Ian MacMillan - Seattle-Northgate - - Windermere -

Ian MacMillan

Managing Broker

LIC. 49812

CONTACT

Main

(206) 601-0699

Office

(206) 526-5544

Website

http://www.ianmacmillan.com

Offices

Seattle-Northgate

Windermere Real Estate Co.
301 NE 100th St. Suite 200

Seattle, WA 98125

About Ian

A Managing Broker with the Windermere Northgate office, I have over 20 years of experience as a full-time real estate agent in the greater Seattle-area. I am a Seattleite born and raised, and a proud University of Washington alum. My family and I live in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood.

Business Philosophy

I partner closely with my clients to facilitate an experience of buying or selling real estate that is profitable, meaningful and fun. I am a savvy negotiator and local market expert, and I pride myself on having the courage and professionalism to be open and real with my clients through every step of the real estate process. I establish deep personal relationships with the people I work with and I continue to serve their real estate needs and earn their referrals and repeat business long after our transaction has concluded. Through my work, I strive to live out my personal values of uncompromising integrity, excellence, openness and compassion every day.

Interests

I do my best to enjoy the unique things that make living in this part of the country so incredible, from camping trips in our Volkswagen Westy, to going to Husky games, to watching the sun drop behind the Olympic Mountains at Sunset Hill Park. I love what I do and I am grateful for the opportunity it provides me to share my love of Seattle with others!

16 Reviews on Zillow

Highly likely to recommend

2018-08-11 -beethk333

Helped me buy home

The length of this glowing review is a testament to how much we appreciate Ian MacMillan's work during our home buying journey. We were referred to Ian by friends, who highly recommended him. From the start, he was proactive in providing critical information very quickly. Ian gets results. EXPERIENCE: Ian's 15+ years of Seattle/WA real estate experience helped provide insight into the current, competitive Seattle market. His wealth of knowledge, throughout our months working with him, is a key factor in our success with closing on the home we love. Ian established a sense of comfort in a tough market - by helping to make sure we understood the multi-step process. Bottom line, we found that Ian knows Seattle's housing market, and has an invaluable foundation of knowledge formed from his years of experience.SKILL: Ian demonstrated a strong ability to build trusted relationships with listing agents. And he worked really well with our lender and title company. Ian understands the partnerships and teamwork needed to make the process run smoothly. APPROACH ON MAKING AN OFFER: Something outstanding that we found most helpful is Ian's sound advice and consistent help wrt strategy when we were ready to make an offer. Ian helped to empower us to make decisions that fit us. Making an offer on a home (esp. in Seattle's hyper-competitive multiple-offer scenarios) is simply uncomfortable, tense and complex. Ian helped to outline facts to make the process understandable and clear. He provided recommendations that we were comfortable with. THE LIST GOES ON: You can keep on reading here because we have even more highlights from our experience having Ian as our trusted realtor:-We always felt we were on the same page. This is work on Ian's part to make sure he was serving us in the best possible way. Oftentimes he anticipated the questions and inquiries we would have, and proactively offered answers and information.-Ian listens; On our home tours, he didn't fill up the time with incessant chatter. He observes, makes deductions and tries hard to understand his clients.-He was always very communicative and readily available via phone, text and email.-Ian is patient. Can you imagine the patience needed to keep repeating yourself if you get asked the same question? He was always open to reiterating details, and clarifying the home buying process during the many, many stages/steps. -Ian did not ever try to aggressively push us or try to sell us on anything. In fact, he helped to make important comments on structural issues that any buyer would like to know. From flagging money pits to making sure to give his honest opinion or share details on repairs needed that would impact value, Ian was proactive in pointing out key things to consider. No other realtor we'd met had done that.Ian MacMillan is an excellent realtor. If you are serious about buying a home and if any of these above-mentioned comments resonate with you, you owe it to yourself to give him a call.

Highly likely to recommend

2015-03-09 -rwc_ccl

Helped me buy home

Ian was an amazing realtor and resource for my husband and I during our move to Seattle. He was positive, friendly,and genuinely wanted to help us find our first home. My husband did the footwork with Ian as I was still working in California, which made our search a bit stressful. Ian was great though and checked in with me regularly on the phone and made me feel like I was in Seattle. When we found a home that seemed to fit most of our requirements, Ian moved fast and helped us put together a bid incredibly quickly. We were able to successfully purchase our home and close within a few weeks. We never thought home ownership was in our reach, but Ian helped us understand the process and we felt very confident in his negotiating and knowledge of homes in the area. If we were purchasing again, I would absolutely go with Ian, no doubt about it!

