Buying a Home

The current real estate market is tough for both home buyers and renters. Inventory is low and competition for both is high at the moment. Every week we receive inquiries from potential renters who ask “would the seller would be interested in renting the home they have listed for sale.” Unfortunately, there are a variety …  Read More 

If you are buying a newer home in eastern King County (Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Issaquah, Woodinville and unincorporated King County), you may occasionally encounter a home that is part of the ARCH Program. ARCH stands for A Regional Coalition for Housing which is a program to increase the supply of housing for low and moderate-income …  Read More 

In real estate contracts, time is of the essence. This means that the contracts contain hard and consequential deadlines for when certain things must occur. A favorite tactic of buyers is to set a very quick offer expiration on their offer to try and force a quick response from the seller. Will such a tactic …  Read More 

A favorite question for home buyers is “who is the builder of this house?” Depending on the age of the home, the answer may have little relevance on owning or reselling a home. It can also be a difficult question to answer.  Read More 

In the Seattle area, there is a combination of very old homes (and old sewer pipes) in the city, and mostly newer homes in the suburbs on the east side of Lake Washington. We always recommend that our buyers obtain a sewer scope on the home that they are buying, regardless of its age. This …  Read More 

Market conditions are such that you are very likely to face competition when bidding for a house in the Seattle area. Depending on the house, you could face 10-20 other fiercely competitive offers. Only one person is going to get the house, and winning in that scenario is going to require extraordinary bid terms to …  Read More 

Many buyers want to know how to figure out the Fair Market Value (FMV) of a home. Is it the value assigned by the tax assessor? Nope. Is it determined by an appraiser? No again. Maybe you can look it up in on website like Zillow? That’s not it either. The Fair Market Value of …  Read More 

If you don’t qualify to have two mortgages, you are going to be faced with the problem of having to sell your current home before you can purchase your next home. The solution seems simple, which is to make an offer to purchase a home where the closing is contingent on the sale of your …  Read More 

So you’ve been shopping for homes and just can’t seem to find the right one. You want the charm of an older home, but want it to be filled with modern updates and finishes. Every time a nicely-remodeled home comes up, it is just out of your price range or there is just too much …  Read More 

When you are buying a home, one question that comes up for many buyers is what happens to utility bills at closing. Buyers don’t want to be stuck with unpaid utility bills from the seller, and sellers want to make sure that they don’t pay more on utilities than they have to if the buyer …  Read More 

If you’ve been bidding on a house lately in Seattle (and many other cities), buyer competition is alive and well. Inventory of homes for sale is at lows we haven’t seen in over a decade, so the few homes on the market may be subject to fierce competition by buyers.   Read More 

Inspecting a home before your purchase is a critical piece of due diligence that you should do as a home buyer. One home system that is often overlooked is the sewer line. Normal home inspectors don’t examine it, since it is buried in the ground and it requires special camera equipment to inspect. The prudent …  Read More