More Raising money for those in need—one putt at a time. Thanks to fundraisers like these golf tournaments, as well as a variety of other fundraisers held by our offices throughout the year, the Windermere Foundation is able to continue to support non-profit organizations that provide services to low-income and homeless families throughout the Western U.S.
Selling Six Key Factors That Affect the Sales Price of Your Home Pricing a home for sale is not nearly as simple as most people think. You can’t base the price on what the house down the street sold for. You can’t depend on tax assessments. Even automatic valuation methods (AVMs), while useful for a rough estimate of value, are unreliable for purposes of pricing a home for sale.
Buying Relocating Your Home to Advance Your Career Many of us dream of getting a better job. But when a promotion or new job opportunity comes with a request to relocate, the result can be very disruptive to your home life. There’s a lot to consider when making this kind of move...
Living 8 Ways Your Kitchen Renovations Could Break Your Budget When you begin planning a kitchen renovation project, you may have no idea how much your ideal vision might cost. The answer will likely depend on several factors, including the size of your space, what you will do to it, and your budget. In the end, the price of a renovation should largely be driven by your own choices.
Design How the American Home has Evolved Owning a home has been an American tradition from the start. But the home itself has changed dramatically over the years. For example, you may be surprised to learn how much the size of the average American home has increased since the turn of the 20th century—especially when you compare it to the size of the average family during the same time period.
Buying Why So Many Americans Are Either Upsizing or Downsizing According to two recent surveys that took industry watchers by surprise, many family homeowners are putting frugality aside and upsizing to new houses that average as large as 2,480 square feet (an increase of as much as 13 percent from the year before), and sometimes exceed 3,500 square feet in size.
More #YourStoryIsOurStory: The Little Blue House It’s tough being a first time home buyer, especially in a fiercely competitive market like Seattle where multiple offers are the norm. Windermere clients Haley and Yash experienced this first hand when they started shopping for a home. With the help of their agent Elsa Nunes-Ueno, they found and fell in love with “the little blue house”.
Living How Long Is Your Contractor Liable? Constructing or remodeling a home is a complex, expensive endeavor. Ideally, everything goes as planned, and when the dust clears, the homeowner can settle in and enjoy the new home — and never think about the building process again.
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More Helping Children and Families Gear-up for Back to School Getting your children prepared to go back to school is stressful enough. We all want to make sure that they are adequately prepared for the upcoming year. Now imagine that you also have to worry about how you’re going to pay for new clothing, shoes and school supplies—it can be quite overwhelming! Many parents just aren’t able to afford all of the back-to-school necessities.
Living 6 Smart Home Gadgets Perfect for Summer Fun Tell your friends and families to clear their weekend schedules throughout the entire summer—your house is the place to be for fun all season long. If you sloughed through winter with visions of making your house the hangout spot of the summer, you’ll want to bookmark this page. We’re outlining the gadgets you’ll need on hand to turn your home into a modern entertaining destination!
Living 25 Ways to Make the Most of Small Spaces Suburban homes—with their large spaces, big yards, and separate bedrooms for every child—will always be popular with families, especially families of four or more. But there’s also a contingent today that’s eager to live in a dense urban setting: a high-rise condominium in the downtown core, a small home in an urban neighborhood, a small apartment, or even a shared housing arrangement.
Market News Nevada Real Estate Market Update Job recovery in the Las Vegas metropolitan area took a bit of a pause during second quarter. May employment was down by 200 jobs from the prior month, but still 21,300 higher than seen a year ago. This matches the annual pace of 21,300 jobs seen at the end of last year, but is below the average annual rate of 32,700 for the whole of 2015.
Market News Southern California Real Estate Market Update Over the past 12 months, the Southern California markets covered by this report added 122,800 new jobs, and the total number of people claiming unemployment insurance dropped by almost 204,000. With these changes, the unemployment rate has dropped by two percentage points from 6.3% to 4.3%.
Market News Oregon and South West Washington Real Estate Market Update As a whole, Oregon’s labor market remains stronger than it has been in decades. Job growth in the second quarter was somewhat muted, but this is nothing to be concerned about. Businesses have expanded to pre-recession levels, so at this point hiring tends to be cyclical rather than expansionary.
Market News Western Washington Real Estate Market Update Washington State continues to see strong employment growth, outpacing national numbers with an annual rate of more than 3%. Interestingly enough, despite these substantial job gains, the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 5.8%. However, I’m not overly concerned about this because it’s largely due to a growing labor force rather than a declining job market.
Living 6 Alternative Flooring Solutions to Refresh Your Home Feeling ho-hum about classic hardwood floors? Here are six alternative floor solutions that can give any room in your house a fresh sense of personality, whether you’re starting from scratch or looking for an inexpensive DIY update.
Buying Planning for the Future: Housing Options to Consider It should come as no surprise that 75% of the senior citizens polled in the latest AARP Preferences survey strongly agreed with the statement, “What I’d like to do is stay in my current residence as long as possible.” After all, home is where the heart is; and the longer you live in a place, the stronger your attachment to it becomes.
Living The Timeless Appeal of the Equestrian Life It struck me, in the midst of a big bustling city where the only horses are the giant stone ones gracing the façades of old buildings and the few scattered cart horses pulling excited tourists through Central Park, that no matter who you are or where you live, the equestrian lifestyle has ubiquitous appeal.
Living Refinancing: What you need to know Thanks to all-time-low interest rates, the number of homeowners refinancing their mortgages is at an all-time high. Of course, no one should refinance just because everyone else is doing it. But, for many homeowners, the benefits are simply too hard to ignore any longer.
Living 3 Garden Alternatives for a Patchy Lawn I’ve met with more than one client while standing on a struggling lawn. “I keep trying,” they tell me, “but the grass won’t grow.” I tell them that maybe this means there’s another option, something even better than a lawn. Maybe it’s time for a garden. And it’s as if I’d just told them the secret to eternal happiness and long life.