Thanksgiving Miracle 2018

It’s been some time since my last confession. Oh, I’ve sinned. But that’s not important right now…

My last blog entry is from June 19. The last day of spring. The next day was the summer solstice– the longest day of the year. Before I knew it, it was Thanksgiving.

It’s not as if nothing noteworthy happened all summer. But the weather was so fine that the creek needed swimming in. And swimming makes you hungry and you have to barbecue. Then all the festivals, and of course the World Series.

Bloggin’ aint easy…

But now I’m caught up, and all my pencils are sharpened. And I’ve been noticing lately in the blogiverse an alarming increase in the number of inane lists : 22 Things You Should Never Do Again After Age 50 or 9 Things Women Hate About Men’s Wardrobes or  5 Things Brian Griffin Taught Us.  So I’ve decided to compile my own inane list and get a jump on the holidays.

I give you: Eleven 2013 real estate miracles to be totally stoked about this Thanksgiving

1. Fleas cannot survive in temperatures of less than 37 degrees. I showed Judy and Andrew a house in Silver Beach in July when it was considerably more than 37 degrees, and after only eight minutes in the house, my buyers and I had dozens of fleas partying all the way up to our knees. We discovered the stowaways while re-shoeing on the front porch, and Judy inparticular absolutely freaked out. Not wanting to bring the scourge home to their own parasiteless pets, she spent twenty minutes flicking & brushing fleas off her calves before throwing her socks away and banging her shoes on the rail like she was exorcising the very Devil out of them. It was pretty gross. Needless to say, they did not buy the house….

2. Values are up. After bouncing off the cruel bottom nearly a year ago, prices in Bellingham proper have seen steady increases throughout 2013. A dramatic spike in April shot the median price above $300k and for a minute it looked like the market might be moving a little faster than was prudent (see: 2004-2007). But the Fed action (or relative non-action, depending on who you ask) of the early summer cooled our collective jets, keeping things down to a comfortable simmer that saw a new high reached rather nonchalantly by summer’s end. 

3. Ghosts “don’t move well.”  Like old dogs and most cats, ghosts don’t like to move when a house sells. But what happens when the house itself moves?

Columbian Exchange: moving day for the Van Zandt House

In 2010, the historic Van Zandt House was moved from its original location at 1717 Eldridge Avenue to a 5,000sqft lot in the 2400 block of Utter Street, six blocks away. The property had just changed hands from only its third owner in a hundred years to its fourth, and the new masters were more interested in the home’s commanding presence on the bluff above the waterfront than in the 3,000sqft shingled marvel that Dr. Euclid Van Zandt commissioned in 1902. So they gave it to a man who loaded it on a truck and moved it across the neighborhood.

The spectacle of a moving mansion drew quite a crowd, including two of the adult children of Allen family, who had grown up in the house. “It was strange to look up and see my bedroom moving down Broadway,” said Kathy. Her brother Terry added the house was “definitely” haunted. Peter Roberts of John L. Scott, who represented the buyer on Utter Street– the fifth owner in one hundred years– declined to comment on whether there’d been any bumps in the night since the house sold again just two months ago.

4. It is not too late to close a transaction this year.  I don’t know that it’s necessarily a “miracle,” but a paperless system like we have slowly built over the last 10 years means you can accomplish in a matter of minutes what used to take a day. Thirty days might not seem like much time, especially with all the Santa Claus and ho-ho-ho, and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls  going on. But if a buyer and a seller really wanted to get something closed before the corks started popping on New Year’s Eve– it would happen. I’d be happy to square you up with a lender, a home inspector and an escrow officer who could sneak us across the goal line for an endzone celebration both joyful and triumphant.

5. Moving van turn signals don’t turn off automatically. Most people have too much stuff to move in their cars. And few people (at least amongst my clients) can afford to hire Mayflower, either. So they end up renting a U-Haul and asking their friends to help. This is known in the real estate industry as “moving day.” Moving Day is a day all Realtors know to wear their best clothes and leave their own car motor running when they drop by with the pizzas. But once the truck is loaded and lurching between the shitty old rental and a buyer’s dream home, the blinkers don’t automatically click off once a turn is completed like they do in commuter cars. As a result, move-drunk people end up driving around with a blinker blinking quite frequently with no intention of making a turn. This makes moving vans very tricky to pass.

