BUYER’S GUIDE
If you’re planning to buy a home in this area, the best place to start is with the Leavenworth Home Buyer’s Guide.
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Lake Wenatchee Website
I wanted to take an opportunity to plug Dave Neir’s LakeWenatcheeInfo.com Dave has done a great job making the Lake Wenatchee and Fish Lake area accessible to visitors and locals alike via the web. Dave has a great understanding of the possibilities such a resource can be. I’m amazed at how many websites are static and become quickly dated or useless. Not the case …
Owning a Vacation Rental
A frequent request we get is a buyer who wants to buy a vacation home, but would like to rent it out when they aren’t using it. It sounds like a great idea in theory, but rarely works out. First of all you need to consider zoning. In the city limits of Leavenworth nightly rentals are only legal in commercially zoned areas. There are …
THE PERILS OF BEING AN UNREPRESENTED BUYER
Mostly we focus on how people shouldn’t be an unrepresented seller. We stress the importance of listing a home with a trusted REALTOR who will put their home on the Multiple Listing Service, look out for their best interest and get them the highest price. However, there is also danger in being an unrepresented buyer. It is dangerous to blindly enter into a contract …
Absorption Rates
What is an absorption rate? It is the average number of houses that sell per month and it tells us what kind of inventory we have. I ran some numbers today which confirm what I thought was the case. Currently there are 57 single family homes (not including condos or manufactured homes) in the general Leavenworth market. This includes Plain, Peshastin, and Lake Wenatchee. …
More “non-traditional” homes for sale
Since I posted about homes without permits, wells, or septics being put on the market we have seen a few more. Both are being offered under $100,000 and fit into the tear down category. The previous offerings were nice little cabins, even if they didn’t meet current legal or health requirments. The newest offerings? Little to no value as structures, in my opinion. (I …
Fortune Magazine “Real Estate Survival guideR...
My new issue of Fortune came in the mail today. I’ve been a fan of the mag the last year or so. I don’t really have the energy to pour through the Economist like I used to, nor do I feel like I need to start each day with the WSJ or NYT. I tried Money, but was often dismayed by their lack of …
No permit, no well, no septic
Think this might be a problem for selling a house? Apparently not in today’s real estate market for Leavenworth Washington. Two homes recently popped on the market just outside of town. Nice little fixer upper cabins. Cabins without water, wired for generators and hooked up to sketchy homemade septic systems. Both received multiple offers in just a few days. A surprise to a number …
Market Review
The local Windermere offices in Wenatchee and Leavenworth have recently published a market review which has local real estate statistics for 2005. (I will mail you one for free if you ask.) Average prices for local towns (excluding new construction): Wenatchee $189,000 E. Wenatchee $188,000 Cashmere $182,000 Leavenworth $267,000 Those prices seem ridiculously low, don’t they. Yep, that was 2005. Old news. As of …
20%
20%. That’s the big number that just came out from the recent Real Estate “Snapshot” put out by Pacific Appraisal in Wenatchee. There has been an overall gain of 20% value in real estate in the Wenatchee Valley since last year. Not all properties appreciated at this rate. Some market sectors are hot and others less so. Ramblers and their convenient one story living …
Interest Rates
In my discussions with my favorite lender, Darel Ansley of People’s Bank, it sounds like interest rates are starting to nudge up again. (Around 6.5% +/-) Mortgage professionals are guessing it could reach 6.7% later this summer. The good news is that this is likely as high as it will get for a while. If rates stay under 7% for a few years it …