Seattle Housing Buzz

More John L. Scott news…

John L. Scott Real Estate Chairman and CEO, J. Lennox Scott, announced the company’s purchase of Real Tech LLC, a web-based technology solutions company. With this change in ownership, Real Tech will evolve into John L. Scott’s exclusive in-house technology provider. Scott says that the decision to purchase Real Tech was made in order to support John L. Scott’s aggressive technology needs.

“We have a voracious appetite for technology,” said Scott. “The purchase of Real Tech provides John L. Scott with the ongoing, real time resources that we need to meet our ambitious technology goals.”

Real Tech has been John L. Scott’s technology partner collectively for five years and has been responsible for providing the development behind some of John L. Scott’s most notable web-related achievements, including the launch of Microsoft Virtual Earth, Neighborhood Wizard with Microsoft’s polygon drawing tool, and the integration of comparable sold home information with Microsoft’s interactive mapping system. Scott says that the successful partnership between John L. Scott, Real Tech, and Microsoft will continue to produce new innovations for the real estate industry in the coming months.

Real Tech General Manager, Adam Jundt, says, “John L Scott has a serious commitment to delivering cutting-edge technology solutions to their agents and the real estate consumer. Combined with Real Tech’s expertise, this enhanced partnership will fuel the next generation of products and services, continuing our role as technology leaders in the real estate industry.”

Real Tech’s nine team members will now operate within John L. Scott’s marketing and eStrategies department which is headed by Pat Giles, Vice President of Marketing and eStrategies. Giles recently joined John L. Scott, bringing a diverse technical and management background that blends together more than twenty years of experience in marketing, IT, and internet strategies.

Tags: John L. Scott Real Estate, RealTech

Buyers, sellers and real estate enthusiasts can now receive up-to-date sold property information via email. John L. Scott Real Estate, the first company to publish sold property data, has added a sold email feature.

Users can now easily keep track of Seattle’s housing activity. Whether you’re a buyer or seller you can sign-up to receive notification when a property has closed and at what price it sold for. Since the information comes directly from the NWMLS it’s the most up-to-date available.

To utilize the feature, sign up for a John L Scott’s Property Tracker account and create a search using the Interactive Map search option.

Related:
Improved search information on John L Scott
Neighborhood Wizard search feature

Tags: John L Scott, Seattle Real Estate

Apparently, the blogoshpere is getting heated, especially in our small Northwest neck of the woods. Recently, I found myself at the receiving end of another agent’s deceptive Google Adwords campaign.

In respects to blogging, my primary focus is The Seattle Condo Blog. The condo blog has risen to become one of the top condo websites in Seattle - it’s #1 in Google’s organic search results for a myriad of condo related keywords and receives the most visitor traffic (per Compete, Alexa and Quantcast metrics) among Seattle-based condo blogs and websites. And, the exclusive partnership with King5.com is a testament to the blog’s reputation. Admittedly, it’s a nice position to be in.

Well, it appears an agent with a competing condo blog got a little envious and started to play dirty. The agent bought Google Adwords with my name as the keyword search term as well as the title of the ads themselves. Thus, if someone googled my name, the other agent’s ads would show up on the right hand side of the page with my name. As users click on my name thinking they were going to my site, they were instead directed to the other agent’s site. Here’s a screen print:

When confronted the agent removed the ads. Of course, this agent claims no knowledge of this pathetic and unethical attempt to steal traffic and use my name to mislead the public. The agent blames the webmaster, who wouldn’t…but then the agent is closely related to the webmaster.

Our industry has a bad public image and it doesn’t help when a “respected” colleague resorts to this sort of tactic.

Tags: Seattle Real Estate

This isn’t housing news. But, it’ll likely impact employment in Seattle, so who knows. Locally-based Safeco Insurance is being sold to Liberty Mutual for $6 billion. As a former Safeco employee, I have to say this was expected with the sale of its long-time headquarters in the U-District and the campus in Redmond, significant reduction in staffing and poor performance results for most of the decade.

According to an AP report, Safeco shares shot up $21.02, or more than 46 percent, to $66.25, in morning trading on Wednesday. Dang, I sold my remaining Safeco shares two weeks ago!

More from the Seattle PI.

Well…not really lies. More of a mistake, but a serious one. The published March 2008 condo closed sales median price data for Areas 700, 701, 705, 710, 715 and 720, in the King County Breakout PDF are incorrect. The PDF is published by the NWMLS on its public site - www.nwrealestate.com and its member site. As a result, the reported condo sales figures for Seattle are skewed and have been republished incorrectly by local media.

