Mr. Freeze and his minions have never believed that letting wolves tend the hen house was a good idea. Unfortunately, our financial system has been controlled by individuals who are only concerned with profit. There are a lot of  capitalists who have been preaching the virtues of the “unfettered” free market for decades. Here is the constant refrain: “If we would just get out of the way and let the free market operate without the intervention of regulation, then business will prosper and everyone benefits.” This is an expression of the Ronald Reagan “trickle down” baloney that so many Americans believe in. Mr. Freeze knows that in America if something is said over and over again, often enough, then it becomes true. Well, today Mr. Freeze takes great pleasure in pointing his big fat figure at all of the libertarian/conservative think tanks, investment “experts,” day traders, financial publications and CEO’s who have manufactured this get rich easy propaganda. It is a sort of money-idolatry of biblical proportions. The tragic thing is that this MYTH is now causing domestic and international markets to self-destruct. As a public service, Mr. Freeze has provided you, dear reader, with two important media clips: a video from 60 Minutes broadcast last night, and one audio article from National Public Radio. I hope you have a few moments to reflect on what these pieces reveal. Click on the picture below to watch the 60 Minutes piece:

Please click on the NPR piece below to hear one of the most articulate observers of the current market break-down, John C. Bogle, Founder of the Vanguard Mutual Funds.

The pieces above confirm one of Mr. Freeze’s economic formulas: capitalism + greed - governmental regulation = disaster. There must be a well-considered balance between government and business. One cannot exist successfully without the other. Mr. Freeze is tired of hearing about the virtues of the free market system. Mr. Freeze lives in the REAL WORLD where people go bankrupt, where families fall apart, where jobs and careers are outsourced,  and where ruinous things happen to people because a wealthy, elite financial class has been allowed to “make a profit” no matter the cost.  Mr. Freeze hopes you’re all doing OK. Really.

Ouch! Being curious can be very interesting but it can also hurt my brain. At the beginning of each month I like to ponder local real estate statistics. Because my practice focuses on North King and South Snohomish Counties, I spend time thin-slicing some of the general numbers to try and find out what’s really going on out there in the marketplace. Today I wanted to look at the September sales figures for King County. I think you’ll find this interesting:

Of the 1283 single family homes that sold in September, it’s interesting to note that the average days-on-market is 72 days. Frankly, I find this quite positive in very difficult times. If I were a betting man, I’d say these sellers and their agents did a good job of gaging the market. In order to examine this more closely, I chose to focus-in on those homes that sold from $400,000 - $449,999. I did this because the price is close to average for King County. This particular price-point sold in 64 days which, even in a good market, is a respectable number. So what happened? Here are some details:

1) Only 57% of the homes in this category actually sold in the 64-day time period. 84% of the remaining 43% took well over 100 days to sell.

2) Only 6% (25) of the 1283 sales sold for 100% of the list price. On average, homes sold for 94% of list price. 25 of the homes sold for under 90% of list price.

3) A surprising 95% of the sold homes were re-sale.

Based on these findings, I believe it’s more important than ever for homeowners to think carefully about selling their homes in the current market. There is obviously a group of buyers out there who have money to purchase a home. How you go about pricing and marketing your home are extremely important. Also, if you choose a real estate agent to help you sell your home, make sure he/she knows your local market. Make sure he/she has a concrete plan to “correctly” market your home. Finally, make sure the potential agent has your best interests in mind.

We all accumulate those “difficult” things that seem to be impossible to get rid of: old electronic gear, computers, toilets, paint….you know, the UGLY TOXIC STUFF. As a realtor, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve visited a client’s home that was strewn (inside and out) with some really ugly stuff. I do understand that a lot of these things are downright difficult to throw away. Well, there is hope. Periodically, King County offers us an opportunity to dispose of these things at special Recycling Events. This Saturday there will be a recycling event at the Kenmore Park & Ride at 7346 NE Bothell Way. For more details, just click on the flyer below:

Here’s a map of the location:

It’s October 1st and we are quickly coming to the end of a tumultuous year in real estate. September wasn’t exactly an active month for the sale of single family homes in Kenmore. I ran reports for the sales from this year and September of 2007. Sales were down -55%: 18 homes sales in 2007 and 10 this year.

Here are the sales from last month:

Several key statistics are of note: 1) even though the report showas a 100.14 Sale Price/List Price ratio, the actual number is more like 94% and, 2) days-on-market are 138. Compare this to last year:

You’ll note that the days-on-market were only 49 last September. The Sale Price vs List Price ratio was slightly higher at 97%. One bright spot is the fact that the median prices rose slightly from last year.

The real challenge facing the market today is the inability of buyers to obtain financing due to the severe tightening of credit. We may see this trend continue until Congress passes the current bailout legislation.

As a Realtor working in a fairly tough market, it’s nice to know that someone has a sense of humor about real estate.

