599 and a median price of $742,500. 

West Queen Anne home sales last six months:  In the last six months, 86 West Queen Anne homes have sold in zip code 98119.  These sold and closed home listings range from $199,000 for an extreme fixer to $4,300,000 with an average of $800,639 and a median sales price of $645,000.  The average days on market over the last six months? 72 days.

Conclusion:  West Queen Anne is selling!  But how do these numbers stack up to previous years of sales in 98119 for the same period?

2006 Total Volume: $75,463,950 Avg/Med Price: $804,451/$699,950 Avg DOM: 35

2007 Total Volume $62,104,075  Avg/Med Price: $874,705/$700,000 Avg DOM: 35

2008 Total Volume $34,368,800  Avg/Med Price: $781,109/$636,000 Avg DOM: 73

2009 Total Volume $68,854,945  Avg/Med Price: $800,639/$645,000 Avg DOM: 72

The sales volume itself is the best it has been in over three years! It doubled last year for the same period and then some!  Prices have definitely gone down and days on market are longer, but a well priced house will sell and there are buyers out there buying West Queen Anne.  In fact, inventory in this Seattle neighborhood is actually one of the problems while working with buyers in this area so if you are thinking of selling, please do consider getting an evaluation!

(I took out the Queen Anne townhomes for this property list, but you can find Queen Anne townhouses and Queen Anne condos on the site, too, if that is what you are after.)  Please also feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions at all about Seattle real estate.

Queen Anne historic homes:  Very close to home for my family

Yesterday we visited two sets of great grandparents on Bainbridge Island and I got the chance to talk to my husband's Grandfather about growing up on Queen Anne.  It is funny because the two houses he grew up in are on the historic registry and his gandfather's house is also on the historic registry.  Unfortunately,  his "Uncle Joe's" Queen Anne house hadn't gotten there yet before the disaster when it was knocked down a few years ago on a long holiday weekend to make way for the new buyer's "new home".  Now it is the the site of a planned townhome community (google the JC Black house sometime if you want to hear more about that one).

West Queen Anne Love:  I recently wrote a post on Betty Bowen Viewpoint and was completely drawn to a particular house right across the street.  That shouldn't be too surprising because West Queen Anne is full of gorgeous homes, but this one really brought me in and while I normally would take the time to take a picture of a house so that it looked good on my blog or website, I just snapped a quick photo of this house because I LOVED IT. 

I was completely taken in and drawn to this house. I will go ahead and show you the photo I took, but it really doesn't do the house justice:

It turns out that this very house was my husband's grandfather's house when he was 17 and his parents had it built especially for them!  I could not believe it!

The house is something like 6 beds and an unheard of 3 car garage in Queen Anne.  My husband's great grandfather had it custom built in 1939-1940 and they moved into it when his grandfather was 17 from their home a few blocks over on West Prospect which they had lived in for the first 17 years of his life.  The West Highland house was built for my husband's great grandfather and mother and the name on the historic registry is the Lyman H & Marion Black Home. 

This house on West Highland is only a couple blocks South of my husband's great great grandfather's house, the CH Black house on Lee Street which takes up an entire city block. It is also right across the street from Betty Bowen Viewpoint and the West Queen Anne Walls.  In listening to my husband's grandfather's stories yesterday, he said his dad used to have a light he would switch on in the 1940s whenever couples were hanging out at the Viewpoint for too long after dark.  He remembers that his parents would always know he came home safely because he would come in and play Moonlight Sonata at the Grand Piano after a fun night out.  He KNEW Betty Bowen!

I had heard the piano story before but it was so amazing to find out that this particular house that I obviously did not photograph for any purpose except that I loved it happened to be the house where all this happened. I also find it amazing that not one, but at least four of their family homes are on the historic registry in family names - even if one other is gone now. 

If you are interested in West Queen Anne real estate or other Queen Anne real estate, please feel free to get in touch with me.  Queen Anne has a rich history and I would love to share with you some of my favorite spots!

Queen Anne West slope real estate is hopping -there are some wonderful homes out there right now and Queen Anne has been selling pretty quickly given that this is the 2009 Seattle real estate market!  West of Queen Anne Ave N all the way over to 10th Ave W and from about Prospect up North to McGraw was where we were focusing today and there are some wonderful choices in the $600,000 to $1,000,000 range.  Amazing sweeping Puget Sound views can be had for under a million in this neighborhood, especially if you are willing to put in a little elbow grease fixing the house up to make it perfect. 

Queen Anne character:  There are a lot of extremely gorgeous tree lined streets with thick sidewalks and walking paths that even Green Lake could envy on a day such as today. The Queen Anne home pictured above is appointed towards the Sound and mountains and perched above the lovely Wilcox Wall high up on on the West slope of Queen Anne.

