Friday, December 26, 2014
Trusted Private Equity Firm in Eastside
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Best (and worst) agent marketing strategies for 2015
By Hank Bailey
Dec 18, 2014
Focus your efforts on what works to thrive in the New Year
Have you ever noticed that not everything we real estate agents do produces the desired results or ends up being as beneficial as we thought? It’s something I started pondering when I was planning my 2015 marketing strategy.
Take Facebook. If you find that you spend more time working on your Facebook page than you do working on your website, then you are limiting your success. And there are plenty of other things we do that don’t generate as much business as we would like to think. These include:
Read the entire article at: http://www.inman.com/next/best-and-worst-agent-marketing-strategies-for-2015/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheFutureOfRealEstateMarketing+%28The+Future+of+Real+Estate+Marketing%29
Monday, December 22, 2014
Merry Christmas for short sellers: Mortgage debt forgiveness is back
One-year retroactive extension covers 2014 deals
A comprehensive tax bill that reinstates protections for distressed homeowners shielding them from having to pay taxes on mortgage debt forgiven in 2014 is headed for President Obama’s desk.
The tax break on forgiven mortgage debt, and another allowing homeowners to deduct mortgage insurance premiums, was one of 55 provisions in the Tax Increase Prevention Act passed Tuesday in a 76-16 Senate vote.
The House passed the bill 387 to 46 on Dec. 3, and Obama is expected to sign the bill into law, enabling the tax break retroactively through Dec. 31 of this year.
The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 was created in the aftermath of the housing bust, with the intention of protecting homeowners who lose their home in a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure from the double whammy of a whopping tax bill.
Before the exemption was created by Congress, if a lender agreed to let a homeowner with $400,000 in mortgage debt sell their house for $300,000, the IRS would treat the remaining $100,000 of forgiven mortgage debt as income.
Read the entire article at: http://www.inman.com/2014/12/17/merry-christmas-for-short-sellers-mortgage-debt-forgiveness-is-back/
Friday, December 19, 2014
Add cheery color to your winter garden
Garden writer Ciscoe Morris on winter-blooming camellias and the pros and cons of using biochar, a charcoal-like substance left over from the process of making biofuel.
In the Garden
Winter-blooming camellias liven up the winter garden with attractive, sometimes fragrant flowers backed by glossy dark green foliage. These broad-leaved evergreen shrubs generally range from 4- to 12-feet-tall and come in a variety of forms. They’re easily pruned, making them an excellent choice for small gardens, espalier or containers.
The brightly colored flowers have a unique tropical look and range in color from red to white and practically every shade of pink in between. The individual blooms are short-lived, but the bloom season lasts for months producing an abundance of flowers. The spent blossoms on most varieties tend to fall off on their own, leaving the plant with a clean attractive appearance.
A favorite is Camellia sasanqua ‘Fairy Blush,’ growing to a maximum of 5 feet with deep pink buds opening to reveal dainty, sweetly scented single apple-blossom blooms, perfect for containers.
The darker pink flowering C.s. ‘Marge Miller’ sports a natural weeping form perfect for cascading over a wall. If you have room for an 8-foot tall and wide vigorous grower, hybrid C. x ‘J.C. Williams’ sports beautiful single, soft pink flowers that bloom away merrily in even the most extreme weather.
Finally, my personal favorite winter-blooming camellia is C.s. ‘Yuletide.’ The wonderfully fragrant, brilliant single red blossoms, centered with bright yellow stamens, bloom right on time for Christmas.
Read the entire article at: http://seattletimes.com/html/homegarden/2025232609_ciscoemorriscamelliasbiocharxml.html?syndication=rss
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Check the Real Estate Listings in Eastside WA
Thursday, December 11, 2014
5 simple gestures to show clients you're grateful for their business
Andrew Flachner
Dec 3, 2014
These easy steps will show your clients how much you appreciate them
In 2013, repeat clients accounted for more than 20 percent of real estate agents’ business. What’s more, the National Association of Realtors’ 2013 profile of homebuyers and sellers suggests that 42 percent of buyers found their agent through a referral from a friend or family member, and 12 percent used an agent they had used before to buy or sell a home. It’s data like this that reminds us just how important it is for real estate professionals to build and nurture relationships with all of their clients.
In today’s market, it’s simply not enough to send past clients little emails and postcards each year reminding them of a time change or wishing them “happy holidays.” When it comes to building long-lasting relationships, you’ll need to show you care – that you’re truly grateful for their business.
One of the best ways to show your grateful is to do something unexpected, to create a bit of surprise and delight in a client’s day. Check out these five simple gestures that will help you stay top-of-mind with your clients. (We’ve even included some technology options to make it a bit easier on you!)
1. Send a handwritten note: It may sound old-school, but in today’s digital world, a handwritten note can really stand out from the crowd. Pick an hour each week that you dedicate to sitting down with a pen and paper. Whether it’s a simple note to say “thank you” or a quick birthday wish, let your clients know you appreciate them with snail-mail.
If you can’t find the time – or you’re afraid your clients won’t be able to read your chicken scratch – consider a service like Handiemail or Postable.
2. Break bread with them: If you’re in your client’s neighborhood, arrange to meet them for coffee and catch up. If coffee isn’t your thing, meet for brunch. The location and specifics really don’t matter. What is important is that you’re reconnecting with them and are letting them know you value them as an important part of your circle of friends and associates.
