More • August 19, 2010

Greetings from the Windermere Foundation

by Windermere Staff

Thanks to you and the wonderful support the Windermere Foundation has received so far this year, we disbursed nearly $629,000 to qualifying social service organizations dedicated to serving low-income and homeless families throughout the West.

Our amazing agents, staff and owners, along with public supporters, continue to contribute generously to the Foundation. Gifts to the Foundation through the 2nd quarter of 2010 are up 30% compared to this time last year!

I’d like to share a few letters from the recipient organizations illustrating how your support is truly making a difference in the lives of those they serve.

Renton School District/Communities In Schools of Renton

“I am currently working with a family that received a utility cut-off notice last week.

The father had been laid off of work for a couple of weeks, and they have fallen behind on their payments. They have been proactive in calling as many social service agencies and churches as they can. Many social service agencies are without funds at this time to assist families. It has become very difficult for families to find the resources to be able to have even the most basic necessities.

With Windermere Foundation’s generous assistance, the family was able to contact the utility company to let them know that a payment is on its way. The power to their apartment will stay on. It is through your generosity and support that families are able to provide for their children during difficult times.

With the school year ending today, your donation came at such a timely manner for this family. You have made a difference to this family.

Thank you for the valuable work that you do. You are making a difference. Thanks for your quick response to this family’s need.”

-Family Liaison, Renton School District

St. Joseph’s Baby Corner

“Please extend our thanks and gratitude to all of the contributors for the recent donation to St. Joseph’s. These funds will help keep babies supplied with basic items needed for newborn baby care. Every day we have requests coming in for diapers, pajamas, blankets, diaper rash ointment, baby wash, pacifiers, thermometers, and assorted baby equipment. Keeping up with these requests is a daunting challenge at the best of times. When the requests keep coming in if we have run out of the “baby basics”, the problem is too difficult to imagine.

Every baby needs to be clean, dry and warm. But, if the new parents do not even have the necessary clothing to dress the baby to go home from the hospital after being born, the problems that the baby has to live with multiply at an exponential rate. Your donation will help us to see that no baby has to go home without a blanket or pajamas or any of the other necessities that must be readily available to properly care for the new baby.

Thank you again for your kind generosity to our babies. This donation will be helping the babies all year long to be well-fed, clean, and warm. Bless you for helping them, one and all.”

–St. Joseph’s Baby Corner

Events supporting the Windermere Foundation

Ten East King County offices held their annual March Madness fundraiser where nearly

$45,000 was raised! A combination of agent contributions and owner matches help make this a successful fundraiser year after year.

The Magnolia, Queen Anne, Wall Street, West Seattle Fauntleroy and West Seattle offices held their first annual Rally at the Alley, where they raised $7,500 for the Windermere Foundation. The event included bowling (fun!) and an auction. Auction items were donated by generous (and creative!) agents, owners, staff and vendors.

As always, thank you for your continuing support of the Windermere Foundation. Many low-income families are receiving basic necessities because of your commitment to helping others.

Best,

Christine Wood

Want to read more news about the Foundation?

Follow the Foundation blog and become a fan on Facebook to learn and share your stories about all the amazing things the Foundation is doing throughout the year.

More • August 18, 2010

A Humbling Experience

by Geoff Wood

It’s a humbling experience to sit down with a man like Ralph Jenkins. He’s seen more than most people. He’s done more, and given more. And he knows more. So when I have a chance to talk with Ralph, I ask a lot of questions and listen carefully.

Ralph was one of our very first agents. He joined Windermere in 1969, and was instrumental in shaping the company. He was with Windermere for 26 years, and his influence is still strongly felt. With his commitment to family and dedication to building relationships and community, Ralph set the bar very high.

Long before his real estate career, Ralph was a World War II fighter pilot who led the 510th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, known as Jenkins’ Jerry Junkers. The squadron flew P-47 “Thunderbolts,” and Ralph personally flew 129 combat missions. He later commanded a B-52 squadron, and retired as a full colonel.

Ralph and I talk a lot about our shared passion for flying. His stories about dive bombing, low-level attacks and anti-aircraft flak are riveting. More than once he returned to base wondering if he had enough fuel to make it. And on one occasion, he was forced to fly with the cockpit open because the plexiglas was covered with oil from enemy flak.