Highly likely to recommend

2018-06-13 -rdcase80

Helped me buy home

Ian helped me with the purchase of my first house. He is very thorough, knowledgeable, skilled, and puts the needs of his clients above all else. I decided to work with Ian after interviewing 5 other realtors and found him to be very trustworthy with his advice and opinions. Every house that I put a proposal for we got under contract and he even recommended to walk away from one after looking for 5 months. Even when I went through my divorce and the sell of my house he gave me a very informed advice even with nothing for him to gain from it. I highly recommend Ian for his services and if I end up back in the Seattle area I will seek his advice. Thank you for all your help Ian!!!

Highly likely to recommend

2018-05-25 -homesearching

Listed and sold a home

I recently hired Ian to sell my home in West Seattle -- I live in the UK and needed someone I could trust to go the extra mile if necessary, communicate well, and had the expertise to handle any snafus along the way. I haven't had the best experience with realtors, but Ian surpassed all of my expectations -- he was simply amazing throughout the entire process!! He was patient, responsive, flexible, informed, a great listener, super trustworthy, and worked really, REALLY hard on my behalf, which resulted in a sale that went well and above asking price in just six days. I feel like I absolutely got my money's worth with Ian and he singlehandedly restored my faith in realtors. I wouldn't hesitate to hire Ian again and I highly recommend him without hesitation for both buyers and sellers. Thank you, Ian!

Highly likely to recommend

2019-04-07 -tayholbrook

Listed and sold a home

Ian is the best of the best! He has been a Working with my family for several years and will continue to be our agent for years to come. He has been there for the the purchase and sale of our first condo, and again this year for the purchase of our first home. Ian is always readily available and very tentative to his clients making you feel in the know about every detail during the process of buying and selling. I can guarantee that we would not be in our dream home if it wasn’t for him. I not only have an amazing agent but now a friend. Thanks again Ian!

Highly likely to recommend

2016-04-02 -steveandshelly

Helped me buy home

We met Ian days before the deadline to get offers in for a condo in Ballard, and he did everything he could to coach us through the experience of writing our first offer -- which was accepted despite stiff competition. I couldn't recommend him more highly for his knowledge and navigation of the market and his good advice, which really seems to come from a place of wanting to see the best for all involved, not just a commission.

Highly likely to recommend

2014-11-23 -noahfb

Helped me buy home

My wife and I contacted Ian a few months before we planned to move to Seattle from the East Coast. My brother had worked with him before and had a great experience. We knew that we wanted to buy soon after we arrived in Seattle, but didn't know the city well and were first-time homebuyers.

From the outset, Ian was thoughtful and patient. He asked lots of good questions and took great notes during our initial conversation. He was very focused on hearing from us what we wanted, but also wasn't afraid to tell us some of the pros and cons of our preferences on neighborhoods and types of homes (condo, townhouse, single-family, etc.).

Ultimately, our search was relatively short. We looked at a lot of places online on Zillow, Redfin and the MLS before coming out to Seattle for a house-hunting trip in August. Once we were on the ground, we probably visited about 20-25 homes over a few days. Ian was great at helping us focus during this process by listing out the things we needed and what we wanted in a home. It turned out to be a really helpful way for my wife and I to talk through such a big financial decision.

One house stood out in this process, and we decided to make an offer. This is when Ian really shined. He guessed correctly that it would be a competitive process and helped us line up a pre-inspection of the house and sewer system. He also was great at helping us craft a bidding strategy and polishing our offer so it stood out. In a tight market, having this kind of advice is invaluable.

Since we closed, Ian has gone above and beyond to make sure we're settled. You can really tell that he wants to build long-term relationships with his clients. I would highly recommend working with him.