If you don’t have time to catch up with everyone personally, Tweet them a coffee or send them a gift card to their favorite spot in town to let them know you’re thinking of them.
Read the entire article at: http://www.inman.com/next/5-simple-gestures-to-show-clients-youre-grateful-for-their-business-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheFutureOfRealEstateMarketing+%28The+Future+of+Real+Estate+Marketing%29
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Mortgage Rates Returning to Recent Lows
by: Matthew Graham
Dec 9 2014, 3:55PM
Mortgage rates fell again today, bringing them very close to their lowest levels in more than a year and a half. US bond markets (including Treasuries and mortgage-backed-securities) continue taking cues from European bond markets where the benchmark 10yr yield just fell to a new record low.
While US Treasuries benefit more than mortgages, there was still enough of a spillover effect to push mortgage rates noticeably lower. Top tier rates for top tier borrowers are now getting back into the high 3's, with 3.875% being the most prevalent conforming 30yr fixed quote today. For the record, 4.0% is not far behind. 3.75% exists, but it's not common and may entail higher upfront costs.
There's not really much to be said about this strength in mortgage rates apart from the fact that "it's nice." It's nice that we're getting enough spillover from all-time low European bond yields and it will stop being nice whenever Europe turns a major corner. Earlier in 2014, Europe was merely a wet blanket keeping domestic rates lower than they otherwise would be, but as the year progressed, it's fair to say Europe has clearly dragged US rates lower.
Those are bigger-picture considerations though, and not likely to play out on a short enough time scale to be relevant to most borrowers' lock/float decisions. In that regard, one of the only tools at your disposal is to simply observe where rates are relative to recent levels and to where you began your process.
Read the entire article at: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/consumer_rates/416048.aspx
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Five Design Books Worth Gift-Wrapping
By James Gaddy
Nov. 28, 2014 11:05 a.m. ET
This holiday season, give the design junkie in your life the gift of inspiration, found in abundance in these coffee-table-worthy tomes
WHEN YOU’RE SEEKING a gift for a design junkie, it’s easy to get seduced by a book about interiors: Those handsome, hefty hardbacks almost feel bespoke. But unless you have time to do more than a quick flip-through before you buy, it’s not always clear which ones offer real insight. The best volumes should tell you how to source what you’re seeing (where the decorator found a covetable AndrĂ© Arbus desk, for example) or demystify the design process—by, say, outlining a unique way to use door frames and crown moldings to create a memorable view. How to ensure that your claim on your loved ones’ coffee tables isn’t just another collection of pretty pictures? Here, we recommend five titles that provide more than a place to rest a remote. Wrap them up.
To read the entire article, go to: http://www.wsj.com/articles/five-design-books-worth-gift-wrapping-1417190750?mod=rss_Home_and_Garden
Monday, December 8, 2014
Why It's Cheaper to Buy a House in the Winter
Joe PinskerDec 6 2014, 7:00 AM ET
There are still good reasons to scope out properties in the summer—but only if you're picky.
Hopefully, value is not the first word that comes to mind when one hears the word home. But even if it is, a house’s price is thought to be relatively stable, shifting on the scale of years, not months (barring any system-exploding market shock, of course).
What makes the housing market peculiar is that its buyers are unusually idiosyncratic—some people will fall for a house just because it has a walk-in closet, an extra bathroom, or a breakfast nook. These idiosyncrasies cause two different buyers to place wildly different values on the same house, which can produce some surprisingly rapid fluctuations in price. Over the course of a year in Dallas, for example, the annualized rate of price increases varied by an average of 12 percent between 1987 and 2012. That’s a hand-picked extreme example, but that average is between roughly five and seven percent for homes in the U.S. and the U.K. But these fluctuations, as erratic as they seem, actually occur very predictably: The cost of a home is higher in the summer than in the winter.
Read the entire article at: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/why-its-cheaper-to-buy-a-home-in-the-winter/383478/
Friday, December 5, 2014
A New Way To Get One-of-a-Kind Wallpaper
By Rumaan Alam
Nov. 14, 2014 1:07 p.m. ET
Once, custom wallpaper had to be painted entirely by hand. But a new cadre of designers is offering digitally printed, mural-like scenes that can be endlessly manipulated
EARLIER THIS FALL, while doing a final walk-through of a Manhattan apartment he’d decorated, the interior designer Jamie Drake got a last-minute client request: totally new wallpaper for the powder room. Mr. Drake often makes work that’s wholly bespoke—unique furnishings, specially blended paint colors, textiles woven to order—and it’s long been a challenge to address last-minute requests and still stay on schedule. “We’ve never had to ask for such a speedy delivery before,” said Mr. Drake. He called on Manhattan-based design company Trove to provide something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: a custom wallpaper, overnight.
EARLIER THIS FALL, while doing a final walk-through of a Manhattan apartment he’d decorated, the interior designer Jamie Drake got a last-minute client request: totally new wallpaper for the powder room. Mr. Drake often makes work that’s wholly bespoke—unique furnishings, specially blended paint colors, textiles woven to order—and it’s long been a challenge to address last-minute requests and still stay on schedule. “We’ve never had to ask for such a speedy delivery before,” said Mr. Drake. He called on Manhattan-based design company Trove to provide something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: a custom wallpaper, overnight.
Read the entire article at: http://online.wsj.com/articles/a-new-way-to-get-one-of-a-kind-wallpaper-1415988457?mod=rss_Home_and_Garden