Northwest Multiple Listing Service members tallied more than 52,000 single family home and condominium sales in 2009, about 3.7% fewer than 2008, for a combined sales value of more than $17 billion. This report reflects activity of members in 19 counties encompassing nearly eighty percent of the state’s population.

Although the number of sales nearly matched 2008 levels, the dollar volume of the sales fell by 14.6%. Brokers attribute the drop to lower selling prices and higher volume of short sales and foreclosures.

Among the 19 counties included in this report, San Juan claimed the highest median sales price for single family homes at $443,500. King County followed at $380,000. System-wide the median price last year was $280,000.

For condos the median selling price was $235,000, down 7.3% from 2008. King County accounted for 6 out of every 10 condo sales, selling for a median price of $254,000.

Other highlights in the Annual MLS Summary:

• More than 8 out of 10 transactions was a “co-op” sale; listed by one office and sold by another.
• Single family homes accounted for 87% of total sales.
• 802 sales of single family homes fetched $1 million or more. The MLS map area for Bellevue/west of I-405 had the highest volume of million-dollar plus sales (120 closed sales). The highest priced home sale in the MLS system for 2009 was $15,560,000 for a home on Mercer Island.
• Reported 66 sales of condos sold for $1 million or more, 392 condos sold for $500,000 or more. Highest priced condo sold last year was in downtown Seattle for $9,750,000.

In a letter to all Sotheby’s International Realty® Broker/Owners, Alex Perriello, President & CEO of Realogy, the parent company of Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC, reports good news.

Specifically, Realogy announced that Cartus, its relocation services subsidiary, has acquired Primacy Relocation. Based in Memphis, Tenn., Primacy is a prominent relocation and global assignment management company with 700 employees and 25 offices worldwide. Effectively, two of the leading relocation companies in the world are joining forces under the Realogy umbrella.

First and foremost, this is a highly strategic acquisition that positions Realogy for growth across its international and domestic businesses, and we wanted you to hear the news from us firsthand. (The full details of today’s announcement are available in the company press release on Realogy.com.)

Throughout this economic downturn, we have communicated to you, our franchisees, that we remain focused on the long-term horizon. We believe today’s announcement speaks volumes about Realogy’s ongoing commitment to pursuing smart growth opportunities.

What I hope you will take away from this news is an understanding that not only is Realogy focused on building for the future, but that the Company has the leadership, vision and financial strength to be actively engaged in growing its business today.

On behalf of Realogy and the Sotheby’s International Realty brand, I would like to thank you for your affiliation and wish you much success in the New Year.

Congrats to Randi who gets us some good Real Estate press in the current issue of Business Week. In the article by Venessa Wong, Randi Brazen was consulted to contribute her expertise to the report.

Most Expensive U.S. Small Town: Sagaponack, N.Y. was the headline. As reported in this article, Hunt’s Point here in King County comes in at #3, with the home median sale price factoring in at $2,930,863. Randi’s contribution:

In Hunts Point, Wash., the country’s third-most expensive small town, a property’s average time in the market jumped to 149 days, from 83 days before the recession, estimates Randi Brazen, co-owner of Brazen Sotheby’s International Realty in Bellevue, Wash. While home prices in the area have fallen more than 20% in some cases, Brazen says they typically hold their value in the long term because few are available in a region that remains attractive to the rich.

Saying that 2009 was “nerve-racking for everyone,” Brazen expects the real estate market in Hunts Point to rebound as employment opportunities in nearby Seattle improve. “That doesn’t mean prices will snap back up, but it will stop the downward spiral we’ve seen in the past year and a half,” she says.

Full Article

As a leader in the luxury online space, sothebysrealty.com showcases properties in a light consistent with the beauty and distinction they deserve.

Superior photography, state of the art functionality and enhanced property profiles make this a premier luxury real estate experience for those seeking extraordinary homes around the corner or around the world.