Ralph’s stories are historical treasures. He’s been on The History Channel and PBS. He is also featured at the Museum of Flight, and he has led groups around the Flying Heritage Collection at Paine Field in Everett, where his P-47 vintage war plane, the Tallahassee Lassie, resides today.

I’ve learned a lot from Ralph — about flying, real estate and life. He has seen many changes over the years. He flew before jets. He worked in real estate before the Internet. He’s lived through economic booms and busts. He’s mentored generations of real estate agents, and helped countless families buy and sell homes. But some things have remained constant. His life has been all about helping and protecting others, and building trust through teamwork — values that are at the core of Windermere.

Ralph Jenkins is a genuine hero. Earlier this year he celebrated his 91st birthday, and all of us at Windermere send him our very best wishes.

Ralph, we are humbled to know you. And we are so proud to call you our friend.

More • August 12, 2010

Windermere Cronin & Caplan Realty Group, Inc. to donate $130,000 to the Bridge Meadows Project in Portland, Oregon

by Windermere Staff

In 2005 Rhonda Meadows had a vision on how to develop a healthy community to support foster children, parents and elders and in 2011 her vision will become a reality in the Portsmouth neighborhood of Portland. The Bridge Meadows project will incorporate intergenerational housing, sustainable community initiatives such as a public garden, nutritional workshops, community center and tutoring opportunities to support foster families and provide support for all community members.

The Windermere Foundation is proud to support the Bridge Meadows Project through the hard work of the Windermere Portland offices. Windermere committed to fundraise 250,000 over four years and we are happy to share that they have surpassed the half-way mark!

To learn more about the project and Windermere’s contribution check out the recent Goodness Portland article here.

Living • Selling • August 4, 2010

Yard Sale Success

by Guest Author

Yard sale season has arrived! Many people shy away from the idea of having a yard sale, but do you truly need that broken down accordion or the 80’s styled prom dress? A yard sale is a great way to get out with the old and make room for the new. Here are some tips to help make your yard sale a success …

1. If you haven’t used it in more than a year you most likely won’t use it in the next year. Sell it.

2. Get the community involved. Contact your neighbors and coordinate having one large neighborhood sale on the same day. This will give consumers a greater incentive to come.

Helpful Hint: Have each participating household pitch in a few bucks for directional signs or an advertisement in the local paper.

3. Get your whole family involved. Set up a lemonade stand or have a small bake sale for your kids to run.

4. Promote yourself through your favorite social networking site … for free.

Create a facebook event page and invite all your friends

Tweet about it. Create a fun Twitter hashtag and offer a prize to those who Tweet about your sale.

5. Offer an incentive. Give away a free grab-bag to your tenth customer.

6. Price slightly higher than you’re willing to sell that way, there is room for negotiation.

7. After your sale is over, do not, I repeat, DO NOT put the leftovers back in your house, garage, or storage. Immediately donate them to your local thrift store, so there is no chance of procrastination or keeping things you do not need.

We would love to hear your tips when it comes to yard sale success!

Selling • July 28, 2010

Will videos surpass photos when it comes to marketing a home online?

by Michael Fanning

I recently read a real estate video report from Sept 6, 2009 stating that to market a home today the use of video is becoming more popular. The reports states that:

"When searching for real estate information, consumers value video 41% of the time and photos 48% of the time."

They also predicted that " video will soon grow higher and still images will decline. Most of this shift is due to some interesting enhancements in technology. Technology to upload video to websites has drastically been enhanced. We now have video software embedded into cameras that compress the video and maintain high quality. Cameras like the HD Flip for example makes taking video and loading video very easy."

It's true that videos haven’t yet replaced photos in real estate marketing, but the numbers clearly tell the story of the real estate industry’s intent on utilizing video to strengthen their brand by improving the consumer experience. As distribution opportunities unique to video become more readily available to real estate professionals, teams and brands, the adoption of video will pick up pace rapidly. Video’s acceleration is already underway.

My questions to you the Buyer. How do you feel about video over photos? And to the Seller. Do you feel that using video enhances the marketing or distracts form it? We want to know.

