Category: Get Educated
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Searching for a New Construction Home in Seattle? Here’s What You Might *Actually* Be Looking For!
Like we referenced in this post about new construction, many people moving to the Seattle/Bellevue area are hoping to find a new construction home. As it turns out, what they’re searching for might not actually exist in Seattle or Bellevue proper. Many of our Happy Home Buyers are dreaming about a new construction home that…
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The art to finding a home, not just another house.
Fools rush in and out. Most bad decisions are a combination of impatience, lack of knowledge, and poorly defined goals.
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What We Use to Determine the Health of the Market [Video]
In this episode of Real Estate Market 101 with Get Happy at Home, we share a “behind the scenes” look at what we use to determine the health (aka the vitality) of the market. Our goal is to educate and empower buyers to use these tools on their own, and we’ve broken it all down…
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Hiring a Listing Agent? Here’s How to Avoid Making a Big Mistake
This is always an interesting topic for me to think about. There are many good agents out there, and much of who you decide to hire can depend on personality. But beware as that should not be the only criteria. Usually, realtors will do listing appointments in two meetings: one to meet each other, and…
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Hiring a Buyers Agent? Here’s How to Avoid Making a Mistake
Do you really need to interview your buyers agent? The answer to that is always a big fat YES! Always interview. We meet our prospective buyer clients in a 2 hour meeting, and during this meeting we ask a ton of questions to figure out a few things: A general sense of where their heads…
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Welcome to Our Quarterly Fireside Chat with Matt About Seattle’s Real Estate Market
So here we are at the end of April. I love April because this is the time of the year the market reveals itself to me. In other words, there is enough data to see how we are looking for the year. On the back of so much weird, and hyperbolic news about our market,…
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The Real Facts & Figures Behind Owning vs. Renting
We’re sure you’ve heard the argument for owning vs. renting before. The simplest way of looking at it is: When you pay rent, poof—that money is gone, never to be seen again. When you pay a mortgage, that money goes toward building equity in an investment. But we wanted to break it down by the…
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Say Goodbye to 4% Interest Rates (Take Advantage While You Still Can!)
As new facts come in, we still stand by this, and we’re carefully keeping an eye on things. We wanted to share some of our Seattle real estate market observations in case you’ve been considering buying or selling so that you can plan accordingly. Even though we’re only in February, we are already seeing…
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Finally, Some Balance for Seattle Home Buyers Part 3: Resolving a Wet Basement & Money Off the Listing Price
In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we talked about a couple of different home buyer scenarios that we’ve seen in our recent, more balanced Seattle real estate market. Buyers have more power in our slower market right now, which means you have more bargaining power and can negotiate for the things you…
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Finally, Some Balance for Seattle Home Buyers Part 2: Renovations, Repairs, & FHA Loan Success
Things are a little on the slow side… which means home buyers have more leverage and can score a deal right now! Some of our recent clients, a younger couple in their mid-30s, found a home in West Seattle that they loved. They had an FHA loan (a mortgage that’s insured by the Federal Housing…