Queen Anne Real Estate:  Listed Queen Anne homes on the West slope are moving fairly quickly.   If you have a nice home that is at least three bedrooms in this ten by ten block area of the West slope of Queen Anne, please let me know!  I have a buyer who really wants to move here and we are seeing everything.  This particular area has a nice mix of easy bus route right Downtown  (bus 1) as well as easy walk to Queen Anne Ave for all the great Upper Queen Anne merchants, plus Trader Joe's and the library are right here, too!

If you are interested in Queen Anne real estate, please let us know - we are happy to show you some of our favorite spots and homes available for sale in this wonderful Seattle neighborhood.

Upper Queen Anne is beautiful - I especially love the retail all along Queen Anne Ave N and the walkability that most of the homes in this area offer.  I wanted to look at homes in the Upper Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle that score extremely high on Walk Score so I looked at the market just from 4th Ave W all the way East to 4th Ave N and from W Smith Street and Queen Anne Dr to the North down to W Lee St and Lee St where the hill starts really impeding walkability.  I would expect that all of these houses score in the high 80s to well over 90 on Walk Score's site.

Queen Anne's real estate market has been very active this year and Upper Queen Anne especially.  These numbers do not include townhomes which I will pull out separately in another post.  There are currently 16 Active homes in this area of the Queen Anne neighborhood.  There are 6 pending homes and 37 sold in the last six months.  Queen Anne homes are selling! 

Active Queen Anne lisintg:  These are Queen Anne homes that are available right now on the market. These range in price from $525,000 to $1,545,000 with an average of $826,557 and a median list price of $783,835.  I have previewed or toured most of these and there are some amazing offerings included so let me know if you are interested and I can show you my favorites. Pending Sales:  This is Queen Anne Real estate that has not closed yet, but has offers.  Sold homes: 37 in the last 6 months!!!!  This is great news!  They range in price from a very affordable $375,000 to $1,900,000 with an average of $741,5111 and a median of $660,000. Average days on market was 68 days for Queen Anne homes. 

Average listing price per square foot is $309 for these homes and average selling price per square foot is $306.

Happy Halloween Queen Anne!

Seattle's Queen Anne Neighborhood real estate update:  Residential Active listings (homes for sale), Pending listings (Queen Anne homes under agreement and either pending inspection or pending close - basically in escrow), and solds (homes which have closed and we have sales data for them.  All home data taken from NWMLS listings info. Residential is basically anything that is not a condo or a co-op, etc. so Queen Anne Townhomes are included in numbers.  Let me know if you want those broken out this time.

Active Seattle WA Queen Anne Homes For Sale: These are the single family houses for sale in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood.  Currently in Seattle, there are 127 Active listings in the NWMLS for Queen Anne homes (I am excluding a Seattle houseboat that is a vessel and not a single family home marked in the neighborhood).  In looking at distressed homes vs. "normal" listings, there are only 3 active Queen Anne Real estate listings that are bank owned (REO).  The active Queen Anne real estate listings range in list price from $329,000 (for an REO) to $7,200,000 for an amazing 1926 Seattle mansion on Comstock with 10,000 square feet.  The average price is $1,083,573 and the median listing price of these is $777,770.  Average days on market is at about 88.  There is also one Contingent listing at a price of $1,950,000. 

Pending Homes in Queen Anne:  Currently there are 46 Queen Anne homes that are marked as pending in the MLS.  They range in price from $349,000 to $1,350,000 with a median of $612,000 and average days on market of 66 days.

Let's talk about the Queen Anne sales in the last six months...

Again, I am excluding vessels here, but there have been 137 Queen Anne homes closed in the last six months.  They range in price form $345,000 to $4,300,000 with a median of $625,000 and average days on market of 63 days.  These homes are generally selling for 95% and above of list price with some exceptions of course.  Seattle real estate has been interesting this year, but Queen Anne's real estate market is still moving.

Queen Anne Real Estate Distressed Neighborhood?  I think not.  While some may have trouble making their mortgage payments, this Seattle neighborhood is not overall distressed and holding strong.  Single family residential REO (foreclosure) Queen Anne numbers are as follows:  11 Total REO properties in Queen Anne - 3 Active for sale, 2 Pending, 6 sold - no short sales in Queen Anne (that have been marked correctly in the MLS).

I honestly believe that many of the problems in our Economy today stem from the viral effect of the way we feel.

Each and every one of us have the power to influence the economy and people's lives depending on what we are doing and what we are communicating to people.  Preaching doom and gloom and complaining is extremely viral and very contagious.  Unfortunately many of us out there pounding the streets with buyers and helping people sell their house successfully are not communicating enough while less qualified individuals are spreading the fear.

