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

large house sellers disclosure  

When it comes to selling your home, heed your mother’s advice: Honesty is always the best policy.

It’s a question that plagues many residential sales: As a seller, what do you — and don’t you — need to tell the buyer about your home? “My rule of thumb is this: If you’re not sure if you should disclose something, you probably should,”. “Think of seller disclosures like a Carfax report.” Plus, the harm in not disclosing something can result in some serious legal and financial woes. Here’s a list of what you legally need to include in your sellers’ disclosure to keep yourself out of hot water.

1. Lead paint

One item is a must when it comes to being upfront with potential buyers: the use of lead-based paint in your home. “If the home…

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In an update to a story we reported on Monday:

Facebook Ends Ethnic Targeting Ads....

Facebook announced that it will no longer permit marketers who buy housing, credit-related, or employment ads to post on its site to target ethnic groups. U.S. lawmakers had warned the social media giant that the Facebook feature allowing marketers to target users in such ways could be discriminatory.

“There are many nondiscriminatory uses of our ethnic-affinity solution in these areas, but we have decided that we can best guard against discrimination by suspending these types of ads,” Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, wrote in a blog post.

Facebook did not allow advertisers to target someone specifically by race, per se, but by what…

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Dive Brief:

  • A new report from the nonprofit investigative journalism outfit ProPublica suggests that Facebook’s option to target ads at users based on what the social media website calls "ethnic affinities" violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 because it lets companies target — or avoid targeting — advertisements at individuals based on race.
  • Facebook’s ad-targeting capabilities, including the exclusion feature, are generally a boon to companies, who use it to reach niche audiences to yield a greater return than simply sending an advertisement to a general audience where the impact may not be as significant.
  • The social media site does not ask users to identify their race but instead determines "ethnic…

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By KRISTEN DREW, KOMO News               Another reason why it's so important to make sure you know and trust the real estate professional you hire to market your home. This agent was affiliated with Windermere at the time on the incident.  

A real estate broker who claimed he was going to show a Renton home to a potential buyer was arrested for stealing prescription painkillers from the homeowner and it was all caught on camera.

See Related: Safety Benefit of Smart Homes for Owners and Agents

"I'm watching it live and I'm like, 'Holy cow, this guy is ripping me off,'" said Doug Wright, who put his home on the market last weekend.

Aaron Peterson, who was employed as a real estate broker for Windermere during the incident,…

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Here are our U.S. housing market forecasts for 2017.

Housing markets in a handful of metro areas will continue to sizzle in 2017, while the rest of the country could experience a cooling trend. Mortgage rates will likely hover in the 3.5% range for the short term, but could rise above 4% through the first half of 2017. Loan limits could also rise in some parts of the country next year, in response to rising home values.

Let’s take a closer look at these and other housing market forecasts and predictions for 2017.

1. Home prices nationwide to rise 3% – 5% over next 12 months.

In October, the economic research team at Zillow issued this 12-month forecast for the U.S. housing market: “United States home values have gone up 5.1% over the past…

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Here are our U.S. housing market forecasts for 2017.

Housing markets in a handful of metro areas will continue to sizzle in 2017, while the rest of the country could experience a cooling trend. Mortgage rates will likely hover in the 3.5% range for the short term, but could rise above 4% through the first half of 2017. Loan limits could also rise in some parts of the country next year, in response to rising home values.

Let’s take a closer look at these and other housing market forecasts and predictions for 2017.

1. Home prices nationwide to rise 3% – 5% over next 12 months.

In October, the economic research team at Zillow issued this 12-month forecast for the U.S. housing market: “United States home values have gone up 5.1% over the past…

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KIRKLAND, Washington (Nov. 4, 2016) – Home sales around Western Washington outgained new listings again in October, fueling competition for scarce inventory and pushing prices higher. Some seasonal slowdown is still expected – and the Nov. 8 elections may be in play as well, according to brokers at Northwest Multiple Listing Service who commented on last month’s activity.   Closed Sales Up 10.1% Pending Sales Up 6.8% Active Listings Down 13%
 
MLS members reported 9,950 pending sales during October, but they added only 7,591 new listings, the lowest number since January. A year-over-year comparison of pending sales shows there were 633 more mutually accepted offers last month than twelve months ago for a gain of 6.8 percent. 
 
Closed sales…

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Remind your clients that even if these “adverse situations” wouldn’t bother them as home owners, they could be the bane of their existence as sellers.

high voltage power lines  

In 2001, when I first got my real estate license, I took a class at my brokerage about how to show properties. Seems silly, right? How hard is it to unlock the door? But this class was about practical ways to make sure the buyer focuses on the most important factors of a home. I still follow some of the tips from this class today. One of them was to advocate caution to a buyer considering a house with an “adverse situation.”

What’s that? It’s a condition that will affect the resale of the property. I remember the instructor saying, “When my past clients call me up and ask me to…

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haunted-house

Who believes in ghosts, anyway? But then again, there you are: alone, in the dim, waning hours of night, listening to that odd, undefinable rustling, whimpering noise right outside your bedroom window, and—wait a minute! Is that noise coming from inside the house?

Thirty-seven percent of Americans believe in haunted houses, according to a 2005 Gallup poll. For those who believe, some cities offer spookier home options than others.

To find the spookiest ZIP codes, ATTOM Data Solutions analyzed more than 40,000 single-family homes nationwide to find the highest number of vacant properties as well as those that have a home owner who is now deceased.

In Halloween fun, we've released a list of the following top 10 ZIP codes to find the most…

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