The Cascade Team Blog - Selling Your Home

Anxiety among home buyers “incredibly high” as they vie for unpreceded shortage of homes across Washington state

KIRKLAND, Washington (November 5, 2020) – “Finding and buying a home today is more difficult than at any time in the past 40 years of my career,” was how broker Dick Beeson summed up the latest statistics from Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

The Northwest MLS report recapping October activity showed a 40% drop in active listings compared to the same month a year ago, an increase of 16% in pending sales (mutually accepted offers), and a year over-year (YOY) jump of nearly 30% in closed sales. The median price of single-family homes and condominiums that sold last month was $500,000, up 19% from the same period a year ago, according to the MLS summary, which encompasses 23 counties, mostly in Western and Central Washington.

Beeson, the…

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Can We “Talk Turkey” About Your Real Estate Career?

Now is the time to start setting the “Table” for your real estate business for 2021 (And maybe praying that we never see another one like 2020). 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! A recent rookie of the year completed 121 transactions his first year, and another agent will earn over $1.3 million in commission income… And we’ll hand you the keys and blueprints to do exactly the same thing… It’s all up to you!  

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

…

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Trick or Treat: The Oddest Contingencies Sellers Are Requesting

Some home sellers are requesting odd contingencies—from maintaining the wardrobe of a plastic skeleton at the front door to caring for their family pets—before they’ll accept an offer.

Contingencies typically involve obtaining financing or fixing issues discovered during the home inspection. However, The Wall Street Journal reports that sellers, who have the upper hand in the market, are feeling emboldened.

“I’m selling a house right now that is being sold with the cat,” Eli Karon, a real estate professional with Karon Properties in Santa Cruz, Calif., told the Journal. The cat has lived there for three years, and the owners don’t want to relocate him. The property attracted six offers and is currently under contract.

In…

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America’s Most Popular Horror Movie Villains, Mapped

No matter how you feel about scary movies, it's hard to avoid them around Halloween. This is the time of year when the faces of cinema's classic horror villains seem to pop up in every store window and television set you see. Depending on where you live, certain horror icons may be especially hard to ignore. Check out the map below to find out the most popular scary movie villain in your state.

Our corporate headquarters is in WA State where people tend to find the Alien from the Riddle Scott franchise the most terrifying. I’m pretty sure Janet Jolly-Porter our Director of Brand and Marketing would agree as she has already threatened her kids that if Aliens arrive she’s taking them “Out” before the monsters get a chance too. (Here’s hoping she’s…

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Sammamish named best small city to live in America

After topping the list just a year earlier as the "Richest" city in America (See: Sammamish Tops Census List of Richest Cities in America) Sammamish has now been named as the Best Small City to Live in America by Wallethub. 

SAMMAMISH, Wash. -- The Eastside suburb of Sammamish was named the Best Small City to Live in America by a new survey, though it was quite a bit of company from fellow Eastside neighbors near the top of the list.

Wallethub compared 1,200 cities across the nation with populations between 25,000 and 100,000 and scored them against 43 indicators ranging from housing costs to school system quality to restaurants per capita -- even how they are handling the COVID-19 outbreak.

Out of 1,200,…

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Haunted House Hunting Checklist

Looking for something a little “Extra” in your next home? Perhaps bats in the belfries, a strange thumping sounds in the walls, on voices from the basement? Well then you’re in luck… Just in time for Halloween The Cascade Team Real Estate presents our Haunted House Hunting Checklist!  

While some unexpected ghosts may come with a house, most of the surveyed consumers agree on one thing: They prefer to live in a home that is ghost-free. They’re much more willing to live next to a haunted house, though. Nearly 43% of respondents were willing to live next to a house they believed is haunted.

Thirty-seven percent of respondents say they had a feeling the home they wanted to buy was haunted, but they decided to move in anyway, the survey showed.…

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Selling Your Home Shouldn’t Be Spooky!

The only thing more scary than paying too high of a commission to sell your home… Is realizing that you don’t have too while getting even MORE service and support than most brokerages offer at a higher fee!

The Cascade Team Agents are Full Service. We are a real estate company like no other, because of the tools, service and savings we provide our clients with. We understand that in today’s fast paced environment, we need to provide a high level of service, utilize technology to keep our clients up to date at all times and provide added value to both buyers and sellers in the transaction. By leveraging these technological tools, it allows our agents to focus more of their time to servicing our clients, and also provide the most comprehensive…

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Bidding Wars And The Science of Buying in a Low Inventory Market

Understanding the Numbers When Buying in a Low Inventory Real Estate Market

As a homebuyer in today’s market, you’re no doubt at your wit’s end trying to find your dream home.

And when you find a home you love,  you’re competing with all cash offers and bidding wars driving the sales price above what it’s listed for, and many times, even above what the home is actually worth!

While there is nothing you can do to create more homes for sale, you can certainly arm yourself by understanding the trends and patterns in the areas you’re trying to buy in.

While it’s not quite rocket science, there is definitely a significant competitive advantage to those that understand the trends of a real estate market.

Sometimes, being competitive means not…

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Your Home Is Your Greatest Investment! Asking These Questions When Picking an Agent Could Mean Thousands!

Seattle area prices rising during pandemic

The Seattle Times was out with an article with the latest on the Seattle market and how pricing is still rising during the pandemic. I found this was particularly interesting:

Homes in the King, Pierce and Snohomish tri-county area saw average year-over-year price increases of 6.8% in May, according to the new release of the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index — the sixth consecutive month Seattle-area price growth has topped national averages.

This is not surprising. We are seeing good homes in popular locations selling fast, often with multiple offers. Inventory of homes for buyers to choose from is still tight. Buyers who are ready to make a move and want to learn how to beat the…

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Summer 2020 Is A Seller's Market!

The health crisis slowed the market this spring, so buyers are jumping back into the market to make their moves this summer.

Despite the economic downturn and disruptions stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, Northwest MLS member-brokers reported impressive improvement from April to May on some key indicators. The volume of new listings, including single family homes and condominiums, rose 29.2% and pending sales jumped more than 44% systemwide. “The pent-up demand from homebuyers returning to the market continues to support a recovery from the weekly declines observed earlier this spring,” said Joel Kan, an MBA economist.

• Mortgage applications to purchase a home rose 5% for the week and were a stunning 18% higher than a year ago, according…

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