I’ve reported the error and am waiting for the revised data.

Update: They actually sent me the corrected report fairly quickly. It doesn’t look like they’ve updated the public site yet, though.

Tags: NWMLS, Seattle Condos

Not housing news, but effective April 1, 2008, the sales and use taxes in King County will increase to from 8.9% to 9.0%. The additional one-tenth of a percent will go towards mental health or chemical treatment services. The sales tax for communities in non-RTA areas will be 8.6%.

See King County’s bulletin on the tax (PDF file).

Tags: King County Sales Tax

Ok, so I’ll weigh in here. Redfin recently announced their updated buyer-side performance statistics. Redfin agents, they say, beat other companies by negotiating 1.015% off the list price compared to .087%. Locally, Redfin states they’re able to negotiate more off the sales price for their buyers compared to all other agents, 98.89% to 99.38%. And, when combined with buyer rebates, they save their buyers $12,262 on average. This amounts to 2.45%…what they call the Redfin Advantage. Very commendable, indeed.

So, how did my buyers fare? Would they have done better with Redfin?

Over the same period, on average, I negotiated 2.76% off the list price saving my buyers $15,666 off the top. This figure does not include subsequent seller concessions such as seller paid closing costs (not wrapped into the sales price) and credit for repairs and so forth, which amounted to an additional $3,833, on average.

—

Redfin buyers save on average: $12,262 which include the buyers rebate.

Ben’s buyers save on average: $19,499.

Tags: Buyers Agent, Redfin, Seattle Real Estate

The Washington Realtor Association recently surveyed home buyers throughout the state and compiled some interesting results.

Home buyers typically purchased a home within 13 miles of their current residence, averaging 1,790 sq ft with a median price of $300,000.

• Of homes purchased, 72% were single family dwellings and 25% were new construction.
• First-time buyers accounted for 41% of all homes purchased in 2007. They had a median income of $54,700 and their median age was 31 years. Nearly half of first-time buyers were between 25 and 34 years old.
• Of all buyers, the median household income was $73,900 with a median age of 38 years.
• Demographically, 63% were married couples, 21% single females, 6% single males and 9% were unmarried couples. (Don’t know who the other 1% were, though.)
• Seventy-six percent of buyers between 18 and 24 purchased a home out of a desire to own and establish a household.

Technology-wise, 73% of buyers began their home search online while 14% of first-time buyers and 22% of repeat buyers began their search by contacting an agent.

• However, 91% of all buyers utilized the internet at some point to search for homes.
• Interestingly, 37% reported they first learned of the home they purchased through the internet while 30% said their Realtor located the property for them.
• The typical internet searcher was 38 years old and visited a median 12 homes. The typical buyer who did not utilize the internet was 49 years old and only saw a median 4 properties.

Real estate agents assisted 85% of buyers who purchased a home.

• Though, buyers tended to search for homes for two weeks before contacting an agent.
• During the home search process, 72% of buyers indicated their agent was a useful information source.
• Of qualities important in selecting an agent, 98% of buyers stated honesty and integrity were most important. When asked to rate their agent’s performance on those qualities, 87% indicated they were “very satisfied”.
• And, 68% of buyers stated they would use their agent again.

Tags: Home Buyer, Home Search, Seattle Real Estate

From CNN Video: Desperate owners burn homes

The past couple of years Ballard has been a buzz with new condominium and townhome developments as well as witnessing the loss of apartments to condo conversions. Over the next two years the Ballard landscape will continue to evolve with the return of new apartment developments in this once sleepy enclave.

Here’s what’s on tap for the new Ballard:

Broadstone Ballard

Address: 1139 NW Market Street
Developer: Alliance Residential
No. Units: 163
Comment: Two 6-story buildings with retail along Market. Construction to begin later this year with a 2010 completion.

Ballard on the Park

Address: 24th Ave NW & NW 57th (QFC site)
Developer: Security Properties
No. Units: 268
Comment: Six-stories with a 45,000 sq ft QFC market on the ground level. A 2009 completion date is anticipated.

Alexan Ballard

Address: Market between NW 15th & 17th
Developer: Ballard Apartments / Trammell Crow Residential
No. Units: 260
Comment: Designed by GGLO who also designed the Hjarta on the north end of the Market. Two buildings, 6- & 8-stories, with commercial/retail on Market. Completion slated for 2009.

Additionally, the new owner of the Sunset Bowl is a major apartment developer and management company with 13 properties in Seattle and the Eastside.

Tags: Alexan Ballard, Ballard, Ballard on the Park, Broadstone Ballard, Seattle Apartments