6. Money is still incredibly cheap.  My buyer David said to me in July that he was struggling with the notion of paying 4.5% for his new 30-year mortgage. And while it is true that 4.5 is more than the 3.5% he might have been able to get for one day six weeks earlier, it is still a ridiculously kind rate by historical standards. And you can still get it, in fact you can probably do a little bit better today. It seems like most of my 12 years in the business we’ve been saying “rates can’t stay this low too much longer” but at some point it has to be born out that rates can’t stay this low too much longer.

7. Bob & Dee Simmons are hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Referring to low interest rates and haunted houses as “miracles” is maybe a tad dramatic. But Bob & Dee Simmons cozy & rosy in their new home and expecting a full table on Thursday is nothing short of a stone Real Estate Miracle of the highest order. Check out the archives of this blog for their unabridged, unabashed story, but suffice it to say they are loving their new nest, quite busily slaying Irises, over-insulating the attic, and installing floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the study. Dear readers, you have no idea how many hours were spent building these bookshelves in our minds and populating them with the Simmons’ volumes while touring scores of homes from one side of Bellingham to the other. And now the bookshelves exist in three proper dimensions, in a mid-century charmer on Toledo Hill. It is a bloomin’ miracle…

8. Our civilization has already peaked and we are quite doomed. This is actually better news than it sounds at first. Look for an expanded explanation of this glib & misguided proclamation in a later entry, but in the meantime it’s worth considering selling your home. Buyers are sensing the potential dusk of the free money referenced in miracle 6, and there is generally much demand for houses with windows, doors & roofs. Inventory levels are edging back up to six months, which is considered a balanced market. But the next month, known as “the holidays” and the month after that known as “January” aren’t probably going to see a ton of new listings. There is something to be said for standing tall or standing at all in a sparse market, where others have locked the keybox for the winter. Come the spring, we will see a rush of activity as sellers scramble to take advantage of the optimism that comes with that season. And spring 2014 could be brought on artificially early (regardless of the weather) by sellers wanting to beat each other to the punch. Why not beat them all to the worm and list your house for sale today? With me.

(bloggers note:  Alright, eight miracles then. Even if you were expecting eleven, eight is still a lot of miracles…) 

heated yards don’t sell houses

Having tiptoed gingerly into spring this week, the Real Estate season is officially open. With a couple of dry days strung together, the sounds of lawn mowers have filled the neighborhoods– and sellers are breaking out the fresh-cut flowers and shaking up cans of touch-up paint. It is, as we say in the business, ON.

First impressions are important, absolutely. But today’s buyer is ridiculously well-informed, and although the emotional impacts of an inviting entry and a show-ready interior are crucial, increasingly the energy efficiency of a home is ranking as a factor in buying decisions.

But what is energy efficiency and how is it measured?

Updated windows are an observable (if over-rated) sign. Insulation in the attic and crawl, of course. High-efficiency furnace, sure. But what about the little things– literally the little cracks– that allow a bottom-line exchange of energy that these bigger picture improvements don’t stop? How perforated is the house, and how much do these breaches cost a homeowner? 

Buyers can study the heating bills of their sellers, but those are deceptively subjective, based on user preferences. A home inspection can identify some areas with potential for improvement, but still these recommendations are not measurable.  If only there were some kind of standard that houses could be held up to– a system that buyers and sellers could agree to as a scientific absolute where evaluating energy efficiency was concerned.

Wait– there is!

As part of the Community Energy Challenge, Sustainable Connections and The Opportunity Council are offering a residential energy assessment which calculates an Energy Performance Score (EPS).  This standardized rating can be used as a powerful comparative marketing tool, essentially taking the guesswork out of a transaction in terms of a home’s energy efficiency.

