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  • 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…

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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…

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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…

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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?…

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“Information and statistics derived from Northwest Multiple Listing Service.”

  • Even as more homes come on the market for this popular sales season, they're flying off fast.
  • Home prices have now surpassed their last peak, and at the entry level, where demand is highest, sellers are in the driver's seat.

Spring homebuyers are pounding the pavement at a furious pace, but the pickings are getting ever slimmer.

Even as more homes come on the market for this traditionally popular sales season, they're flying off fast, with bidding wars par for the course. Home prices have now surpassed their last peak, and at the entry level, where demand is highest, sellers are firmly in the driver's seat.

Northwest MLS figures for last month show a…

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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…

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The spring selling season is upon us, and while it’s traditionally the busiest time of year for real estate, this spring promises to be even more competitive than usual—particularly for first-time home buyers. With ultra-tight inventory and continually increasing home prices, it’s imperative that your buyers be ready to make an offer and move forward on a purchase contract at a moment’s notice.

The Cascade Team is a real estate brokerage whose focus is centered on customer service.  Our customers 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…

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The Offer Countdown Timer:

When we at The Cascade Team receive an offer on your listing, we will now activate the offer countdown on your property website with just a couple clicks. The property website will prominently display the timer counting down second by second until the offer review deadline. This will help us promote your home and let potential buyers know that they have a limited amount of time to get an offer in if they would like to potentially purchase your home.

The property website is linked from all kinds of sites like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Yahoo Homes, Google and many more. In addition we will also promote your listing and the countdown to make offer through social media such as Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn,…

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Homeowners who’ve been through multiple winters know that this time of year isn’t a time to be slacking in home maintenance. There’s more to March madness than just basketball—in housing, it’s the time to make sure owners are staying proactive in tending to their homes through these next few springtime months. 

HouseLogic shares four tasks all owners have to do in March:

  1. Patch up spots on the lawn. As spring showers start to arrive, be sure to cover any bare areas on your yard. This is a crucial task to take care of as snow and ice continue to melt away, and doing so will keep mud and water out of your house.
  2. Use binoculars to inspect the roof and siding. It’s important to look for signs of damage on your home’s roof and siding. To save…

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Looking back at 2017, the number of homes on the market in the Seattle metropolitan area had dropped 10 percent from the previous year—fueling Bidding Wars and a tough market for buyers that was felt all year long. Now, at that same time in 2018, inventory is even worse, dropping an additional 19 percent from this time last year, according to the latest reports.

In the metropolitan area, which includes King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, that inventory drop drove bidding wars in 2017 with 52.4 percent of home sales ended up above asking. Now in 2018 we are faced with an even bigger inventory crunch, that’s not expected to stop anytime soon. Adding to that slowly raising interest rates and buyers are becoming more and more aggressive and in fact…

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