Report from welcomemat.com

Buying • Market News • July 19, 2010

The Future of Homeownership

by Windermere Economics

Homeownership has been pushed by the past two presidents and certainly contributed to the financial meltdown that we experienced in 2008 and are still recovering from. I thought that this month’s blog should look at homeownership from where we were, to where we are and looking forward to what the future holds. Many agents have been telling me that fear is holding back buyers and, in some cases, sellers in today's market. Clients have many questions relative to the future of housing in general, as well as effecting their own situations.

If we look back in history, we note that home ownership rates averaged about 63 to 64 percent from 1965 to the early 1990’s. It was then that George W Bush started to push the goal of increased ownership and this was echoed by President Clinton. With the lax lending standards that came into play at that time, we saw ownership rates skyrocket to about 70 percent.

So where are we today? The official rate is 67.1 percent, which is still far higher than the historical average and back at levels not seen since 2001. One thing remains clear and that is that we will certainly see this rate reduce as we continue to see increasing foreclosures.

There are a number of factors, however, that suggest that homeownership rates, although headed lower and back to historic norms, should not overcorrect. These are as follows:

1. Social Policies – as mentioned above, our elected officials like homeowners as it results in neighborhood stability, as well as building equity. However, there needs to be a balance as the excess demand was driven by lax lending that cannot return.

2. General Housing Affordability – With the price declines that we have seen, housing affordability has not been better in many years. Historically low interest rates also impact affordability.

3. Aging Population – as the population ages, ownership rates increase.

4. New Households – the echo boom generation is upon us and every year there are millions of young people who fly the nest, heading out into the world and in need of shelter. This figure far exceeds households lost to death. That being said, as many know, if there are no jobs available, they are likely not to fly without considerable pushing!

So what does this mean? The likelihood of an overcorrection, assuming that lending policies by GSE’s such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA do not change dramatically, is slim.

More • July 12, 2010

Going, going…

by Geoff Wood

Have you seen the lists on the Internet and various publications touting what is disappearing in America? They’re sort of fun and sort of sad in the sense that some wonderful things are going away or are already gone forever.

I am going to miss wristwatches with second hands. And I rarely get a handwritten note anymore – somehow an email just can't compare. I don't like the fact that newspapers are going away; I know all that information is on the Web, but I like holding and reading an actual paper.

Some other things that are going away are just fine, like indoor smoking and dial-up Internet. I can’t say that I really miss typewriters or pay phones either. And I was never really a ham radio guy.

Technology has created a ton of efficiency, and casualties, too. I like the convenience of automatic teller machines, but I do miss the friendly people I used to chat with in the bank. I love my smartphone, but there are times when it should be shut off.

Many of these lists tell us that customer service is disappearing, and in general that's true. This is the era of self-checkout, drive-through coffee, automated answering services and mobile applications for your phone. It’s all designed to save time and make us more efficient so we can pack more into our day – so that we can do what, exactly?

Great customer service has become a rarity – with a few noteworthy exceptions. The Ritz-Carlton has a mantra that perfectly describes their commitment to their customers: “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” I love that.

And in real estate, taking care of our customers is at the core of our business. In fact, we're actually in the relationship business. The "How-can-I-help-you?" business. The "What-can-I-do-to-make-your-life-easier?" business.

Many things we used to count on seem to be gone or going away. So I feel especially lucky to work in a business that prides itself on spending more time with its customers, imparting more knowledge to its customers, and working much harder than ever before to personally help our customers. That will never go away at Windermere.

Market News • July 6, 2010

Vacation Homes: looking better all the time

by Windermere Staff

Whether you’re in the market for a lakeside cottage, a mountain cabin, a ski chalet or an island retreat, the vacation home market is warming up. If you have strong credit scores, this could be the right time to take the plunge.

According to a January 10, 2010 article in The NY Times, “Lenders now appear willing to finance second homes, but borrowers must be patient, eminently qualified and strategic about their house choices.” In general, you need a strong credit score and a substantial down payment to qualify for a mortgage on a vacation home.

Vacation home sales on the rise
According to the National Association of Realtors, vacation home sales recovered in 2009. NAR’s 2010 “Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey” indicates that in 2009, vacation home sales rose 7.9 percent nationally to 553,000, up from 513,000 in 2008. Around one in ten residential home purchases in 2009 were vacation homes, about the same share of the market as in 2008. In addition:

Half of all vacation homes purchased were in the South, 21 percent were in the West, 17 percent were in the Midwest and 12 percent were in the Northeast.

