Elizabeth Rhodes seems to relish the exposure whether her articles are news worthy or not. Imagine, the little real estate reporter gets the front page of the Seattle Times……..on Sunday! Well let’s take a close look at that article: 1. The young couple trying to sell their Redmond Ridge home for the last 2 weeks….yes, you heard right, a whole two …
Bank of America Plans to “Buy” Market Share…..
The 5/13/07 Sunday Times Real Estate Section features an article by Ken Harney that is worth reading. It concerns Bank of America’s stated committment to no fee home purchase mortgages. The article notes that there are skeptics. Our personal experience is that Bank of America provides excellent service at the branch level on items such as home equity lines of …
How Do You Know If You’re Getting a Fair Deal On Your Loan?
In the face of serious nationwide concern regarding lender practices I have yet to see one of the best resources available to borrowers: your real estate agent. Why? Agents don’t loans. No, but they know good people that do. All quality lenders rely on real estate agents for referral business. Good agents are very careful about whom they refer their …
House Hunting Tips
Sorry I’ve been off track for awhile. Blogging is enjoyable, but only when I have the spare time. I noticed the house hunting tips article in the Seattle Times this weekend. There wasn’t much in the way of actual tips, but it was a good piece on learning to compromise. The odd part of these two buyers’ stories is that …
Foreclosures . . . Buyers Beware
This is my response to Elizabeth Rhodes article in the Sunday, March 4th, 2007 edition of the Seattle Times. Prior to becoming a licensed real estate agent I worked for Bellevue attorney who represented two large lenders processing all of their foreclosures. Something I learned from this experience was that there is a legal way to rob a bank. First, mortgage …
Seattle Times 02/25/07 Article: Redfin Revolution
Elizabeth Rhodes went way over the top with this article about Seattle based Redfin Real Estate. It’s not that reporting about such a company isn’t important. It is the unbridled optimism with little analysis from a business model perspective that is missing. Let me explain: 1. Redfin started as a pure internet interface without a phone number when it began. The result …
Foreclosure Prospects
A client recently asked us if shopping for a foreclosure home was the way to go in the Eastside market. I knew I had read a good, definitive article this past Fall regarding this very issue. After some digging throught Seattle Times archives, I located this article on the subject, “Foreclosures: Tacoma Up, Seattle Down” from the Nov 11 edition …
Get It In Writing
It is unfortunate when verbal promises are broken, no matter what the subject. In real estate it is easy to make those words stick: write them into the transaction. In this Seattle Times article a buyer laments that what was promised verbally by both her own agent and a seller was not the case. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, …
Finally, Loan Officers to be Licensed
We have warned borrowers and clients for years that loan officers are unlicensed, and that it is very important to work with someone with very strong references. Ask a relative, a friend, a colleague, for the name of someone that they have had a positive loan experience with. Even then, ask the loan officer for additional personal references, and make …
Reining In Mortgage Interest Write-offs
Referencing the Seattle Times article Tax-legislation Plans Bound To Surface Next Year, it is easy to at first dismiss the headline as so much typical legislative money hunting by elected officials. But upon complete review, some good points are raised by Ken Harney, syndicated columnist to The Times. Case in point: when homeowners pull more than $100,000 in equity out …