Leavenworth Real Estate

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Leavenworth Homes Sales – 1st Quarter of 2013

After a healthy increase in sales activity in 2012, I think we all had big expectations for 2013.

Unfortunately, we had a huge storm in December which I think delayed sales at the beginning of the year. (For example this January only 2 homes closed compared to 8 the previous year.)

Here’s a great video of the snow and the down trees for those of you not familiar with the storm. (Closed roads, down trees and power outages make for poor showings.)

Looking at all three months of the 1st quarter of 2013, it is mixed bag.

The number of closed sales is clearly down.  These dropped from 20 to 14.  (Which is similar to the difference in just January sales as I mentioned earlier.)

The good news is that the number of pending sales this quarter is up significantly from 15 in 2012 to 26 in 2013. I think this is some indication that we will have continued buyer activity in 2013 as expected.

The average price for a single family home in Leavenworth stayed almost even, dropping slightly from $326,000 to $325,000.

However, the median price went up from $273,000 to $289,000.

As we move on into the spring season, I expect that we will see continued strong buyer demand with prices staying flat or possibly increasing slightly.

I don’t see a strong bounce in prices this year like we are seeing in the Seattle market since we aren’t seeing the same lack of inventory that they have there. (But that is a story for another post.)

 

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Required Disclaimer

NOTE: This representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by the North Central Washington Association of Realtors or its Multiple Listing Service. Neither the Association nor its MLS guarantees or are in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by the Association or its MLS may not reflect all real estate activity in the Market.

Everyone Loves Reviews

As small business owners, there is nothing we like more than happy customers.

Online reviews are a great tool for both small businesses to get the word out about the quality of their service but also for consumers who are choosing the best option for a restaurant, a hotel, or a real estate agent.

Using online reviews we have found fabulous restaurants like Tracy’s Crab Shack in Juneau, Alaska or Petra Mediterranean Bistro in Seattle. We even found a great tour company in Thailand that we used for our honeymoon by looking on Trip Advisor.

If you are thinking about hiring a real estate broker to help you find your next home or sell your current home in Leavenworth, we hope you find the online reviews of Leavenworth real estate agents like us helpful.

If you are a past client of ours who has taken the time and effort to review us online or write us a recommendation – thank you so much.  Your kind words mean the world to us.

If you haven’t yet reviewed us, we’d love your help.

There are so many different options for reviewing us – choose your favorite site  from the choices below or better yet…  review us on ALL of them.

 

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Yelp is often considered the king of review sites. Strangely enough we don’t have any Yelp reviews. If you aren’t a regular Yelp reviewer your reviews might be “filtered” – the more businesses you review on Yelp the better.

We would absolutely love a handful of Yelp reviews. Click here to help us out

Google reviews aren’t as famous yet as Yelp, but a review can be really helpful to us in terms of being found on Google. This is easier if you have a Gmail account or use G+ on a regular basis.

You can review us on Google here

Zillow is an online database of homes for sale where consumers can also get info about home values or read reviews of local agents.

We really appreciate all the great reviews that our clients have written about us  over the years.

You can add your review of Allyson here

or write a review for Geordie here.

Linkedin is the social network for business professionals. As such, it is a great place to share recommendations with other professionals.

If you are already on Linkedin, please add us to your network so we can stay in touch. Once we are connected, we would be honored if you wrote us a recommendation.

You can add to Geordie’s recommendations here or Allyson’s here. Thanks so much to all of our clients who have already done so.

 

 

Want to help us even more?  Go ahead and share the review you wrote. Post it to Facebook or Twitter or even email it to a friend or two.

Thanks so much in advance. We really appreciate your business and your trust and it warms our hearts every time we read a kind review.

Buying a Leavenworth house on acreage

When it comes to a vacation home in sunny central Washington, lots of home buyers have dreams of buying a Leavenworth house on acreage. For some, having an acre or five is just about breathing room or privacy. For others, it’s about having room for a garden or perhaps a few horses or chickens.

What are some reasonable expectations you should have if you are considering buying a Leavenworth house on acreage?

I studied the sales of all Leavenworth houses that sold in 2012 that sat on at least 1 acre or more. I excluded those waterfront properties along the Wenatchee and Chiwawa Rivers as well as Lake Wenatchee. Here’s what I found:

Median Sales Price: $357,000

Median Size: 1862 sqft

Median acreage: 1.4 acres

Lots of folks contact us when they are thinking about buying a Leavenworth house on acreage and are hoping for a small house or a fixer upper on a large parcel.  For the most part, that’s not really what’s for sale.

