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No housing woes in booming Washington State
September 19, 2007 /One of our hardest jobs of late has been educating our clients on managing the sudden onslaught of recent information on the national mortgage crisis with our local real estate reality. Simply said, what happens in the industry in California, Florida, Nevada or elsewhere doesn't translate to our local real estate market. We've been saying for several years now the same thing: the Puget Sound is governed by geography (mountains, water, and wetlands) and politics (because of our geography, environmental regulations make it more difficult for builders to build in certain areas). These factors combined with our strong economy result in a more stable local real estate market than almost any other large metropolitan area. Despite our argument, it's still hard for many people to ignore the headlines in the newspapers, or the cautious words of a friend or relative who knows the friend of a friend who bought at the top of the market and lost their shirt. We're thankful then for a little help from the news industry when they differentiate between California's woes and Washington State's boon. No housing woes in booming Washington State (Reuters) - While California suffers in the housing crisis, the economy of nearby…Read more
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Book Review: Three Cups of Tea
September 17, 2007 /What? A real estate "free" post? We are (after-all) versatile agents, filled with thoughts and ideas, vim and vigor, passion and nuance. The review below is written from guru of all things non-fiction: Dennis Pearce. First, let me say that I don’t read much fiction. I think life is wild, wacky, weird, and wonderful enough that I really don’t have a strong need to search out alternate worlds, or explore fantasy dimensions. This book reinforces my belief in the surreal nature of reality, while simultaneously awakening a desire to leave a more meaningful mark on our world. Opening in the mountains of Pakistan, the story begins with Greg becoming lost during his descent from a failed attempt on K2, in the Karakorams. After his resuscitation by a local tribe whose village he happened to stumble into, more dead than alive, Greg resolves to repay their kindness by building a school for their children. In spite of his own impoverished state, he returns to the US to begin gathering the funds to fulfill his promise, and is launched onto a path that eventually blossoms into a lifelong vocation. The soul of the story lies in the connections that are made between…Read more
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Pickett Street updates “Resources” page
September 2, 2007 /We're proud to announce that after several weeks of development, we've successfully completed our update to the "Resources" page of our site. Synonymous with all things "Pickett Street," we found that to get the tools that we wanted to offer, we needed to start from scratch. The Interest Rate Update, for example, was designed for our lending partner (Jeff Brown with Homestead Mortgage) the ability to update the web pages without delay as rates fluctuate. This gives visitors to our site easy access to timely and accurate information in a fluctuating mortgage market. All rate information is assuming a 3% down-payment, which we consider a reasonable expectation as zero-down loan programs become less and less available. Jeff Brown will be updating the rate information every other day, and more frequently as necessary if the rates shift drastically, so we expect the "Resources" page to be one of our most frequently visited pages on our site. Visitors will also find a mortgage calculator on our "Resources" page. While the end-user can change all of the fields on the calculator, the tool assumes a downpayment of 3% and pulls the 30-year fixed rate from the rate update tool above. We'll be updating…Read more
