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

Fact: Real estate brokers’ commission rates are not regulated in any state and are ALWAYS 100% negotiable.

When you decide to sell your house, if you are like most people, you will want to hire — or at least consider hiring — a real estate agent to handle the process.

Surprisingly, many people think that real estate brokerage commission rates are “set” in their area and they have to pay a specific percentage of the sales price to the agent in order to get their services. This is absolutely not the case.  In fact, you can pay whatever you and the agent have agreed upon.

What is a “Fair” amount to pay for real estate commission?

Many people hear the word “discount” company instead of a “traditional” company but (actually, since commissions…

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If you're one of those homeowners who winces a little bit when the property tax bill comes in the mail -- get ready. Preliminary numbers point to a double-digit percentage increase in property taxes when the bill arrives later this month. In addition prices in King County are expected to climb by over 10% again for 2018.

King County will be higher than last year’s by an average of nearly 17 percent, Assessor John Wilson says.  And the bump will cost the owner of a median-valued county home about $700, according to Wilson, who says the state’s new school-funding plan is the main reason.

He says the plan created in response to the state Supreme Court’s landmark McCleary decision will be responsible for about two-thirds of King County’s hike.

…

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Spokane made National Geographic’s ‘Best Cities in the United States’ list this year.

The list of 30 “smaller” cities, compiled by the Nat Geo’s Travel magazine, identified the top U.S. small cities based on things that they think lead to happiness: coffee shops, breweries, music venues, green spaces, galleries, and “Instagrammable moments.”

Spokane:

A high count of record stores, tattoo parlors, vintage clothing boutiques, and coffee shops per capita boosts Washington State’s second largest city to the top of our hipster-friendly and most caffeinated lists for its population category. Bearded and flannel-wearing locals often show up at Garageland, a gastropub/vinyl store downtown (note the dugout canoe hanging over the bar). Summertime…

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robot workers

I’ve found very few real estate agents and brokers have ever wondered how robotics might impact real estate in the future, and I would assume that's mostly because they are working on securing the next listing or taking around a buyer or two to look at properties along with 1000's of other everyday task. So when Janet Jolly-Porter told me my blogs were getting a little boring and I needed to add a little diversity to my post, I jumped at the chance to write about: ROBOTS 

As a real estate professional who wants to understand disruptive technologies, it’s time to learn about some of the basic ways automation will alter the world of real property in the near future.

How Robotics Will Change Your Business

  1. Robots will be involved in…

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The Cascade Team Welcomes David Spicer To Our New Coeur d'Alene, Idaho Office!

We are very excited to announce the opening of The Cascade Team Coeur d'Alene, Idaho Office! David Spicer will be the Managing Broker of our new office.  The office will be the offshoot of our very successful Spokane Office that just opened last year and is managed by James Faucett our Regional Designated Broker for The Cascade Team in Eastern Washington and now also in Idaho!

I look forward to helping you with what is usually one of the biggest financial decisions of a person’s life, buying and selling Real Estate. I have been helping people with their Real Estate needs for over 15 years. There are many parts to the process including, searching, comparing, pricing,…

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Did you see our latest mailer? Find the answers you're looking for below!

2017 was a record year for The Issaquah Highlands. Some sections of the housing market increased by nearly 30% with the over-all price for a home increasing just under 18% for the year. Take a look at an in-depth review of The Issaquah Highlands market from the number 1 listing brokerage in the Issaquah Highlands and see where the housing market has grown, the highest priced SOLD home, the home that went the MOST over asking price, and also get an idea of what to expect in 2018.

 

  Issaquah Highlands 2017 Real Estate Recap
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Welcome To The Cascade Team Jeff Japar!

The Pacific Northwest is home to me. I was born and raised in the Bothell/Woodinville area. I grew up riding my bicycle in the streets, and playing outside with the neighborhood kids. I look back at my childhood in this place with fond remembrance and a deeply rooted sense of home. I have a vested, personal interest in shaping my community by building neighborhoods where families grow, play and bond. My family and I currently live in Granite Falls. We love living nestled in the evergreens at the entrance to the Mountain Loop. Nothing beats sipping hot coffee on the deck while watching the sun rise over the mountains. We spend our free time roaming the logging roads and trails with our dogs, or kayaking on any…

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Attention Real Estate Brokers: Buyers and Sellers are targets for wire fraud and many have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because they simply relied on the wire instructions received via email.

A hacker may break into a real estate licensee’s email account to obtain information about upcoming real estate transactions. After monitoring the account to determine the likely timing of a close, the hacker may send an email to the buyer, posing either as the escrow agent or as the licensee. The fraudulent email may contain new wiring instructions or routing information, and request that the Buyer send funds accordingly.

With scammers increasingly targeting real estate transactions, the National Association of REALTORS® is teaming up with the…

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Trying to decide when to plunge into the real estate market can be quite intimidating—especially when prices are high, choices are limited, and history urges restraint.

Locally we’ve seen two or three years of what could be considered unprecedented levels of price appreciation, as well as an inventory shortage that resulted in a record-low number of homes for sale across Western Washington.

See: 2018 Real Estate Market Trends - Seattle Area Prices Continue Upward March

If there’s one thing most early forecasters agree on, it’s that home prices will continue to rise. Where they differ however, is how much they will rise.

The median price of a home across the Seattle metro area has now soared 80 percent since bottoming out five years ago,…

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We're thrilled to be opening a new office in the wonderful city of Coeur d'Alene! 

Located at 410 E Sherman Suite 200 Coeur d’Alene Idaho 83814, our new office will allow us to hit the ground running in this exciting new market.

When it comes to Coeur d'Alene's future, everything points in one direction: up.

The city population will go up. New, taller buildings will be built up. The demand for housing, and housing prices overall, will go up.

Coeur d'Alene is the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the fastest-growing state in the nation, U.S. Census Bureau data show. That metro area, the 11th fastest-growing area in the country, includes Coeur d'Alene, but also the rest of Kootenai County — Post Falls, Hayden, Rathdrum, Athol.

The city…

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