Instead, we see larger houses, mostly built after 1990, on lots between 1-2 acres.

More affordable homes are likely to be on the Chumstick Highway, often near the rail road tracks.

Need help finding the perfect place for you and your family? Give us a call or drop us a note.

We would be happy to help.

 

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Required Disclaimer

NOTE: This representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by the North Central Washington Association of Realtors or its Multiple Listing Service. Neither the Association nor its MLS guarantees or are in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by the Association or its MLS may not reflect all real estate activity in the Market.

Changing Leavenworth Realtors: A Guide to Selling an Expired Leavenworth House

Are you considering firing your current real estate agent?

 

Thinking about deciding not to re-list with them and changing Leavenworth realtors?

This time of  year in Leavenworth we talk to a number of homeowners throughout the Leavenworth and Lake  Wenatchee area who are considering putting their house on the market to sell.  Some need to sell, while others are still trying to decide if the time is right.

One group we particularly enjoy helping is those home sellers who have tried in the past to sell their house with another agent but without success.   Known in the real estate business as ”expired listings”  these are homeowners looking for better advice and a change in direction.

This house on Ranger Road in Leavenworth’s Ski Hill neighborhood was on and off the market for 4 years.

Our suggestions:

• Stage the house to sell which included removing lots of personal items and decorations that prevented buyers from actually SEEING the house.
• Professional Photos

• Accurate Pricing (based on recent sales of similar homes)

The result: dozens and dozens of showings instead of a few each summer, and more importantly – SOLD in about 5 months.

This next house was a challenge because it was off the grid and ran on solar power with a generator backup. Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. It had been on the market nearly two years before we met with the sellers.

Our suggestions:

• Stage the house to sell. Remove wall paper, new paint and carpet, remove art and antiques that are distracting
• Professional Photos
• Accurate Pricing

 

The result: Sold in just 2 months!

The sellers said “Geordie and Allyson are right on! They really know the business and did a great job prepping us and the house for a quick sale. It worked like a gem and I totally trust them to get the job done.”

This last example is another we are very proud of. This was a 6 unit condo complex in downtown Leavenworth. The units were newly built and had been on the market about a year before we were asked to help out.  We worked with the bank that was carrying the loan to sell these as short sales.

Our suggestions:

• Allow nightly rentals in the covenants
• Professional Photos
• Realtor Lock Box and Easier Access
• Accurate Pricing

The result: All six units closed within a 6 month period.

 

By now, you are probably seeing a theme among the advice that we give our clients.  The advice we give sellers is the same, whether we are listing it for the first time or we are helping out a seller on an expired listing that has been on the market for years.

The house must look absolutely fabulous, both in person and online. It also needs to be priced competitively. Modern buyers are smart and they will compare your home to Zillow’s Zestimates and to the tax assessed value in addition to other houses in the neighborhood for sale.  If your house is listed for $100,000 too much (which is unfortunately all too common) the number of showings will be small and the number of offers even smaller.

If you tried to sell your house in Leavenworth last year without success, we would love an opportunity to meet with you.  The changes we suggest might be easy or they might be difficult. You might not be pleased with our assessment of the value of your home in today’s market.

We promise though to be honest and up front with our assessment and to give you the very best that we have to offer.

 

Washington State Real Estate Wrap Up

As a real estate market that is influenced by vacation homes and second homes more than the local economy, real estate sales here in Leavenworth are impacted by the health of other Washington state real estate markets. If a home buyer has significant equity in their primary residence at Lake Sammamish or Mercer Island they are more likely to feel confident about buying a second home. If they lose equity or are underwater, they likely won’t be interested in owning more real estate.

For this article I reached out to my friends in various Washington State real estate markets for their thoughts on the state of affairs where they work and live. I asked them to reflect back on 2012 and to make predictions for 2013.

 

Toby Barnett is an agent with Barnett Associates and Keller Williams and specializes in real estate in Marysville, Everett and Snohomish County.

2013 is shaking out to be one of the strangest real estate years. Since the real estate debacle of 2007, sellers have been fighting decreasing property values and a strong buyer negotiating position. However, as recovery progressed through 2011, and now into early 2013, real estate inventory in western Washington has been shrinking and with the latest reports stating 1.9 months of standing inventory – a all time low. My prediction through the year will be homes that where once short sales will no longer be short sales and home prices will continue to climb unless stability enters the market – meaning more homes become available.

Cari McGee is an agent with Windermere Real Estate in the Tri-Cities of Richland, Kenniwick and Pasco.

