When it comes to quality of life and affordability around Seattle, don’t look in Seattle. Try looking at Sammamish instead, which was recently ranked in the top 10 best places to live.

Just over half an hour from Seattle, and closer still to major tech corporate campuses in Redmond and Bellevue, Sammamish attracts many of the people who work for Microsoft, Amazon, Expedia and other tech giants. The homes are pricey here, but average salaries are high too: Median family income is roughly $165,000, more than twice the median for the other spots MONEY analyzed. The current average list price for a single family residence in Sammamish is $1,227,275.

With an official motto of "Building Community Together," the city of Sammamish in King County,…

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Selling your home these days isn’t as simple as it used to be. With the explosion of real estate marketing on the Internet, prospective buyers can do their initial home shopping online. While this means that your listed property will be viewed by more prospective customers, it also means that many other properties will also be showcased, making for a much more competitive market.

While sales in the existing home market are expected to take a tick up early in 2020, there is a lot of concern about raising interest rates and economic uncertainty in the future. We are also looking for increasing inventory levels to start as early as March of this year with predictions of the greatest amount of housing inventory to hit the market in five years by May.

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It sounds like the only question for this weekend will be are there six inches, 8 inches, or a foot of blowing snow and  frigid temperatures!  But no matter what this weekend storm brings to Puget Sound, cities around the region say they are making special plans to make sure everyone, pedestrian to drivers to firefighters, can get around safely.

Here are the published routes for snow and ice removal and plowing from the City of Sammamish!

Sammamish

Sammamish has a plowing priority system in place to clear our 400 miles of road. The plowing time required depends on several variables such as the snowstorm intensity, duration, wind, and the temperature. The Snow and Ice Route Map can be found here.

After the layer of deicer is applied and…

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KIRKLAND, Washington (February 7, 2019) – Homebuyers around Washington state are making their
way back to the market, hoping to take advantage of improving inventory, attractive interest rates, and
more approachable sellers, according to officials with Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Northwest MLS statistics for January show year-over-year improvement in the volume of new listings
and total inventory, along with moderating selling prices. Although fewer pending sales (mutually
accepted offers) were reported than a year ago (down about 3.3 percent), January was the smallest yearover-
year decline since May 2018 when the drop was about 2.7 percent.

Commenting on the MLS statistics summarizing last month’s activity, broker Gary O’Leyar said
January’s…

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In today’s changing market, there’s more to a successful

closing than just getting the offer accepted. Make sure you have an

agent capable of guiding you from start to close!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you've made an offer on a home and all contingencies have been met by both parties, closing on the property becomes final. Closing costs are generally 4% of your loan amount, but this can vary. To help you get a sense of what's left to be done, here are 10 steps involved in closing the deal:
  1. Draw up a purchase offer with detailed contingencies in place
  2. Seller accepts the deal or counteroffers with contingencies and price changes of their own
  3. Submit your deposit, also known as "earnest money"
  4. Apply for your…

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In today’s changing market, there’s more to a successful

closing than just getting the offer accepted. Make sure you have an

agent capable of guiding you from start to close!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Review Needs/Wants: Sit down and review your needs and wants.  Priority wants, as you most likely won’t find a home that covers all of them.
  2. Assess Areas Of Interest: If schools or other amenities are important, be sure to assess those as part of your search.
  3. Setup Property Showings: Once you’ve defined your criteria and areas of interest, your Cascade Team agent will go to work showing you homes.
  4. What To Expect In The Process: The most important thing is for you to understand what to expect going through…

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Recovery Slows, but Remains Steady

It may feel as if the housing recovery is slowing to certain finality, but its overall health is still improving.  Existing home sales have been declining monthly and new homes starts have fallen flat – but year over year, the local housing market is still showing growth. As we see areawide increases in price cuts and accessibility begins to improve, the market will continue to strengthen as affordability constraints ease up, even as mortgage rates continue to rise.

The Transition to a Buyer’s Market

Surges in both mortgage rates and demand, coupled with a lack of supply, brought steady hikes in sale prices in 2018. While 2019 will continue to bring healthy growth, home value increases will stabilize, making…

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Courage is refined, renewed and revealed in ordinary everyday living. Courage is never the preserve of the heroes or the powerful. The choice to choose courage for daily living is life-altering. How about choosing the word “courage” as your daily word for 2018?

Now is the time to start setting the “Table” for your real estate business for 2018. At the Cascade Team we will show you step-by-step exactly what our top performers do to get to the positions they are at. Unlike at other companies, The Cascade Team will help you develop a business plan, implement it, and help hold you accountable to reaching the results and goals you set for yourself!

Our past "Rookie Of The Year" never had a real estate license before joining The Cascade Team and…

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Just wanted to take a quick moment and wish everyone a very happy Holiday season! Thank you to all of our clients, partners, amazing agents and friends for a wonderful 2018 and we all look forward to working with you and helping you in any way possible in the coming year!

and YES!!! Cary is wearing possibly the ugliest Christmas sweater ever made!! If you have one that you think can beat it, we'd love to see a picture of you wearing it! Challenge made! 

 

And here's a sneak preview of our upcoming class schedule for 2019 to get everyone ready to roll! Doug will be holding these classes for AZ and California and James for Spokane, while Cary does Western WA.  We'll work to do a webinar for ID, CO, and Indiana! 

2019 Annual Kickoff Rally and…

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