Highly likely to recommend

2015-06-23 -StEllio

Helped me buy home

Over the last year, we went on house hunting tours with a couple of other agents and companies, including Redfin, but we were always disappointed that the representatives we worked with didn't know much about the houses, the neighborhoods, or the Seattle market in general. They also didn't have that special real estate agent sixth sense about what houses would fit our needs. So we asked around to find a good buying agent.My wife and I were referred to Ian by a friend who bought her house with Ian and who was referred to Ian by her brother-in-law. Once we started working with him, the difference was night and day. We got into a weekly routine of emailing him listings we liked, and he'd go through the list before the weekend, prioritizing it based on our stated preferences and, just as importantly (or more), his experience and judgement. He'd do advance research into the houses, sellers, and listing agents, and he was always able to tell us more about the houses than the listings revealed. We quickly got to the point where we'd trust him if a house we said we might be interested in wasn't worth visiting, and for the ones on the fence, he'd scout them out first during the week without us. In a market where one has to move fast on a new listing, having Ian at our side was invaluable.We ended up putting in three offers before getting our house. (If you haven't been house hunting in Seattle this year, expect to make multiple offers in this sellers' market--we consider ourselves lucky it only took us three offers to land a house!) Ian helped us navigate the complicated, competitive bidding situations we found ourselves in. He taught us about all the different options we had in crafting our offer, and was very careful to make sure we balanced the need to build a strong offer package with the need to protect against the risks of a bidding war (for example, helping us make sure our offers wouldn't leave us with buyer's remorse, or leave us over-exposed to appraisal risk). Ian also had a great intuition about what might make the offer better. (For example, on our third offer, Ian had a hunch that by increasing our offer by $5,000 we'd increase the chance that we'd win over other bids that were anchoring closely to a round number. We ended up beating the next best offer by only $2,250. And when the VA appraisal came in below our offer price, Ian helped us work out a deal with the sellers that got them to include some of their furniture in the sale!) Because he prepared us so well and is such a calming personality, we always felt like we put in the best offer we could possibly put in. When you know you've put your best foot forward and can't be any better prepared, that takes a *lot* of stress out of the process.After we bought the house, we were sad we didn't have weekly house hunting trips with Ian anymore! My wife and I highly recommend him and if we ever sell our house in the distant future, we'll definitely ask him to be our listing agent!

Highly likely to recommend

2014-11-02 -jctu88

Helped me buy home

Ian MacMillan is a great professional with integrity: dedicated, people first, relationship first, caring, considerate, and generous.

Ian helped my husband and I to find a residence because, at the time, we wanted a place with elevators.

Knowing that my husband was not mobile and that chances of finding a residence were iffy, Ian still took us to look for places. Even though I decided to admit my husband to an assisted living facility, that is, Ian's efforts did not materialize, Ian was devoted to us, his clients: Ian was care enough to take a look of our old residence with stairs only. He made a number of good suggestions which got our home owner association to start its work.

Ian was conscientious about the costs to the clients and pointed out the possible costs up front and how to circumvent them.

I am indebted to Ian for his caring and his generosity.

Juliana S. Tu

Highly likely to recommend

2014-09-21 -qoyanaa

Listed and sold a home

I whined with the best of them about realtors and their fees. I had almost signed on with Redfin, but Ian MacMillan promised me that he would “work his butt off for me.” For some odd reason I fell for that line. This is nothing against Redfin, but I can tell you that I am glad I did! These are some of the reasons that I would recommend him more highly than any other realtor I have ever worked with. To date, I think I have worked with at least 10 in my life.1. He is professional, forthcoming, and above all, honest. 2. He does work really hard for a client (me!). 3. He recommended a realistic price for the house, which shows he clearly knows the market in Seattle. Other recommendations, such as a staging and a sewer scope paid off as well. 4. He is realistic about what to expect from the market, as well as anyone I have seen.5. He is timely and reliable. He does what he says he will do, and right on time.6. His attention to detail is stellar.7. He expertly maneuvers through the whole system of bargaining with buyers and buyer’s agents. (I think I can pretty reliably say he did many of the other agent’s tasks too because she did not seem terribly engaged when it came to getting information where it should go.)8. I cannot think of any mistake he made—and everyone makes mistakes—but he is a huge contrast to the realtor I am working with in another state who just is not careful about details.9. At the last minute (the initial day of closing), the closing bank bank tried to change some language resulting in my being cheated out of $4,000 in a holdback agreement. As frustrated as Ian and I were, he dealt with that with persistence, and extreme professionalism. Anyway, if you ever need to recommend a top notch realtor, I endorse Ian MacMillan one hundred percent.