I love my hairdresser - she is not only a great hairdresser, but also a very good friend and she is smart, too, so this is in no way a dig on her intelligence.  She called me this weekend in a panic and wants to list her second home because she is sure that the economy is getting worse and won't be better for at least five years. She could not however tell me why she thought this. 

 Now you must understand first that my hairdresser friend is doing very well and in fact is having one of the best years ever financially.  Her husband is also having a great year. They have no financial hardship or incentive to sell this house other than their fear of "the economy". 

I would love to know when my hairdresser got her economics degree that qualifies her to preach this mumbo jumbo all day long to anyone who will listen!!!!!! 

Here's another example:  I was recently at Michael's - the giant craft superstore.  I had about $400 worth of merchandise in my cart while I waited in line behind another lady with a couple hundred dollars worth in her cart and a few more people with probably another thousand dollars in their carts.  We were one of four lines with even more stuff to buy in line ready to check out.  When it was my turn to pay, I commented on the slowness of the debit machine used to pay and instantly was given a well rehearsed speech which had obviously come out of the clerks mouth about five thousand times about how they were due for an upgrade, but didn't get one because of "the economy".

How about just thanking me for my business and not spreading hatred of this country's economy to a paying customer, okay?  I mean I wasn't even in there on a weekend day - the store was packed so please don't talk to me about how bad things are or maybe I might reconsider purchasing the things in my cart.  I wonder if Michael's is aware that they may be losing serious money because even just this one clerk could be causing big sales losses with her viral speech.

 The same goes for my hairdresser friend:  I wonder if while she is spreading this fear her tips are immediately getting smaller as her client considers not being so generous in an effort to save money.  Or maybe they will stretch their haircuts out further and further to save more money.

What do my hairdresser & Michael's Craft Stores have to do with Seattle real estate? 

A lot actually - there are a lot of doom and gloomers out there who are preaching how horrible our market is.  Our market is definitely different and there are a ton of new challenges, but the brighter side is that we really needed to flush out the bad and start new.  The bottom line is if you are in the market today then you are most likely working with a great Realtor and lender because most of the bad ones bailed.  Many got into real estate for the wrong reason over the last decade: money.  Ethics, customer service and even the Golden Rule were tossed aside and there was a big rush with little or no accountability.  Being careful does not mean that it has all gone "to hell".  If you want to buy or sell your Seattle house, you can - you just have to prepare yourself for the current market and get help.  It is not a do it yourself time.  It is okay to be careful and realistic, but if you find someone preaching the fear walk away - it  You need someone who is successful in any market.

Bottom line: Fear is viral:  It is okay to be honest and realistic, but we have all gotten pretty accustomed to the sensationalizing from the media.  We need to instead provide helpful down to earth information. 

Cooper Jacobs Real Estate Services, Seattle Realtor, Serving Seattle Neighborhoods & Seattle Suburbs.  More neighborhood info: Ballard real estate, Fremont real estate, Wallingford real estate, Green Lake real estate, Lake Forest Park real estate

Seattle Cell Phone Recycling

Why not go green AND do something for another good cause at the same time?

Looking to recycle your old cell phone for a good cause?  Cooper Jacobs Real Estate is running a cell phone drive to benefit schools - please get a hold of Courtney Cooper if you have any cell phones you would like to donate.  courtney@cooperjacobs.com

If you are interested in Seattle real estate, please feel free to visit my site to check out local listings updated from the MLS  with easy searches:

Seattle real estate

Cooper Jacobs Real Estate Services, Serving Seattle & Seattle Suburbs

This is not Ballard or Green Lake in 2006!!!!!  Have you seen BBC's How Not To Decorate? 

If not, check it out - it is a great show, but here is how not to sell your Seattle house:

It is no secret that the Seattle real estate market is still good, but it has definitely changed and is no longer allowing something as ridiculous as what I saw in the local MLS today.  I was browsing at some listings in a particular section of the neighborhood of Queen Anne.   I found a condo priced under market with oh about three pictures (if that) and a short explanation in the marketing remarks saying that they would be taking the highest and best offer on Sunday.

  OK. This kind of thing will usually fly if say you are in the years 2000 through 2006, but in today's Seattle market -even if you are on Queen Anne - selling a property takes proper marketing with a full service Seattle Realtor who is willing to Stage your home and market it in a number of different ways both online and in print.

Oh but it gets better....

