Learn about local real estate and housing market trends from The Cascade Team Real Estate.

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This has been a year of real estate contrasts: While many consumers have taken advantage of historic buying opportunities and the market has seen a gradual stabilization of sales and prices, other challenges facing the nation have led some to question the value of home ownership for families, communities, and the country.

People are passionate about the American dream of home ownership, and this passion underscores how important home ownership is to our nation,” says National Association of REALTORS President Ron Phipps. “Owning a home has long-standing government support in this country because home ownership benefits individuals and families, strengthens our communities, and is integral to our economy. As we begin a new year, REALTORS® remain…

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Seattle area home prices were down 7.2 percent in October from a year earlier, putting the area 39th out of 45 areas nationwide, according to a new report.

Nationwide, prices were down 3.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the CoreLogic Home Price Index.

"We are continuing to see the weakness in home prices without artificial government support in the form of tax credits," CoreLogic Chief Economist Mark Fleming said in a news release. "The stubborn unemployment levels and seasonality are also coming into play. When you combine these factors with high shadow and visible inventories, the prospect for a housing recovery in early 2011 is fading."

The decline in King and Snohomish counties was larger than the 5.4 percent drop in September and…

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Have you ever asked yourself, who is the holder of my mortgage note? Do you ever wonder what the life of your mortgage looks like? Just because you make your checks payable to Citibank or Bank of America doesn’t mean they own your loan. The fact is, they probably don’t even know who actually owns the note. Dan Edison with DTC-Systems performs securitization audits. He wanted to know the history of his own mortgage. He spent a year putting the diagram below together tracking the history of his own mortgage. Dan does this for a living and wanted to know the history of his loan and where it had been and the path taken to get their. He discovered that it had not taken the correct path.

What does all this mean for the average borrower? Unfortunately, not a…

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Foreclosure actions against homeowners in Washington fell sharply in November compared to the month before, a national foreclosure tracking group said Thursday.

RealtyTrac, a California based company, said the numbers dropped 36 percent in Washington state. Nationally, such actions - processes ranging from an initial notice of default to actual repossession - were down 21 percent, which RealtyTrac said reflected a seasonal trend but also delays stemming from questions about the legality of some proposed foreclosures.

RealtyTrac said 4,067 properties in Washington had some sort of foreclosure action against them in November of 2010.  The national rate for November was one in every 492 properties, a 21 percent decline from October and a 14.4 percent fall…

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Many contracts today utilize homeowner review periods as a contingency for the buyer.  Many times they are used as outs for a contract, but there appears to be little a home seller can do to keep a buyer committed if they want out.  As a seller what are some things you can do, and what should you be aware of with regards to homeowner's associations and real estate contracts.  (Of course not all properties are members of and subject to a Homeowner’s Association, so this may not apply to your purchase or sale).

As a buyer, if the property you have made an offer on is part of a structured community or condo association, with mutually agreed rules and regulations, you will have some paperwork to…

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Mortgage rates hit 4.61 pct








The time to buy is now! Home prices have dropped by nearly 30% to at or near 2003 levels and rates are still historically low..... BUT CLIMBING!

By JANNA HERRON, AP Real Estate Writer Janna Herron, Ap Real Estate Writer –

NEW YORK – Rates on fixed mortgages rose for the fourth straight week this week. The surge could slow refinancings and further hamper the housing market.

Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rates on 15- and 30-year fixed loans increased sharply from last week. Mortgage rates tend to track the yields on 10-year Treasury bonds. Those yields have been rising as investors anticipate Congress will extend the Bush-era tax cuts for two years and long-term unemployment benefits for 13 months.

The 30-year…

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KIRKLAND, Wash. (Dec. 6, 2010) – Northwest Multiple Listing Service members recorded a few pleasant surprises last month. Pending sales during November outgained the same month a year ago, marking the first year-over-year increase since April, when the tax credits expired.

Also noted as encouraging were an upswing in relocation sales, shrinkage in the number of new listings added to inventory, and a year-to-date volume of closed sales that is outpacing 2009.

Northwest MLS director OB Jacobi described last month’s gain in the number of transactions written as “surprising.” “That’s surprising, since November is typically one of the slowest sales months of the year, and this year we essentially lost a week to poor weather conditions.” Jacobi, the general…

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The Federal Fair Housing Act describes these words as discriminatory. In addition there are often State, County, and City ordinances that further expand on this list. As a rule when marketing homes however......

DO NOT USE THESE WORDS!

Able Bodied
Adult
African
Age
Agile
AIDS
Alcoholic
American
Ancestry
Arab
Asian
Bachelor
Black
Blind
Board Approval
Boy
Buddhist
Catholic
Caucasian
Chicana
Chicano
Child
Chinese
Christian
Church
Citizen
Colored
Congregation
Couple
Cripple
Deaf
Disability
Disabled
Drinkers
Elderly
Employed
Empty Nesters
English
Ethnic
Exclusive
Executive (such as "large executive house"
Families
Family
Female
Filipino
Filippino
Foreign
Gay
Gender
GentlemanGirl
Golden Age
Grandmas House
Guy
Handicap ("not suitable for")
Healthy
Heterosexual
Hindu
Hispanic
HIV
Homosexual
Hungarian
Immigrant
Impaired
…

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The Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) is vital to both home ownership and our economy.

I'm disappointed that anyone in Congress — or on a Presidential Commission — would even suggest limits to the Mortgage Interest Deduction. Mortgage interest has been deductible for nearly 100 years, and the proposed changes will affect all 75 million home owners in the United States. We must act now to make sure the MID is not changed.

Ever since the Deficit Commission announced its conclusions, the news media have been buzzing about the report. And what do they emphasize? Proposals to limit or even eliminate the Mortgage Interest Deduction. I'm concerned because all this does is scare the public — and potential buyers — away from the housing market. The…

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The idea of putting green features into a home sounds great, but, like other investments, home owners want to know they're getting at least some of their investment back when they resale, and home buyers want to know exactly what they're getting and paying for.

Both continue to be tricky issues when it comes to marketing a "green" home and placing a value on it, particularly at a time when the nearest comparable sale may be a foreclosure or bank owned home down the street.

"Greenwashing" has landed in the housing market, and it's proving to be a irritant that requires housing market professionals to become sleuths, as evidenced by complaints from real estate agents and builders from throughout the country who attended Greenbuild, a national conference on…

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