Seven out of ten vacation homes purchased were detached single-family homes.

The overwhelming majority of vacation homes were more than 100 miles from their owner’s primary residence.

The median price of a vacation home increased by 12.7 percent from 2008, possibly because more vacation home sales were occurring in higher-priced markets.

In short, the numbers for 2009 are a good indication that the vacation home market picture is looking brighter all the time.

This article was written by Noelle Bortfeld.

Selling • June 28, 2010

An automatic co-pilot to estimate your home’s value

by Michael Fanning

Recently I was in the process of refinancing my home. With rates being as low as they are, I figured I'd better seize the opportunity. As part of process, the home needed to be appraised.

My lender asked me what I though my house might be worth. Not really knowing, where do you think I looked? Yep, I logged into Zillow and looked at their AVM to see their estimate of my home’s value.

AVM stands for Automatic Valuation Model. It’s basically a system that pulls together different sets of data to generate an estimated value. There are many AVMs out there that will estimate the value of your home.

With AVMs growing in popularity as a way to estimate your home’s value, how can you find out how accurate they are? Zillow actually provides data about their accuracy in several cities. For example, in Seattle (where I live) the variance is 10.6%; in Portland, the variance is 14.0%; in Phoenix the variance is 12.8% and in Las Vegas the variance is 31.8%.

Another method to get a good idea of what your home is worth is a Comparative Market Analysis or CMA. A CMA is an estimate of the home's value compared with other similar homes in the same or similar areas and is often provided by a real estate professional. This method differs from an appraisal in that property currently for sale may be taken into consideration (because these other properties are actually competition for your home).

Because I was refinancing and not a buying or selling, I felt pretty safe with the 10.6% variance and so did my lender.

I like to think an AVM is like an automatic co-pilot. My good friend who flies for Alaska told me that the 737's can pretty much land themselves. When I asked him what if the unexpected happens he said, “Well, that is why I'm in that cockpit, with all my hours of experience in the cockpit I can take over and bring the plane down safely." Automatic copilots are great when all conditions are normal, but when things happen unexpectedly, the pilot has the experience and ability to keep it all together.

AVM's are great to get an idea of the ball park figure for your home, but when you are really ready to buy or sell I recommend talking to a professional who lives in the community that you are thinking about. In fact Zillow feels the same way (watch this video).

Market News • June 24, 2010

Report’s dramatic predictions for home values

by Windermere Economics

A recent report from Goldman Sachs has many people talking and asking questions about where home prices are headed as we head into the latter half of 2010 and look forward toward the next few years.

Looking at several markets, the report suggests that the metro areas of Las Vegas and Portland will show declines (-12 and -4 percent in 12 months and -6 and -12 percent in a 24-month period) while most of California will show very modest gains (San Diego increasing by 5 percent in 24-month and San Francisco increasing by 3 percent in the same time period).

Perhaps the most dramatic prediction suggested that Seattle real estate values were set to move lower by eight percent in the next year and 22 percent in two years.

These figures are quite extraordinary so I set out to review their methodology and discuss my feelings as to their analysis. These are my cursory thoughts:

The geographic area that Goldman Sachs uses for their analysis is the same as the Case Shiller (CS) Index (a foundation for the historic information that they parsed). My issue here is that the CS Index geography for the Seattle metro area includes King, Pierce as well as Snohomish counties. It is clear to all that follow real estate values locally that we are suffering far more in the counties to the north and south of Seattle, and that to use this geography will likely skew results.

They also consider mortgage delinquencies in their model. It is true that foreclosures are up in our market but not to a level that gives this credence. In fact we are well below all of our west coast neighbors if I look at foreclosures per household.

They add mortgage rates into their model and it is my belief that, although we will see rates increase in the second half of this year, I do not anticipate a move much above 6.5 percent until well into 2011 if not later.

However, I am also not sure that I concur with the philosophy that excessive price declines back in 2008 and 2009 (far more in other markets than were seen in Seattle) will allow for greater stability going forward. If we are in an environment where we are creating jobs and economic growth here, why will we fair so substantially worse than our neighbors everything else being equal?

The analysis is interesting and forecasting is an inherently complex and difficult task, especially when you are looking at real estate where emotion is as strong an influence as logic. Only time will tell who is correct.

This post was written by Matthew Gardner.