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sothebysrealty.com is the leader in the luxury online space and will showcase your property in a light consistent with the beauty and distinction of your home itself. sothebysrealty.com delivers a premier luxury real estate experience to over 250,000 monthly visitors seeking extraordinary homes.

Showcasing your home in an exceptional manner, unlike any other real estate web site.

We like to refer to the visitors of sothebysrealty.com as Connoisseurs of Life and we know they want to search properties not only by location, but also by their desired lifestyle and unique amenities. Therefore, sothebysrealty.com has been carefully designed to provide an exceptional real estate Web site experience, like no other.

sothebysrealty.com offers many features including:

Enhanced Property Photography – up to 20 full-screen photos powering a distinctive property slide show

Search by Lifestyle – because your home is more than the number of bedrooms and bathrooms

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Guided Search and Navigation – best of breed search technology guides the consumers to your home via type ahead search, guided navigation techniques

Microsoft’s Virtual Earth Mapping – map your property and relevant amenities and points of interest close to your home using satellite and “bird’s eye” technology*

sothebysrealty.com international reach and functionality:

Worldwide Property Inventory – sothebysrealty.com receives significant international traffic because it houses all our international properties, offices, and sales associates.

Currency Conversion – international buyers can view and search for your property in their own currency.

Language Translation – launching in January of 2009, our Language Translation project will enable consumers to view sothebysrealty.com in their local language including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Chinese (Traditional) and Russian.

sothebysrealty.com search usability:

• Search for properties in many languages
• Search for properties in any currency
• Search by lifestyle or location
• Slide show with up to 20 full screen photos
• Property and point of interest mapping

Worldwide Exposure

sothebysrealty.com and the homes on our website receive significant exposure throughout many quality website channels in the online and digital space.

With eighty nine percent of buyers starting their real estate search online the plan to market homes must include proper Internet exposure.

Real Estate Search and Quality Content Partners

Our Partners include:

Wall Street Journal Real Estate – RealEstateJournal.com
is part of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network which has doubled its global traffic volume year over year to 40 million unique visitors per month

Trulia.com
is the fastest growing real estate Web site in the U.S. with nearly 3 million monthly visitors and growing

Yahoo! Real Estate
is the #1 destination online for real estate consumers looking for property listings

Google
is the most-used search engine for beginning research on real estate information and services

NYTimes.com/RealEstate
is proclaimed the best address in real estate, logs over 27 million page views per year

GreatHomesandDestinations.com
reaches an affluent audience representing a mean household income of $287K

IHT.com
draws 5.1 million unique users per month worldwide

FrontDoor.com
combines HGTV content and national listings for a unique search experience

Openhouse.com
is a leading search destination for open houses on the internet

Cyberhomes.com
deliver one of the most engaged audiences of real estate users online

AOL Real Estate
The new site offers a better way to find what you are searching for because there’s more to a home search than just price and the number of bedrooms.

Sothebys.com
features properties and banner ads which provide exposure to some of the most qualified buyers in the world

Click here to download a pdf that includes full information on how sothebysrealty.com puts our clients a head above the rest.

According to the latest reports from Northwest Multiple Listing Service, 4,399 buyers purchase offers were accepted during September 2009, the best on record since December 2006.

With affordability benefiting buyers, and smaller inventory than a year ago benefiting sellers, we are looking forward to continued  movement in a positive direction.

Click here for complete information from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

From Mike Good of Sothebys International Realty®

As we prepare to turn the calendar and focus on the year ahead, I wanted to make sure everyone in the Sotheby’s International Realty system was aware of the regulatory changes regarding the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Final Rule, which will go into effect on January 1, 2010.

As of that date, HUD will require that lenders and mortgage brokers provide consumers with a new, standard Good Faith Estimate (GFE) that clearly discloses key loan terms and closing costs. Closing agents will also be required to provide borrowers a new HUD-1 Settlement Statement that clearly compares consumers’ final and estimated costs.

The new RESPA rule became effective in January 2009, but HUD had provided a one-year transition period for the mortgage industry to incorporate these changes.

