Like many cities in the US, Seattle has a need for both more housing and more affordable housing. In the near future, you can expect to see an large uptick in the addition of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) within the city of Seattle as well as other urban growth areas (UGAs) throughout Washington State. Starting in 2025, new rules and relaxed legislation relating to the building of accessory dwelling units and detached accessory dwelling units (DADUs) will take effect. Seattle neighborhoods, and especially their backyards, are probably going to see a lot of changes.  So for better or wo ..read more

Whether you list your home for sale on the open market or get one of those We Pay Cash For Homes calls/mailers, what can you expect when a professional real estate investor or developer offers to buy your property? Regular Joe's and Josephine's who do some real estate investing on the side will still have some emotional attachment to a property but to the processional real estate developer your home and the lot it sits on is just a money-in/money-out calculation. What is the potential income it can generate or how much they can make by flipping or building on it? And that's all they care abou ..read more

Seattle one-story home listings are popular with many buyers. The classic rambler has just one floor and there's no flight of stairs to negotiate and usually just a couple of steps at most to the front door. All living spaces are on the same floor including the bedrooms. Seattle 1-story homes are sought after by older buyers looking to downsize and avoid steps & stairs and by buyers who just like simple one-floor layouts.  And yes, before we go any further, "affordable" is a relative term and Seattle is not exactly one of the more affordable cities in the US to buy a home.   How ..read more

Property taxes are made up of your tax assessment plus other elements like voter-approved levies. However, the tax assessment portion has the biggest impact on your annual tax bill. The tax assessment is basically the taxman, i.e. the county's tax assessor, estimating the value of your home, and that number is then plugged into the formula that's used to set your property taxes for the year.  The tax-assessed value of a home is determined by the county's Tax Assessor and is adjusted annually, usually in the upward direction. I have yet to meet a homeowner who adamantly states that their ..read more

The seller disclosure statement, also known as a seller disclosure form or Form-17 is a crucial document that sellers must complete when selling their home. Its purpose is to provide potential buyers with information about the condition of the property and any known issues or defects. This disclosure statement is designed to protect both parties involved in the transaction. It allows the sellers to fulfill their legal obligation to disclose any material facts that could affect the value or usability of the property. For buyers, potentially, it provides valuable information to make informed dec ..read more

So you're thinking about buying land to build a home? About three times a year, out of the blue, a home buyer will send me a link to a vacant land listing and ask me "what do you think about this?" They might have missed out on some homes or they are priced out of the local market and so vacant land looks a lot more affordable. Also, some homeowners want to sell their current home and finally get to build their custom dream home on a piece of land.  However, buying land to build a home is just the first step in a long process, and the more you know upfront the better. Do your due diligen ..read more

Most home buyers will make an offer on a home contingent on an inspection of the property or rely on a seller-provided inspection report. However, many buyers will skip doing a sewer inspection to save some money or because they were not advised to do so by their Realtor or home inspector. Standard home inspections do not include a sewer scope. For the sake of a few hundred dollars is it worth taking the risk on something that may potentially cost you multiple thousands of dollars after closing? Sewer repairs and replacement are not cheap and can be anywhere up to $25,000. What lies beneath c ..read more

But it can be a great time to buy a home! There are a number of reasons for not listing your home for sale in the month of August and waiting one more month until September. And historically, the market seems to agree. For the Seattle area at least, the real estate market follows a repeating annual pattern of the market coming out of winter hibernation, peaking in the spring months and then dropping off over the remainder of the year...with a last hurrah in September! Reasons for not listing a home for sale in August. There are only four weeks left before the kids go back to school and t ..read more

As little as 5 years ago, it was rare for a home seller to have a professional inspection of their home before going on the market AND then sharing that same report with potential home buyers as a marketing tool. But now, buyers have almost come to expect that the seller will have an inspection report available for them. Back in January of 2018 when I first started seeing this practice, I wrote a blog post about whether home sellers should share their inspection reports with buyers and whether buyers should rely on those reports. When I published and shared the post many agents responded ..read more

Selling your home off-market is one route open to homeowners versus the more conventional on-market path of hiring a Realtor to list your property. As with most things in life, there are pros and cons of off-market home sales but they are definitely a good fit for some owners. This article explains what off-market home sales are, what they are not, how the process works plus the pros and cons of going this route.   What are off-market home sales? The purest definition of an off-market home sale is a home sale that is conducted in private without the knowledge of the general public. The pr ..read more