The Cascade Team Blog

The Sweet Spot of Pricing Your Home

Written by Blanche Evans          

When you and your Real Estate Professional sit down to price your home, you'll be looking at competitive homes that are the most similar in size, location and amenities as your home. You may find that prices can be thousands of dollars higher or lower. It's tempting to pick the highest price and say, "Let's list it here." But what if your home doesn't sell at that price?

High prices are a strategy that can work in an accelerating market, but it's risky. Your home can sit for months without selling and you'll end up marking the price down, perhaps lower than it should have sold for in the first place.

Pricing your home is a science. The science is choosing the right price at which your home will sell…

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Work For a Brokerage That Works For You!

The Cascade Team is a brokerage built to support our agents, provide the best training and technology, and to be a vital part of the communities we serve. 

As you look at brokerages to call home and build your real estate career, there are two very important questions you should always ask yourself. The answers to these questions are critical to the success of your career as a real estate professional.

Does your real estate brokerage help you sell homes?

OR

Does your brokerage sell “things” to the real estate agents?

By providing full marketing support which can be seen HERE: The Cascade Team not only helps you attract more listings, But we also help you attract more buyers. In face we currently represent 53% Buyers and 47%…

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Top 10 Neighborhood Considerations When Buying a Home

The Cascade Team is a real estate brokerage whose focus is centered on customer service.  Our customer's are our number one priority and our local agent team works hard to not only find properties that meet your needs and wants, but also leverages their local market knowledge to help guide you through the home search process.  Our commitment to excellence in service is unparalleled in the areas in which we serve.  While we offer a number of online tools to assist you with your home search, having a knowledgeable local agent to guide you is so important, especially when the local market heats up.  Multiple offers, escalation clauses, negotiations, etc, are all critical items in helping you secure your new home, and that's where our service and local…

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FREE Smart-Home Checklist

The growing number of smart-home devices in houses has begged the question of security. These devices can be particularly vulnerable to hackers who may want to break in to home owners' private networks.

In response, the Online Trust Alliance recently created a "smart-home checklist," which provides consumers with information to increase the security and privacy of their home. For example, homes that use smart apps and devices to monitor security, temperature, and lighting are collecting personal information about the home owner.

"Although we enjoy the benefits of a connected lifestyle, we must not lose sight of the risks a smart home may pose to our privacy and physical safety," says Craig Spiezle, president and executive director of the Online…

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Real Estate Market Update Nov 2015: Real Estate Brokers Expect Only a Modest Holiday Slowdown

• Prices up 7.3% YOY
• Pending Transactions up 7.8%
• Closed Sales up over 7%
• Only 1.29 Months of Inventory for King County
• 2015 is Busiest October in 10 Years
  

Real estate brokers expect only a modest holiday slowdown, saying strong economy, low inventory make this year "different"

KIRKLAND, Washington (November 5, 2015) – With holidays approaching, real estate brokers usually expect a slowdown as buyers and sellers shift their attention elsewhere. "This year is different," say some industry leaders.

"Today we have one of the best markets we’ve ever seen for sellers," observed Ken Anderson, managing broker and owner at Coldwell Banker Evergreen in Olympia. "Buyers are still surging to the market and…

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Top 5 Home Features That Buyers Are Searching For This Fall

        See Our Results                Ask These Questions                 Our Marketing Program          Free Home Value Analysis

Whether you’re getting prepared to buy a new home or just curious about upcoming trends in housing, there are a bevy of features gaining momentum on the real estate market. From top to bottom and room to room, here are five popular features that homebuyers will be sure to notice this fall.

Bigger Is Not Necessarily Better

There was a time when a bigger home meant a better home, but with the cost of maintenance and heating, bigger homes are experiencing a decline in popularity. Instead of sizeable mansions that look the part, buyers are becoming more interested in houses that are more economical to maintain and…

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Halloween Fun Facts From The Cascade Team

• "Halloween" is short for "Hallows' Eve"  which was the evening before All Hallows' Day celebrated on November 1.
• Ireland is typically believed to be the birthplace of Halloween.
• The word "witch" comes from the Old English wicce, meaning "wise woman." In fact, wiccan were highly respected people at one time. According to popular belief, witches held one of their two main meetings on Halloween night.   
• According to Irish legend, Jack O'Lanterns are named after a stingy man named Jack who, because he tricked the devil several times, was forbidden entrance into both heaven and hell.  He was condemned to wander the Earth, waving his lantern to lead people away from their paths.
• According to tradition, if a person wears his or her clothes…

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Terror At Trossachs - Halloween Night in Sammamish (2015)

Please join the Terror At Trossachs team this Saturday for some fun on Halloween Night, October 31st from 6:00 until 8:30.

The Haunted Graveyard “Terror At Trossachs” will feature several good scares, live actors in costume and animatronic characters full of mischif…. With FULL size candy bars as a reward at the end for those brave enough to make it to the front door!

There is no charge for the event and it’s open to all ages (Though there are some pretty intense scares so little ones should be ready).

Canned goods are gladly accepted if you would like to donate. All donations will go to NW Harvest. While we celebrate being scared on this night, there is nothing more scary than being hungry and your donations are greatly appreciated. Several…

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Top 10 Cities Where You’re Most Likely to Find a 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?

IT’S INSIDE THE HOUSE! 

OK, well let’s just say that anyone can have their doubts.

And there are some places that just lend themselves naturally to ghost sightings and big-time scares. The sites of major, high body-count battlegrounds, for example. Or cities festooned with large, ancient cemeteries, or perhaps those with an abandoned mental asylum or two. So who you gonna call to separate the vaguely creepy from the downright haunted? The Cascade Team, that’s who!

Our fearless…

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Sammamish Ranked The 39th Best Suburb in America by Business Insider

39. Sammamish, Washington

Population: 47,766

Great Schools score: 8 

With an official motto of "Building Community Together," the city of Sammamish in King County, Washington, is as friendly as it gets. The unemployment rate is a low 5%, the median household income is $143,919, and, according to Forbes, the city's crime rate is approximately 90% lower than the national average.   

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