The City of Chelan on July 14, 2010 received a Planned Development District application. A determination of complete application was issued on August 20, 2010. Proposal: The project is a master planned resort that will include up to 45 cottage style one and two story units approximately 8.2 acres. The site will be served by SR 97A and new private roads within the development. Location: The project proposal is located along SR 97A east of Water Street; the area commonly referred to as the “Three Fingers” and upland parcels south of SR97A in Chelan, WA. Applicant: GBI Holding Company – Bill Terhaar PO Box 598; Wenatchee, WA 98807.

As you can imagine, most "highest priced" homes in the Lake Chelan area are waterfront homes. So far, in 2010, the highest price home sale was $2,050,000 for a 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath approximately 6000 square foot home at 142 Spader Bay Road in the City of Chelan. This is pretty close to last year's high sale, if you don't count the big property sale, of $1.95 million.

The 2009 highest price sale was a $3.5 million property with a couple of older homes on it, which are likely to be remodeled or removed, making it sort of a waterfront land sale. The actual highest price home that is likely to be used close to as it was sold was a $1.95 million dollar sale of a north shore home.

In 2008, the highest price residential sale was a home at 1215 Wapato Way in Manson. This is a 7 bedroom, 4 bathroom home on 1.05 acres of 4000 square feet. It was originally priced at $3.897 million and was not on the Chelan MLS until it sold. It’s estimated construction age is 1945. The second highest price sale in 2008 was a home at 85 Lord Acre Road for $2.8 million for a 6 bedroom 3.5 bathroom home. This home is a bit older with a spectacular waterfront. The third highest priced Lake Chelan home in 2008 sold for $2.45 million at 3406 SR 150 in Manson and was recent construction with 5 bedrooms and 4+ bathrooms.

For 2007, the highest price home was again in Manson, at 2528 Wapato Way (Highway 150). This home had 1.94 acres of land with 119′ of waterfront, 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms and was built in 1954. It was on the MLS 125 days and was originally priced at $3.75 million. Most likely, the value was mostly in the land. The second highest price residential Lake Chelan Sale in 2007 was for $2.4 million. This was a 2 year old, 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath home of 3400 square feet on .19 acres. It was on the MLS 178 days and originally priced at $2.5 million.

By dollar volume, Lake Chelan home sales in July were only 49% of one year ago. By number of homes closed, the drop was 40%. Check out all of the July results and historical numbers back through 2005 at the Lake Chelan Real Estate Home Sales Summary. No waterfront homes closed in July of this year. July is historically one of the months of peak sales for Lake Chelan real estate. The Puget Sound region saw a sharp home sales decrease in June after the expiration of the Home Buyer Tax Credit. Typically, there is a strong correlation between what happens in the Seattle market and the Lake Chelan real estate market. Stay tuned to the Chelan Real Estate Blog for the latest real estate market information for Lake Chelan!

The Realist value tool is now available at Lake Chelan. Only NWMLS members have access to it. The Northwest MLS (NWMLS) recently added a tool to their members' arsenals in the Realist ValueMap Tool. This tool provides a map and valuation estimation of a home by address, and the estimated value of surrounding homes! So, I was playing with the tool this morning. Since there was a new short-sale on the MLS in Chelan Hills that looks interesting, I put in that address to see what it came up with. MLS number 996840 is at 308 Butte Road in Chelan Hills. On the listing, it is 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms on .22 acre. This property is listed at $289,000. The ValueMap estimated the value of this home at $313,000. It listed it at 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and only 1422 square feet but did have the lot size correct. If the home has been remodeled since its last sale to add additional space, the value could be low. I did value maps on other properties I know had major remodels and the ValueMap did not seem to include the remodels. The ValueMap data continued with a table below the image above of values of nearby homes. If there were homes listed on the NWMLS in the area, those and their list prices would show as well. ValueMap calculates its estimations combining NWMLS listing data with First American CoreLogic’s industry leading automated valuation model. The feature includes an address search, displays RVM valuations for neighboring homes, and flags current listings and recently sold comparable homes. An RVM is a home valuation tool that displays an estimated market value that is computed using a statistical formula. By my look, it is far from foolproof, but it is still useful. Other items that are available are Market Trends, showing historical median sales price in the area, and notifications of sales of homes in the area. This is another input for both sellers and buyers to understand when they are considering a transaction on a home. Anyway, it is a fascinating tool and Criterion Properties is one of the few places in the Lake Chelan area that has access to it.

Want to know how influential a Lake Chelan Realtor and Blogger is on Fast Company's Influence Project to determine 2010's most influential person on the web? Click my link: fcinf.com/v/ctc2 You can find out how influential you are on the web as well by clicking fcinf.com/v/ctc2

It's been a rough ride for homeowners. Sales are up then sales are down, prices are up and prices are down, you should probably be renting anyway according to some reports. Cheer up, at least one report says Washington is in for strong housing demand by 2014. The report, from Fiserv, says the bottom is near and some areas will see strong increases by 2014 with Washington leading the way. Prices should bottom out early next year, when median prices will be down an estimated 32.9 percent from the 2006 peak.

