Public Service Announcement for people employed the real estate field: Whether you like it or not, the general public uses the term “Realtor” in much the same way that we use the terms Kleenex, Q-Tip, Band-Aid, Jell-O, Styrofoam, and many others. Despite the fact that “Realtor” is a registered trademark that refers to a specific…
Category: Features
The Monthly Payment Buyer
The excellent personal finance blog Get Rich Slowly (highly recommended—one of my daily reads) posted a link yesterday that reminded me of a topic that I’ve been meaning to post on. As I read the story, titled “Cars affordability: Cheapest since 1980” I couldn’t help but think about the stark contrast between the price trends…
Anecdote Extravaganza
It’s been a while since the last anecdote post, so I thought now would be a good time for an update. First up, let’s go way back to early June. Remember the million-dollar new construction in Redmond? It was originally listed in mid-May for $1,625,000, and the last time we checked in it had taken…
In a Nutshell
True story. A friend of mine was renting a decent apartment in the Fremont / Greenlake area in early 1994 for $850 per month. In late 1994 he bought a decent, mid-range house in the same area for $150,000. Over the next 12 years, he didn’t do any major remodels, just regular maintenance and a…
Anecdote Updates & YAWA
I think it’s time to update you on some of the local action (or lack thereof) that I’ve been keeping my eye on. I’ll take these in the order that they were originally posted. First up, we’ve got the park-backing property down the street from me. The last time I mentioned it (way back in…