Market News Western Washington Real Estate Market Update Annual employment growth in Washington State slowed somewhat in the third quarter of this year, but still remains well above the long-term average. Additionally, the jobs that are being created are primarily quality, high-paying positions, which is important for the health of our economy.
More 4 Simple Steps to Painting a Wall Faster Many books about painting will tell you to paint a small strip along the baseboards, doorways, trim and other edges of the room with a brush before breaking out the paint roller to paint the rest of the wall. But before you do this paintbrush work, called “cutting in,” consider paint expert Shauna Gallagher’s method: Roll paint on the wall and then use a paintbrush for the edge work.
Living Childproofing: Protect Your Family and Your Home from Potential Hazards While supervision is the best way to keep your children safe at home, you can’t watch them every second. Childproofing, to whatever degree you are comfortable, will go a long way toward keeping your littlest loved ones safe and healthy at home.
More How to Reduce Noise in an Open-Plan Design Open-plan living spaces have many advantages for family life and entertaining, and they increase the opportunity to bring lots of natural light into your home. But they can end up being quite noisy. You may be surprised, however, at how easy it is to reduce sound travel with a few key additions to your furnishings. […]
Living Keeping Up with the Joneses: The Great Paint Debate The vinyl siding of the 1942 Seattle Cape Cod fixer we purchased nine months ago had been sun bleached to the point of resembling a kind of soft lemon chiffon yellow you’d see on a cake your grandmother baked. Great for dessert, bad for today’s exterior home color. We wanted a charming, warm and inviting new exterior home color but were fearful about what it would cost to have a professional do it
More Selling Your Home? Go Through This Safety Checklist With Your Real Estate Agent Selling your home can be stressful for many reasons. One thing you can be sure of when selling your home is that there will be strangers entering your space, so it’s important for you and your agent to take certain safety precautions.
More #YourStoryIsOurStory: Kicking off the School Year Right Starting the school year can be nerve wracking; new friends, new classroom, and for some, a new school all together. Imagine starting the new year already behind, with shoes that don’t fit, clothes that are stained or too small, and inadequate school supplies. Many Windermere offices work very hard at the start of the school year to ensure this doesn’t happen for kids in our communities...
Living First Day of Autumn Even though it happens year after year, the arrival of autumn is always a little surprising. Almost as if on a switch, one day late in the summer you feel it – a subtle crispness in the air. And before you know it, it’s pumpkin-spice-everything everywhere. We are suddenly swathed in sweaters, wearing boots, and bombarded by shades of orange, often even before the thermometer warrants it.
Don't Miss Our Next Post
Subscribe Now
More U.S. Government $10,000 Short Sale Incentive Expires December 30, 2016 The federal government’s Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) Program is set to expire December 30, 2016. The program pays homeowners $10,000 to complete a short sale rather than go through the foreclosure process. Since the application deadline for HAFA is only a few months away, it is important for homeowners to apply as soon as possible.
Living Great Design Element: Why Awnings Are Making a Comeback Awnings are a valuable home design element that our grandparents knew all about. In the days before air conditioning, they were used to shade interiors and help keep homes cool. With the focus on sustainable design today, there’s renewed interest in the power of awnings.
Market News Do You Have ‘Average’ Credit? If so, Getting a Mortgage May Be Tough Today, lenders require nothing short of pristine credit to obtain a mortgage. We can never return to the reckless lending policies of the past, but I believe they’ve gone too far, and it concerns me.
Buying Investing in Rental Property: The Risks, Rewards, and Benefits of Owning Rental Property One area of the real estate market that is thriving right now is rental property. All indications suggest that the rental market will continue to improve because of low vacancy rates and rising rents. In fact, the demand for rentals is predicted to far exceed supply through 2016, with 4.5 million new renters expected to enter the market in the next five years.
More Raising money for those in need—one putt at a time. Thanks to fundraisers like these golf tournaments, as well as a variety of other fundraisers held by our offices throughout the year, the Windermere Foundation is able to continue to support non-profit organizations that provide services to low-income and homeless families throughout the Western U.S.
Selling Six Key Factors That Affect the Sales Price of Your Home Pricing a home for sale is not nearly as simple as most people think. You can’t base the price on what the house down the street sold for. You can’t depend on tax assessments. Even automatic valuation methods (AVMs), while useful for a rough estimate of value, are unreliable for purposes of pricing a home for sale.
Buying Relocating Your Home to Advance Your Career Many of us dream of getting a better job. But when a promotion or new job opportunity comes with a request to relocate, the result can be very disruptive to your home life. There’s a lot to consider when making this kind of move...
Living 8 Ways Your Kitchen Renovations Could Break Your Budget When you begin planning a kitchen renovation project, you may have no idea how much your ideal vision might cost. The answer will likely depend on several factors, including the size of your space, what you will do to it, and your budget. In the end, the price of a renovation should largely be driven by your own choices.
Design How the American Home has Evolved Owning a home has been an American tradition from the start. But the home itself has changed dramatically over the years. For example, you may be surprised to learn how much the size of the average American home has increased since the turn of the 20th century—especially when you compare it to the size of the average family during the same time period.
Buying Why So Many Americans Are Either Upsizing or Downsizing According to two recent surveys that took industry watchers by surprise, many family homeowners are putting frugality aside and upsizing to new houses that average as large as 2,480 square feet (an increase of as much as 13 percent from the year before), and sometimes exceed 3,500 square feet in size.
More #YourStoryIsOurStory: The Little Blue House It’s tough being a first time home buyer, especially in a fiercely competitive market like Seattle where multiple offers are the norm. Windermere clients Haley and Yash experienced this first hand when they started shopping for a home. With the help of their agent Elsa Nunes-Ueno, they found and fell in love with “the little blue house”.
Living How Long Is Your Contractor Liable? Constructing or remodeling a home is a complex, expensive endeavor. Ideally, everything goes as planned, and when the dust clears, the homeowner can settle in and enjoy the new home — and never think about the building process again.