The listing was advertised with a limited service agency that I have never heard of who charges about $500 for a bare bones MLS listing.  I think this model is okay for some people as long as you offer a competitive selling office commission to the agent who brings the buyer.  In fact, I would even recommend you offer more than normal commission because many agents won't even show these listings.  They will never admit to this, but limited service agency listings are often ignored or taken out of the pile because they are so much more work for the selling agent and double the liability in most cases.  I show them, but admit that I do not like having to take on twice the liability because the sellers inevitably rely on my expertise as an agent because they are not paying for additional help from the limited service agent in most cases.

Now more and more often I am seeing these companies allow the seller to set the commission and I keep seeing 1% selling office commissions pop up.  I honestly believe that these agencies that allow 1% selling office commissions to be part of their listings just do not care about these sellers at all.  They know it won't sell in most cases with a substandard selling office commission so the only thing I can deduce is that they are only after their measly $499.  I think this is atrocious and would never stoop so low and be so uncaring and greedy.  This is a great disservice to a homeowner who just might need to be coached into being more realistic about selling their home - especially in today's market.

OK - back to my story.  Now I have seen it all.

This ridiculous listing offered ONE DOLLAR as the selling office commission and apparently was a four day listing only because it expired four days after being listed with no sales - at least none reported in the MLS.  What a freaking joke and a travesty to a system designed to really help bring buyers and sellers together.  Why oh why would anyone stoop to this level? 

 Mr. Limited Service Agent:  Shame on you for taking advantage of someones $499 who clearly needs expert advice!!!!! You are doing no one any favors - least of all your seller who has no clue as to how to sell their home for top dollar obviously. Why not teach your client the correct way to sell their home rather than scraping up your money and heading out? Why make a mockery out of a system designed help facilitate someone actually selling their home?????

Mr./Mrs./Ms. Seller:  Do you want to sell your house?  Are you sure?  Because the agency you hired is clearly not serious or they never would have taken your listing is the way I see it. Why risk your financial well being with some joker who is willing to waste your time for a crappy $499??????

Are you seriously interested in saving the money you would pay for a listing commission?  Then list your house with a full service Realtor and pay full commission and let them get you top dollar to make up for that money you want to save or be discounted.  A serious Seattle real estate agent will make you a lot more money with their marketing and expertise than a limited service agency will save you every time if they do it right!!!!

Need help? realestate@cooperjacobs.com

Seattle Real Estate:  Tips and advice on saving yourself some money from an emergency....

It is important to make sure and take every precaution to keep your house water tight, but in Seattle we need to be especially mindful of some pretty important home maintenance in order to protect our investments!  We actually do get a lot of blue skies here in Seattle along with our rain and it is important to take advantage of those lovely sunny days in order to keep our homes water tight... 

Guess what?  The rain is starting and the mist is working its way into the houses and ruining my beloved tomatoes...  I will move them indoors, but here is a good checklist for the house.  Get out there before we get any heavy rains and make sure to go over this list to protect your home! 

• Gutters!!!

• Roof

• Siding

• Windows/Doors

• Vegetation control

Gutters: Please, please, please - have your gutters cleaned and checked twice a year - or at the very least once a year. I, too, thought that the cascading waterfall over my front porch was quite beautiful when it was overflowing from my gutters, but those gutter systems are put on there for a reason!!!! I have a wonderful client (who shall remain nameless) who has finally learned the importance of gutter maintenance after the first two homes had issues as a result of bad gutter attention. One house had the basement flood and the second house had water flow over the top of the gutters right on to the fireplace exhaust and then straight down to his newly refinished hardwood floors (He put a protective flap over his fireplace vents in his next house.). If you don't want to go up there, hire someone, but gutters are almost as important as a roof in my opinion.

 Roof: Of course monitor it - make sure and have a licensed roofer check it once in a while. Look for missing shingles and look for moss. Moss is quite common around here and it starts to grow up under the shingles and causes them to fail after a while. Moss should definitely be cleaned and again, there are professionals that can do this!

Siding: Look for cracks in the siding or caulking spots that need re caulking. Make sure that the siding is properly stained or painted to avoid water exposure to untreated wood. If you are unsure, call in a professional contractor.

Windows/Doors: Obviously make sure they are properly functioning, but also check the water tight weather strip at the bottom and around the edges and make sure all the caulking around the exterior is intact or call a contractor in just to make sure if you aren't.

 Vegetation Control: Every single inspection I have been to calls out one thing: Make sure the plant life dirt are away from the house!!! Weed the perimeter and cut back the branches - it will cut back on water intrusion as well as have a positive effect on pest control.

Your home is your biggest investment! Seattle does get rain, but simple home checks once or twice a year can save you from costly deferred maintenance mistakes!!!

Are you interested in Seattle real estate?  Seattle Realtor?  realestate@cooperjacobs.com