The Cascade Team Logo

Tips from The Cascade Team Agents

  • Inventory increase by 14%
  • Total Homes For Sale increases to over 10,000 for first time in months
  • King, Snohomish & Kitsap Counties still under 1 months housing supply however
  • 4-6 Month Supply creates a Balanced Market

 KIRKLAND, Washington (May 7, 2018) – Home buyers may be cheered by an uptick in inventory, but the improving supply is unlikely to reverse rising prices, suggest industry leaders from Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Commenting on just-released figures for April, which showed the highest level of active listings since August, OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate said, “For the first time in a long time we had good news for buyers.” Noting supply is still lower than year-ago levels (down 5.6 percent), it…

3947 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Home purchasers seeking to stand out in competitive housing markets should consider a mortgage professional based in the area.

Don’t discount the benefits of shopping local—even for a mortgage professional.

In tight housing markets where bidding wars are common, buyers who need financing can strengthen their offers by working with a locally based mortgage broker or loan officer, real-estate agents and lenders say. “Getting a local person helps you over certain humps—it just really does,” said Laura Hodgson, a real-estate agent with The Cascade Team , who works in The Greater Seattle Area, and keeps a list of trusted mortgage pros on her website HERE.

Agents want to work with buyers whose lenders know the local market and have a record of…

4149 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

A basic beginner's explanation for our soaring home prices in King County: There are a lot more people searching for homes, and far fewer homes available for them to buy.

There just aren’t enough homes for sale.

The number of homes on the market is at a low point for records that date back to 2000, despite the big increase in population over that span.

King County had only about 2,000 homes (single-family and condo) for sale last month. During the average month of March over the last two decades, the region had more than 7,800 homes for sale — nearly four times as many.

You may think homeowners would want to cash out: The average homeowner across the metro area who sells today has owned the home for about 10 years and makes a 64…

4061 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Great class today at The Cascade Team main office in Issaquah. Over 30 Brokers today took the Core Curriculum class which was instructed by Larry Christensen, and which was fully paid for by The Cascade Team in order to ensure that our Brokers are always on the forefront of the ever-changing world or real estate. 

Phil Mazzaferro from Absolute Mortgage thank you for kicking off the morning with some of the biggest donuts "Janet" has ever seen and also for sharing some news on several exciting new loan programs offered by Absolute!

 

MLO-45204

Senior Mortgage Advisor
Absolute Mortgage
phil@absoluteloans.com | www.eastsideabsolute.com
Cell: (206)947.9020 | Fax: (425) 313-9858

COURSE CONTENT

Topic Area I Legislative Update
Objective 1…

3082 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

For the 13th year, The Cascade Team is once again hosting Project Crayon Drive this April! For the young who find themselves at Seattle Children’s Hospital, sometimes the simple things like a coloring book and a few crayons can be as soothing as the trained staff and smiling doctors. Yet, something as simple as crayons often goes overlooked. Each year, Children’s Hospital goes through over 240,000 crayons, but each child only gets a couple to use.

And that’s where The Cascade Team — in partnership with the Children’s Hospital Guild Association and several area merchants — comes in. Throughout the month of April, agents from The Cascade Team will be walking neighborhoods and spreading the word about Project Crayon Drive.

Last year, we collected…

2576 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

In Seattle — home appreciation exceeded the median household income over the past year.

  • Home values in Seattle have been appreciating more than 3.5 times faster per working hour than the cities’ minimum wage workers earn.
  • In Seattle, the typical homeowner is gaining $54.24 of equity in their home every hour they’re at the office. The city’s hourly minimum wage is $15.00.
  • The typical U.S. homeowner is gaining $7.09 of equity in their home every working hour, $0.16 less than federal minimum wage.

The rapid pace of home value appreciation over the past year may present homeowners in Seattle with an interesting dilemma: Why work a 9-5 slog, when you can sit back and collect substantial hourly home equity “earnings” instead?…

3675 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

 Help us Brighten a Child's Life!

For the 13th year, The Cascade Team is once again hosting Project Crayon Drive this April! For the young who find themselves at Seattle Children’s Hospital, sometimes the simple things like a coloring book and a few crayons can be as soothing as the trained staff and smiling doctors. Yet, something as simple as crayons often goes overlooked. Each year, Children’s Hospital goes through over 240,000 crayons, but each child only gets a couple to use.

And that’s where The Cascade Team — in partnership with the Children’s Hospital Guild Association and several area merchants — comes in. Throughout the month of April, agents from The Cascade Team will be walking neighborhoods and spreading the word about Project…

4572 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

 

We want to help you become the best agent you can be!

Every month The Cascade Team provides professional training in our state-of-the-art agent support center. Certified clock-hour instructors provide you FREE clock hour classes on topics ranging from: Purchase and Sale Forms and Addendums, Title Reports, The Escrow Process, Creating High Performance Client Relationships & More!

In addition, our Engaged Marketing classes are designed to help take you to the next level! Here at The Cascade Team even with record low inventory levels we're adding more listing every week than ever before! Want to get busy again? Give us a call today!

At the Cascade Team we will show you step-by-step exactly what our top performers do to get to the…

3889 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

 

We want to give a big shout out to Estate Fence Company and their owner Byron Bese. Janet and I along with a couple of our neighbors just had our fences done and we couldn’t be happier! We decided to go with their “Clear Cedar” product which is knot free… The cost was about 5% more (So $350 on a $7,000 fence) but the results are about 300 (x) better!

If video below doesn't display please click HERE

Just recently a few of our other neighbors on the street used another fence company which I will not name here. Some of the new fence we did is separated by a small path with the other fencing and the difference is night and day. Just check out the pictures and the video. The Clear Cedar by Estate Fence Company just blows away the…

3545 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Be careful: You and your buyer may be under surveillance when touring a property. Some sellers are using surveillance cameras inside their home to record the sight and sound as prospective buyers walk through. 

The increase in these home recordings—many from security systems that owners already have installed—are raising some concerns surrounding privacy in real estate transactions, MarketWatch reports. 

The trend has spurred what Joan Rogers, a broker with Windermere Realty Trust in Portland, Ore., calls a “Hey, be aware of this” conversation among her colleagues and counterparts. Rogers says the discussion started in her area about three years ago, “about the same time that integrated home media and security became a thing, with devices that…

3165 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post