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February 2007 |
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Dear Friends and Clients, Hummingbirds in Jan? I’ve
always been told to take down hummingbird feeders at the end of summer. That’s so they don’t stick around during winter and
starve… when you forget to feed them. We
dutifully took ours down around the end of September.
But in December we noticed a hummingbird “flitting” around
looking for food. So out came
the feeder again. Suddenly we
had lots of hummingbirds - all fighting to claim the feeder.
We bought another feeder for the front of the house, and now we
have more hummingbirds more often than we’ve ever seen during the
summer. An ugly Pierce County rumor I just
heard it yesterday so I’ve not had time to confirm it, but Pierce County
may be considering some sort of critical area ordinance (CAO).
Not sure how far out enactment may be, but it will probably mimic
King County’s CAO that took away a landowner’s right to use 65% their
undeveloped land. Supposedly
it took those landowner rights away for the benefit of the general public
(primarily those owning smaller, already developed property in cities).
Of course, the owners still get to pay property taxes on the land
taken… If you
own undeveloped ground in Pierce County, you’ll want to pay attention
and hang onto your wallet. Lambing season is here Two new
female lambs came yesterday morning.
Birth is still a miracle. We
have a couple more ewes waddling around that are almost as wide as they
are long – it must be awfully uncomfortable.
Hopefully, we’ll soon have a several more new lambs and no
neighborhood killer dogs. Home Loan facts A lot
of people don’t know the workings of the home loan business, and
there’s really no reason they should given how seldom the average person
takes out loan. Lenders
(whether a mortgage broker, mortgage lender, or your local bank) get rate
sheets at least every day. Rate
sheets contain what the secondary market is quoting for different types
loans for that day. Your
lender takes that quote and marks it up to include profit and overhead,
then quotes you a loan rate and terms.
What most people don’t understand is that the variance between
secondary market quotes rarely
varies by more than 1/8 of a point (percent). In
other words, every lender’s cost of underlying loans is pretty much the
same as everyone else’s. Their
overhead, and especially profit, varies widely as do the ways they’ll
quote you a loan – including loan origination fees, points, rate, junk
fees, etc… It
follows that the way to compare lenders is to have them quote (at the same
day and time) the specific loan at the rate, term, and type you select,
and without any third party fees – only lender fees.
The number of points is then the only variable.
Of
course, you’ll only get a quote. Until
your loan is locked (and you won’t really know if its locked), your
lender is just proposing. Even
then lenders have been known to change by the time docs arrive at the
closing table. More Eminent Domain Abuse The
seven Strobel sisters were long time owners of a diner in Burien. But the city decided it wasn’t upscale enough for the
“Town Square” development in planning.
Rather than condemn the property and sell it to a developer, which
would risk a lawsuit, the city decided it would put a road through the
property. The
city manager told his staff to “make damn sure” the road went through
the property. When a survey
exposed the road would only clip the property and not affect the building,
the city staff came back with a new site plan that put the road through
the middle of the building. A trial
court said the city’s actions might be “oppressive” and “an abuse
of power”, but let the condemnation go ahead regardless.
The Washington Court of Appeals affirmed the decision and the State
Supreme Court refused to hear the case. But
wait - Washington State’s constitution that explicitly says “Private
property shall not be taken for private use (with some very limited
exceptions).” Of course that’s all a giggle in light of Washington’s
Community Renewal Act that I detailed last month.
Ugh! January’s Market Prices
across the total Northwest MLS market area (19 counties) rose nearly 10.6
percent compared to a year ago. Including
condominiums, single-family home prices increased area-wide nearly 20
percent. In the
four-county Puget Sound region, the median sales price for last month’s
closed transactions of single-family homes was $40,000 more than a year
ago, or 12.3 percent. Condominium prices in the four-county area jumped
21.3 percent. Inventory
is up 39% over January last year, and sales are down 6.9% - slowing but
still a seller’s market. Pretty
good activity considering the snow and power outages. Want to know why lower priced condos are now so in demand now? A
household earning the current median King County income of around $65,000
can afford a home priced up to $256,000.
Currently, the median asking price (half cost more, half are less)
for a single-family home in King County is $529,950.
There are only 136 single-family homes priced under the $256,000
threshold in the entire county. That
total is about 2.6 percent of the single-family homes in the county
on the market. Seventeen of
the county's 39 cities have no inventory of single-family homes priced
under $256,000 and another seven cities had only one listing apiece.
The median condo sold price in 2006 was $255,000. It
doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see there’s too little supply.
It’s “drive till you qualify”.
The Growth Management Act mandates an adequate housing supply by
law. Somebody is screwing up
– guess who? Stay
well. Stay frosty. Lee R. Mason
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