local real estate news, statistics, and commentary without the sales spin.
King County homeowners and homebuyers have another new option as Rebls—a matchmaking service for off-market homes—officially launches today. I connected with the Rebls team a few months ago and have had a few conversations with its founders Bryan Copley and Jeff White. What they’re doing is an interesting and unique approach to buying and selling….
In a recent comment thread a few readers expressed interest in occasional posts on some more homeowner-focused topics, including finishing the “knife catcher” series of posts I began back in June about my personal homebuying experience (yes, that’s my home pictured at right behind Crystal, the Seattle Bubble Mascot). Here are some of the potential…
[Read Part 1: Proposal: Replace the Mortgage Interest Deduction with a Flat Homeowner Deduction] In the comments on the proposal I made yesterday, Doug asked a reasonable question: Have you figured out what the deduction would be if you did this, and made it deficit neutral? That would be an interesting exercise. Good question. Let’s…
In our discussion on Sunday’s poll about whether government policy should be steering people into homebuying, I had an interesting idea that I thought was worth sharing with the whole class. The Problem There are numerous problems with the methods the government has used and is using to promote homebuying. One-time homebuyer tax credits just…
As some of you may recall, I spent the first decade or so of my career doing electrical engineering (i.e. – circuit design, PCB layout, etc.). In that world of custom electronics, every customer seems to want their widget to cost $5, be packed with features that are 100% reliable, and have the design completed…