Pictures by Wally Gobetz

There are few things in life more emotionally charged than the value we place on our home. When the day comes to sell our house, we instantly become “value experts.” We begin to pay attention to the other houses for sale in our neighborhood or town. We hit the internet to compare prices. We seek out valuations from sites such as Zillow. We become arm-chair economists. We go to the bookstore and buy all the new tomes about selling a house. WE KNOW IT ALL!

Armed with all of this information, we then interview every real estate agent we can get our hands on. After all the interviews we discover, to our utter surprise, that it costs A LOT of money to sell a house. Some Realtors want 6% of the sale price in commission! Yikes! But, then there are other agents who will put us on the local multiple service for several hundred dollars. This gets us on the Internet but the rest of the process is left up to us. Hm, that sounds good but all our research revealed that there’s a lot to selling a house. Even without an agent, it looks as if we’re going to spend money. So we have a couple of choices:

A) Do I sell my own house (know as For Sale by Ower or FSBO) or

B) Do I hire a Real Estate Agent?

But wait, are there other choices?

Allow me to answer this: YES, there are other choices you have when selling your home. In this series we shall take a close look at how a house gets sold in the current market, what the costs are and why there are more options for homeowners than ever before.

So why hire an agent? Stay tuned for the answer.

Pictures courtesy of:  giveawayboy, crawfishpie, rogiro on flickr.com

It’s hard to wrap my mind around $700 BILLION dollars. Look at all those zeros! What’s even more difficult is to ponder all the unintended consequences of using almost $1 Trillion tax-payer dollars to help Wall Street out of it’s troubles. One interesting byproduct of the bailout is the “shocking” revelation regarding executive golden parachutes. Since the 1980’s, executive compensation has been increasing at ridiculous rates. I think most Americans were convinced by the “investment class” that they actually deserved the exorbitant severance packages they received for running large corporations. My, oh my, Americans should have been paying closer attention. Allow me to illustrate my point with the following story:

I had a conversation with a good friend last week. He’s been a Realtor for close to twenty (20) years. He told me that he had to file for bankruptcy recently. He said his home had gone into foreclosure and that his “back was against the wall.” As is the case with so many real estate agents today, business has withered to almost nothing. The affects of the mortgage crisis have come down hard on our industry. And you know, my friend isn’t one of those speculator-type agents who purchased a number of homes as “investments” in the hope of becoming rich quick. He’s a hard-working professional with lots of experience and expertise. Right now he’s having a hard time finding a new job. His story is emblematic of the current state of our economy and it would seem almost cliche were it not for the news that came out a couple of days later: Washington Mutual Bank was seized by Federal Regulators. It was the largest bank failure in American History.

It’s bad enough that WAMU failed. It’s downright absurd that Alan H. Fishman was the new chief executive officer of the company for a total of 17 days when he bailed-out with a golden parachute worth close to $20 million dollars. Looked at another way, Mr. Fishman was paid $50,000 per hour (assuming he worked 24 hours a day whilst on the job). He didn’t even have to get results. It seems he just had to show up. Let’s be honest, we all have a picture in our heads about this type of person:

This morning Congress announced a Draft Proposal on the Financial Rescue Legislation which contains language regarding the limitation of CEO compensation:

• Limits on excessive compensation for CEOs and executives

– New restrictions on CEO and executive compensation for participating companies:

– No multi-million dollar golden parachutes

– Limits CEO compensation that encourages unnecessary risk-taking

– Recovers bonuses paid based on promised gains that later turn out to be false or inaccurate

One can only hope that this portion of the legislation survives the legislative process. Already I can hear the corporate apologists whining and complaining that running a company is a tough job. Pardon me for being so blunt, but I’m sick and tired of hearing how tough it is on the wealthy and privileged . I’m particularly tired of the notion that it takes some sort of Ubermensch to run a corporation.

My friend, who has worked hard for many years, is not part of any bailout. He represents millions of other Americans who have worked hard and played by the rules only to discover that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” (the wonders of an unfettered market place)  is propaganda. It’s a philosophy that has been repeated over often enough that we actually believed it. I can only hope that this bailout will actually help the current market situation. Perhaps we will be better off in several years, but for now let’s all make a promise to ourselves: let’s be more vigilant with those in Wall Street who would have us believe they really care about us.

Pictures: capitalist  pig, http://flickr.com/photos/urbanblitz/, Washington Mutual Tower,  http://flickr.com/photos/cloganese/, Bailout http://flickr.com/photos/emdot/2880848408/

I like this blog because it’s not only informative, but it’s editors do an excellent job of helping the reader link to other relevant sites. For example, in the Octoberfest post, the event is taking place at the Kenmore Community Club . Just click on the link and you go to another nice site with even more information:

The internet is truly an amazing tool.