The assessment is performed by one of the CEC’s Certified Building Analysts, after which a score is assigned based on evaluation of the home’s envelope and systems. The  lower the score, the more efficient the home. So you don’t want a score of a million. In fact the baseline is 100, so the farther beneath that mark the better.

The CEC menu doesn’t end there. A more thorough version of this assessment is also available for homeowners more interested in tightening up their homes with an eye toward longer term efficiencies and the corresponding savings against energy costs. These savings, resulting from completing CEC recommended efficiency improvements ranging from duct sealing to furnace replacement, have saved an average of $477 per year for Whatcom County participants.

Though the CEC has already done more than 1100 assessments since launching the program in 2010, the option to include an EPS was only introduced into the Northwest Multiple Listing Service in November. But already in the Seattle and Portland metro markets, homes making use of available Green Building MLS fields (including EPS scores)  have sold for nearly 10% more per sqft and in 20% less time on the market. And we know that what trends in Seattle manifests itself here eventually also. Widespread and effective use of the EPS in real estate marketing is making its way north and is sure to be popular in our green-friendly community. Currently, however, there are only 3 listings in all of Whatcom County with an advertised EPS. This system is going to be very popular, and we are quite literally on the ground floor. 

Energy efficiency may not seem as sexy as quartz countertops. It isn’t! But at only $125 for the EPS assessment and $195 for the expanded version, it’s not as expensive either. Sellers should still plan on spreading fresh mulch on the flower beds and putting some cookies in to bake before their homes hit the market. But knowing how tight a home is and what steps can be taken to make it tighter makes pretty good sense, too. List your home with me and I will gladly pay for an assessment. 

–tMdR

oh shit it’s march

Oh, shit– it’s March.

I should have known this would happen. It’s the same thing every year: New Year’s, recovery, resolution, resignation, Super Bowl, February– March!

I loathe March. Nothing good happens this month, ever. The weather in February is always interesting, and March always just sucks. “Spring” begins on the 20th, but we all know what that means or doesn’t mean. No legal holidays. No illegal holidays, unless you’re Irish. College basketball all over the place– GROSS!

I adore April, but it doesn’t start until four weeks from Saturday. I need to figure out a way to get through March…

How about a real estate party?

Normally March is too early for any serious real estate dance parties, but this year could be different. The anticipation in the air is palpable as buyers continue sharpening their nails in preparation for the inventory that seems on the brink, week after late-winter week, of breaking loose like a pinata full of houses and condominiums and airplane bottles of Fireball.

Earth to sellers: buyers are screwing themselves into the ground, psychotically motivated to buy your house as long as it has a roof and a toilet. They’re not particularly interested in your touch-up painting. The guest bath vanity is fine. Don’t worry about spreading new beauty bark. Leave the photos on the fridge– the buyers don’t care. They just want to buy your house, possibly for more than it’s actually “worth”. Who are you to stand between them and the dream of home ownership. Let them buy!

Remember when the wet paper bottom of the housing market fell out and our economy seized up and all the banks turned their pockets inside out and pretended they didn’t have any more money? Remember when the smarmy executives all took off their pants and put on barrel cloaks? Well, that was seven whole years ago! This is like a completely different era: unemployment is down, the stock market up, top hats for all my friends! Two lobsters each!

Any beating we took in Whatcom County in terms of home values during the whatchamacallit was like a hickey compared to what most of the country absorbed. If we lost 20% between opening day of the 2007 baseball season and Christmas Day 2012, we’ve made it all back since then. Sellers who wished they’d pulled the trigger in 2006 have gotten back to where they were plus some. It’s time to let bygones be bygones and trade some real estate deeds!

Maybe this is the year where March actually does come in like a lion…

–tMdR

(Blogger’s note: Pay no attention to the illiterate orange man behind the curtain. This is actually a subtle re-write of a post from March 1, 2015. Much has happened since then, but the inventory crunch is the same. If you’re selling there’s never been a better time. If you’re buying, there will never be a better time. Call me if you want to talk, I’ll walk over…)