Bellingham Real Estate Blog

I just read a post on Open Houses and started thinking about a few ideas I want to try for my next open house.

1. Have a drawing for theater tickets to every open house visitor who came by and subscribes to you email or snail mail newsletter .

2. Have several free copies of real estate reports available, making sure to offer a copy to every open house visitor.

3. Offer homeowners a free CMA of their home, even if they aren't thinking about selling soon.

4. An idea I got from someone here at AR. Candy bars with a custom made wrapper with your pertinent info to give away.

 Any other good ideas for Open Houses?

Are you still paying $1 or more to get phone numbers from information at 411. Switch to 1-800-FREE-411 and get those phone numbers for free. You may have to listen to a brief commercial but hey why pay the phone company when someone else is willing to pick up the tab. Program it into your cell phone address book for easy access.

Here is an interesting take on Google maps. This free service is Maplandia.com http://www.maplandia.com This new service organizes Google maps site maps and satellite images by country and continent. Maplandia will creatke an HTML link you can paste into your blog so folks dropping by can see the map with one click.

The American Museum of Radio and Electricity, located at 1312 Bay Street in downtown Bellingham is a nique museum that houses a  collection of nationally recognized vintage radios and other electronic devices. All of the ancestors of the cell phone, high-speed internet and cable television.

The museum is dedicated to the history of the scientific exploration of electricity,  and the the preservation of antique radios, the golden age of radio, and the dawning of the wireless age. It began in 1985 as "The Bellingham Antique Radio Museum" with Jonathan Winter as it's founder. It was his collection of over 800 vintage radios, dating from the early 20s. In 2001, pre-1920 wireless and electrical devices in the collection of  John Jenkins were added to the museum.

The collection is organized beginning with the 1600s -- the "Dawn of the Electrical Age" -- and ending in the 1950s with the "Golden Age of Radio". There are hands on exihbits to learn from, and a reproduction of the Titanic's radio room. The Museum is dedicated to it's motto "where discovery sparks imagination".

This is certainly one of Bellingham treasures. Pay it a visit.

From Jeff Somers at Zillow Blog:

"Soon, we will be launching the capability for brokers to automatically upload their active listings for free to Zillow, reaching the more than 4 million people who come to the site every month - more than half of whom are in the market to buy or sell.

Even when we first launched the ability for listing agents and brokers to add their listings for free to Zillow last December, we knew we wanted to find ways to make the process even easier. We have talked with numerous agents and brokers around the country - and we have heard over and over that you want to send us listings through a direct broker feed. As I type, our developers are wrapping up work on a very simple tool that will allow brokers to automatically upload listings to the site and keep those listings up to date."

They posted a few days ago that they were going to be launchin a new service for lenders.

What does this all mean to us in the industry?

The Whatcom Museum of History & Art is one of the most interesting and unusual buildings in Bellingham. The red brick Victorian building is trimmed with Chuckanut sandstone. It houses some permanent exhibits of cultural and natural artifacts that trace Bellingham's early history as well as a vast collection of images of local historical value. Temporary exhibits vary widely from things of local significance and artists to international shows like the recent Rodin Exhibit.  The beautiful old building that is home to the museum was built in 1892 as the City Hall. By 1939, a new city hall was built and the  old building was declared outdated and scheduled to be demolished when some local preservationists had the foresight to put up a fight to keep the old beauty around for future generations to enjoy.

The museum opened it's doors in 1941. The building was devastated by a fire in 1962, most of the main tower and roof were burned the museum was not re-opened until 1974. In 1992 3  additional buildings were added to provide exhibit space, room for educational programs and a hands-on children's activity area. It is well worth a visit to see some of Bellingham's history.

The Sehome neighborhood is located northeast of Western Washington University, and the Arboretum on Sehome Hill which tops out at 650 feet above Bellingham Bay. It is one of Bellingham's older neighborhoods and it's history adds alot to Bellingham, it is once a town on its own and one of the 4 towns that combined to become Bellingham. Sehome became New Whatcom and joined Whatcom and later Fairhaven and Bellingham to be the city we know today .

The Sehome Hill Arboretum is 165-acres of open space that is owned and managed jointly by Western Washington University and the City of Bellingham and includes walking trails and dramatic views of Bellingham Bay. I have fond memories of walking that trial to WWU when I lived on Key Street many years ago.

The neighborhood has homes that have views of Mt Baker, as well as some that view the city and even some that have views of the Bay. The Sehome Hill National Historic District (which is recognized by the National Register) holds some old, large, and architecturally interesting homes of historical value in this residential area that has a mix of single family and multi-family units with lots of students in the neighborhood due to it's proximity to WWU. All of the street corner sign in the district have a quality Historic District sign above it.

The Sehome Neighborhood Parks also has Pine & Cedar Park and Laurel Parks in it's bounds. Sehome Village offers Haggen supermarket, REI, restaurants, offices and shops, and with 3 movie screens in nearby Sehome Cinema.

The Cordata portion of the neighborhood was originally developed as a suburban business park, with greenbelts and tree-lined streets. Over time, the area has changed to include a significant residential  and condominium component. It is also a major retail neighborhood including Bellis Fair Mall and several other smaller shopping centers with many national chain stores including Walmart, Costco, Best Buy, Home Depot and lots of smaller stores as well. There are plenty of restaurants and hotels here as well

The Whatcom Community College campus is centrally located in the neighborhood, and brings lots of students to the apartments and condo's nearby. There is a lot of green-space in the area, all ripe for future development.  The area has just recently been slated for a park by the city and the Community Food Co-op is also coming to the neighborhood soon. 

I stopped in at the courthouse the other day to see what was being auctioned off at the foreclosure sale. Four properties were on the list for auction, each one postponed until further notice. So I thought I would take that experience to task and write a bit about foreclosure investing as there is lots of talk about it foreclosures due to the suprime mortgage news.  Investors often look at foreclosure as a 3 step process.

First is the pre-foreclosure stage where the homeowner is being in their mortgage payments and the the bank has started the process of foreclosure, this is the period between the mortgage Lender's notice to the Borrowers of their default on the mortgage payments and the auction sale event that finalizes the transfer of title to the property to the Lender. At this stage the homeowner can still put their property on the market and sell their home. The bank will usually be involve in the sale at this point and depending on the situation at the bank may consider an offer that will be less than the underlying mortgage, this is known as a "short sale."  Banks will sometimes due this to avoid foreclosing on the property, having to have the property in their inventory, get it ready to sell, put it on the market, their in the banking business not the real estate business. If your lucky you may get a home for a discount of 15-20% below market value.

Second step is if we get  to the actual foreclosure.  The mortgage holder must publish a Public Notice of Sale in a general circulation newspaper in the county the property is located in. If the borrower fails to cancel the foreclosure, the property will go to auction. In most auctions the lender can have a reserve price, if the bids are below this price they can reject the bids and the lender will then become the new owner. These auctions can be a great place to buy a property for a wise investor, who knows the value of the property and has their financing in order to buy the property if they have the high bid.

The final step is if the lender takes back the property themselves, as if the reserve isn't met or no bidders. The Property will go into their REO, or real estate owned department and will most probably be listed for sale with a real estate agent and they will try to get market value for the property. Knowledgeable investors can make a good deal in any of these phases, the earlier the better. If you are aware of the market and it's cycles are possibly willing to do some repairs, buying foreclosures can be a great investment, not always an easy one.

If you are interested in learning more about foreclosures and how you may benefit from investing in them, contact me, so we can get you informed and started.