Real estate in 2012 in the Tri-Cities kept plugging along like “The Little Engine That Could”. The market here lends itself to stability and long-term growth. Our average sales price increased to $205,900 which is a 1.67% increase over $202,500 which was 2011′s high. That’s exactly the kind of growth that makes for a healthy long-term investment. I began my real estate career in 2004, when the average sales price was $165,800. If I sold you a house that year, and you needed to sell it today, you’d likely make a profit. That’s what makes the Tri-Cities such a unique community. When other communities see roller-coaster-like ups and downs, real estate in the Tri-Cities slowly, steadily, increases in value.

I see the same thing happening in 2013. This year is already off to a good start with seventy properties sold within the first two weeks of the year. That’s five per business-day, which is a steady amount and indicates a healthy market. Those homes sold within a four-month time span, which indicates neither a buyer’s, nor seller’s market. It’s balanced. And balance is always good!

Kim Colaprete and Chavi Holm are Seattle’s Real Estate Divas.

Here are some highlights from a recent article Kim wrote about the Seattle market.

For 2012: Last year was an amazing come back year for many areas across the nation. Here in Seattle we saw about a 11% percentage increase in housing prices across the city (source NWMLS). The majority of the spike happened in the first two quarters of 2012 with steady rises seen throughout the year. Although those of us on the ground know we are dealing with low inventory, seeing the hard data was a bit of a shock. Since 2010, Seattle’s overall housing inventory dropped by 59%. The low inventory combined with steady increase in demand is definitely pushing prices up.

For 2013:

• Sustained price increases. We expect Capitol Hill to go up about another 10%. The southend will probably see about 3-5% and the area around the Columbia City Light Rail station will continue to be feeding frenzies. Ballard – all you hipsters and shop local fiends should expect to bid like a crazy person to get house in this hot neighborhood.
• Mortgage Rates and Closing Costs to Increase: The fiscal cliff debacle kept interest rates super low. Our clients who closed in December saw probably saw of the lowest mortgage rates of our generation. But, once the budget issues are resolved, we may start seeing minor rate increases throughout the year.
• More Flipped Houses – Its 2006 All Over Again: An investor bought the house behind Chez Diva. It did get us thinking about flippers in general. We realized in a short walk through our neighborhood there several active projects, one flip for sale and at least three that have sold in the last year.
• Year of the Move Up Buyers: These are folks who have more than likely, been in their homes a while and have a pressing need to make a change; a new school district, a bigger house or maybe folks like the Divas, who feel the need to downsize. They often have been holding out for a more stable market for a while.

 

Ben Kakimoto is the Seattle Condo guy and blogs about condos for his Seattle condo blog.

After experiencing a slower recovery compared to single family homes in the Seattle area, the condo market exhibited a turnaround last year.  Constricting inventory as a result of buyer’s confidence in the economy, combined with low interest rates and finite supply (there’s been no new condos built since 2009) helped spur sales activity.  Compared to 2011, the Seattle condo market experienced a 27.4% increase in unit sales in 2012, though the citywide median condo sales price remained unchanged at $250,000.   On the other hand, desirable urban districts such as downtown/Belltown saw prices rise 8.5%.

With the shift towards a seller’s market, listings are selling faster, too.   Last year, 46.4% of Seattle’s condo listings sold within 30 days on market with an average of only 47 days.  In 2011, the average was 83 days on market with only 33.3% selling within 30 days.

The outlook for 2013 is more of the same.  Prices will continue to recover and inventory will get tighter with no new condo inventory expected until the end of 2014.

Dale and Stephanie Chumbley are agents in Vancouver, Washington who are experts in the Clark County and SW Washington real estate market.

 Looking back at 2012

In Southwest Washington, the housing market improved over 2011. We saw a 3.6 percent increase in pending sales in 2012 over 2011, and we saw 8.1 percent more closed sales last year compared with the year prior. Home prices increased in value over 2011, according to the 2012 RMLS data. The median price was $194,500, which is 4.9 percent higher than the year prior.

What do we forecast for 2013?

With the shortage of inventory and home values up, we anticipate a flurry of sellers proclaiming this is their year to sell. We’ve already seen a lot of active buyers looking this year, and we’ve been involved in a handful of multiple offer situations. Buyers are willing to pay more than asking price after learning lessons from having their low offers rejected previously. A few reliable sources have shared with us that several large companies are relocating to Southwest Washington in 2013, which will bring many new home buyers, renters and jobs to our county. We are excited to assist both buyers and sellers as we traverse the ever-changing real estate market!

Sounds like good news from all corners of Washington State and certainly mirrors our experience in Leavenworth in 2012.