While the responsibility for the implementation of new GFE and HUD-1 documents primarily impacts the mortgage lenders and settlement services companies who must provide these documents to consumers, RESPA applies to everyone in the real estate profession. Both you and your sales professionals should be well aware of these changes to the documentation that your clients will receive from their lenders and at the closing table. This is especially important for those of you who have affiliated business arrangements such as a joint venture title or mortgage entity.

With this in mind, here are several online resources from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and HUD for you to review and share with your agents:

• NAR’s online RESPA home page, which includes an archived presentation from Phillip Schulman, Esq., a partner with the law firm of K&L Gates in Washington, D.C., who specializes in RESPA and real estate law
• HUD’s online RESPA resource center
• HUD’s new RESPA rule seminar
• New Good Faith Estimate (GFE) and HUD-1 forms

Although HUD recently announced a 120-day restraint in enforcement for non-FHA originators and other settlement service providers who demonstrate good faith in implementing RESPA’s new rules, the department still expects all loan originators to begin using the new GFE and revised HUD-1 beginning January 1, 2010.

Again, the intent of the new RESPA rule is to clarify disclosures to and reduce closing costs for consumers, so it is in your best interests to familiarize yourselves and your sales professionals with the new documents. This letter is not legal advice and is not a compete description of all changes to the rule. Sotheby’s International Realty members should seek legal advice from an attorney familiar with RESPA to implement the required changes.

Click here to see our 2-page spread in the latest Luxury Homes Magazine Seattle on pages 6 & 7.

As reported in the Seattle PI on Dec. 3:

King County house sales continued to surge in November, as buyers rushed to close deals before a tax-credit deadline, while prices remained lower than a year earlier, according to a new report.

Closed house purchases were up 81 percent countywide in November from a year earlier and 78.4 percent in Seattle, according to data the Northwest Multiple Listing service released Thursday. That’s up from year-to-year increases of 33.3 percent in the county and 39.5 percent in Seattle in October.

Pending sales, which indicate more-recent activity, were up about 31 percent in Seattle and 36 percent countywide from a year earlier. That’s about half of October’s year-to-year increase.

The reason pending deals were higher in October and closed sales in November is that buyers were rushing to take advantage of a $8,000 first-time buyer tax credit for sales that closed by the end of November.

Click here to read the full article.

Foreclosure is Devastating to Your Credit

There is nothing more damaging to your credit than a foreclosure. It will reduce you credit score about 300 points and stay there for 10 years or more. If you have both a low credit score, and a foreclosure on your credit report, you will have a very hard time getting approved for new credit to purchase a car, receive a student loan, or even to be accepted as a tenant. Many job applications ask if you have ever had a foreclosure. The devastation of losing your home to a bank foreclosure will keep rearing it’s head for years to come, even after the deal is complete.

Click here to learn about 11 alternatives to protect you and your family from foreclosure.

What is a Short Sale?

A short sale is where a property is sold for less than it is worth. The lender must agree to the short sale, and a process is followed.

1. The homeowner must be deemed in a distressed state, behind in payments, and the property is usually faced with threat of foreclosure.
2. Documents must be completed to prove the homeowner cannot continue mortgage payments, a letter explaining the cause of the financial distress is usually required.
3. Efforts must have been made to sell the property at its full market value and a detailed report of the sales activity supplied.
4. If the lender approves the short sale, a buyer is found, and a price is agreed upon. Then the sales process would continue as a normal sale would.

Many times the lender will pay almost all of the seller’s required fees and commissions in a short sale. The homeowner may walk away owing nothing, but they cannot walk away with any proceeds. The process from start to finish can take anywhere from 3 to 12 months, and help from our Certified Distressed Property Experts© can be invaluable.

Don’t let a temporary problem become a long-term nightmare.

Call Brazen Sotheby’s International Realty today at 425-454-4141, or fill out and submit the information form so we can contact your for a completely confidential consultation. Contact us now so we can help.