The Bremerton-Silverdale area, on Puget Sound's Kitsap Peninsula, has the highest growth forecast of all MSAs in the country, with prices expected to jump 44.7 percent by 2014, according to Fiserv. Cathy Doney, general manger for Reid Real Estate in Silverdale, says the waterfront community has benefited from government employment, which has helped sustain the job market, and attracted buyers looking to live close to Seattle at a lower cost. Washington’s second-strongest market is Tacoma, with a growth rate expected to be 33.1 percent. Prices in the Seattle area are expected to grow 25.5 percent by 2014. - Yahoo

So, if this report is right, is now a good time to buy a Lake Chelan home?

The Twisted Pearl has been a rather infamous Lake Chelan party boat the last several years. It has generated complaints from residents and visitors alike for anchoring out near Wapato Point and having big parties. But, it looks like its days on Lake Chelan, at least as the Twisted Pearl, may be numbered.

Here it is, moored off Madeline and Hyacinth roads in Manson with “for sale” painted all over it. It is a marketing job almost as classy as the rest of the operation was.

Finally, last fall, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries and the Chelan County Sheriff’s office put an order on the company to cease its operations. The state liquor control board was also investigating whether the boat was serving liquor without a liquor license.

On the Twisted Pearl’s former web site it called itself a “party cruise,” describing the boat as a “floating bar and grill accessible only by boat, jet ski, raft, or by swimming out.” If you are interested in a purchase, I would have printed the phone number had it been visible. There is a marketing lesson in that.

A Seattle software company provides a web based service that checks whether your property valuation is too high for free and then helps you appeal your valuation and generates an appeal report. ValueAppeal claims 40% of property owners overpay their property taxes. Appealing your property valuation can be a painful process, to find the information, understand it and organize it in a way to make your appeal successful. That also assumes that you have enough information to know that your property is over valued in the first place. ValueAppeal seeks to take the uncertainty and pain out of the process. From their web site, you can enter your address and get an evaluation of whether your valuation is too high in seconds for free. Then, for $99 they walk you through a 10 minute online process to generate a property valuation appeal report that you can use to appeal your property valuation. If your appeal is not successful, ValueAppeal will refund their $99 fee. Their report provides data on other comparable sales that support reducing your valuation as well as unequal assessment information. It also has an area where you can put in unique aspects of your property, such as something like fire damage, that the assessor may not have taken into account. Unfortunately, the service is not yet offered in Chelan County. The company is working on expanding the county coverage area, with an announcement slated for later this month. It currently offers service in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties of Washington state, as well as most of California. The company also compiles detailed information on property tax information in the areas that it covers. For example, earlier this year ValueAppeal issued a report which said that West Seattle's Fauntleroy neighborhood was most overassessed neighborhood in Seattle.

Photographs are the language of real estate marketing. Words just don't express the feel of a home like good photography can. On the other hand, poor photos can convey a message that is detrimental to marketing a home.

An out of the area realtor has a fun site called Truly Awful Listing Photos. You can see bad composition, poor subject choice, photos that just should not have been put in the listing, awful lighting and more. We can joke about this and enjoy this site, but keep it in mind when you are looking at someone to list your home. Look at some of their listings on the MLS. Many shots similar to these can be found on our local listings.

The listing photos of your home are IMPORTANT!

I often utilize professional photographers. For my own pictures, I use a camera with a wide angle lens (25 mm) that allows the proper capture of a room. When there is a view window in a room, I will use High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography to get both the room and the view in proper exposure. I have the experience and the eye to do some pretty good real estate composition too!

Have some fun looking at some of the photo's on Eric's site. This is one of my favorites from his site!

The National Association of Realtors and American Land Title Association are working to get the Federal Housing Finance Agency to effectively ban private transfer fees by banning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from backing loans with private transfer fees covenants. The Federal Housing Finance Agency said Thursday it is zeroing in on the practice after meeting last month with a coalition of real estate agents, title companies and consumer advocates that opposes these fees.

Private transfer fees are a method a developer can use to actually finance a project. The fees, which are attached to the property as a covenant and run with the land, can be securitized by the developer to raise money to finance the project up front, which is not an easy thing to do in this market.

What I find pretty hilarious about this it the title agents, whose job it is to provide accurate title information on properties including their covenants, are supposedly concerned that buyers might not know about the fees! I always find it entertaining when groups use their own incompetence as an argument for something they want done. What is scary is how often that argument works.

It gets even better! As opponents of these fees, realtors are supposedly concerned that the developers might profit from the sale of a property they don’t own, just like the realtors do! With capital gains taxes and excise taxes, it may be that government doesn't want anybody else competing with their use of transfer fees (taxes in this case) either..

I believe the title folks are against anything that smells like it might be the smallest bit of incremental work or liability for them and the realtors don’t want anybody else taking fees on a transaction like they do.

Without private transfer fees, fewer developments will get done and consumers will have fewer, and more expensive options. If you want to comment on private transfer fees one way or another, email: regcomments@fhfa.gov. Please include “Guidance on Private Transfer Fee Covenants, (No. 2010-N-11)” in the subject line of the message.