After all the articles about the downturn in the economy as of late, like when did it really start and what caused it,  I found that my Barber, Stephanie, had one of the most straight forward methods of determining how bad things were and when it started. 

She only charges $10 per cut and she caters mainly to senior, retired people.

When I walked in the other day and found no one waiting I said where is everybody? Usually the waiting room is full and there are discussions of some kind ongoing.

She said no one was there because of the financial crisis. She said she knew our economy was in trouble starting last spring. I asked her how she knew this. She indicated that as the stock market declined her clientele began to drop off. Most of the men still come for haircut's, however it is once every two or three months vice every month. Many also show signs of "wife" hair cuts or razor marks where they shouldn't have been. Most of the men now ask her to cut it closer than normal so they can last longer between visits. Believe it or not she said she was now going to have to reduce her hours and/or the number of days she works. I hear this comment so often from those who are self employed.

Her bottom line was that she has always observed fixed income people looking for ways to save when the economy shows a down swing. Even though $10 per month doesn't seem like much to most of us I understand that it can make a significant difference to many.

So what does the state of Washington's math education have to do with Real Estate you ask?  I would suggest that if our state doesn't get a grip on math education, people intimately concerned with their children's education might be less inclined to relocate here.  Isn't one of the first questions we as Realtors are often asked when new families are moving into our area is which are the best schools ?

 I am going to put my parent, grandparent and engineer's hat's on to write this blog.

Washington State is one of the worst performers in the United States in terms of grades K-12 math performance. The Fordham Foundation which is one of the accepted experts in measuring math performance by state (and counties) has given Washington State an "F" grade in its public schools math teaching. At issue is the quality of the math standards our state has employed. When employing our existing standards our students (and teachers) have been "falling on their swords" over a long period of time.

In addition to (or because of ) the above situation our Governor has now decided that the soon-to-be employed graduation standard tests (WASL), for reading, writing and math will no longer use the math portion of the exam - because our students can't pass it.

There is much activity on-going in our legislature at this time to provide an upgraded set of math standards for teachers to employ in grades K-12. Numerous individuals, school districts, technical organizations and other groups have people participating in committees or in other ways to advise our legislature. For example, one such group http://www.wheresthe/math.com has provided a revised version of the Washington Exemplary Mathematics Standard: 2008-Revision 2 (PDF) for consideration by the legislature

Our state government appears to here-to-fore not recognized (or admitted) that our math standard, as provided by the State Superintend of Instruction, has fallen short in those categories necessary to put our students on a level with leading states and counties in the world (California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Singapore and Finland to mention a few).

How could a state that claims some of the leading technological companies in the world (Boeing and Microsoft) have allowed such poor math performance in our school system?

I encourage all of you Realtors, moms, and dads to become aware of and do what you can to correct this problem. Who knows, in doing so we might get rid of this "new math" most of us can't understand and revert to a form of the old, tried and true system?

Sweeping changes in math education philosophy including the selection, retention and salary structure for math teachers must be part of the improvements considered.   

To my many Blog fans (both of you) who had thought that I had died; I haven't.

An interesting Real Estate/Engineering event took place a few weeks ago. My wife and I attended a presentation at a University of Washington Civil Engineering facility about the building of the newest (3^rd) Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It was a one and one half hour Power Point presentation made jointly by Joe Mahoney, a Civil Engineering Professor and the Program Manager, Steve Hansen from the primary builder (Peter Kiewit). It described how this (almost) seven year long project was accomplished in very understandable, laymen's terminology using many photos and charts.  With my "engineering hat" on I enjoyed every morsel of the presentation. Among the many interesting facts was that enough cable was used to circle the world twice. However one of the most wonderful parts of the story was the safety record; no deaths and only five lost time accidents. If you had driven across the older bridge as often as we had during the construction period and had seen the conditions the men worked under (heights/winds/cold) you wouldn't have believed it possible.

It dawned on me later that I may be one of very few that has seen all three bridges in his lifetime. In 1940 when "Galluping Gurtie" was but a few months old my father drove our family from our home in Bremerton to Gig Harbor to watch this two lane bridge sway in the wind. I was not present that fateful November day when it blew down but I am sure most of have seen the film clip documenting the event.

The second bridge, completed in 1953 was a four lane bridge, the only one in use until the new one was completed this summer. With the addition of the new bridge we now have four lanes Westbound (old bridge) and four plus lanes Eastbound (new bridge).

For those of us living in the Puget Sound area the commute from "the Peninsula" to Tacoma, then on to I-5 is a relative breeze. The routine, big backups that we had experienced during commute hours over the last several years are now a thing of the past.

 Putting my "Real Estate hat" on I see an even greater increase in the number of people moving west to the Olympic Peninsula in the future. This is due to the relative ease of using the bridge(s) as compared to the (sometimes unreliable) Puget Sound ferry system.

As one might expect there is a (personal) down side to this whole saga.  We have lost what we locals used to think was our well kept little secret. That was the fact we had been lucky enough to live in a relatively untouched part of the world we had fondly referred to as "God's Country". That belief, I am sorry to say, will soon be a thing of the past.

We are very tired of reading all of the statistics and hearing news reports about "the market".

Our local market is Bad!! In fact if Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon were still on the Tonight Show, and if Johnny was a real estate agent, their banter about the local market (based upon our personal experiences) would go something like the following:

ED - Wow Intelligent One - Your monolog tonight would indicate we have a bad market. How bad is it?

JOHNNY - Let me tell you Large One - My partner (wife) and I have had eight listings this calendar year to date. Two clients became disgusted and took their homes off the market. Of the other six we have had price reductions, Broker's Opens, Open Houses and special advertising. None have had offers to date.

 ED - Gee, I though Seattle had one of the hottest markets in the country.

Johnny - Thats right. If you listen to the media, Seattle (King Conty) is experiencing an 8% average price increase over last year, has a median home price of $425,000 and has very few decent homes on the market at this time.

Ed - But you are only 15 air miles from Seattle - aren't you getting some spill over?

Johnny - The 15 miles really tanslates into 1-3 hours commute each way on average due to having to ride a ferry and because of the variations in distances between homes and workplaces in King County. So it isn't as cost effective for everyone as one might think.

Ed - But arn't you selling properties other than your own listings?

Johnnty - Yes Inquisitive One. In our case we have sold four properties amounting to a modest amount in commissions. That amount, however was before our expenses, like gas, cost of doing business and Federal Income Tax.

Ed -  Gosh Great One. It sounds like if you do only somewhere around another $10,000 in commissions this year you will exceed the Poverty Level Income threshold.

Johnny - Look at it this way Mr-Never-Missed-a-Meal, if we didn't have other income ,and had to rely soley on our Real Estate business to put food on the table, we might have been a lot skinny-er by now (which may not have been all that bad).

Ed - Please tell me Great Marketeer, what are you going to do to spark your business for the remainder of the year?

Johnny - I am glad you asked that question old Booming Voice. I have three things I can do, 1/ Consult Carnac, 2/ Have Priscilla Goodbody host all of my future Open Houses, and 3/ employ that old automobile marketing concept wherein all of my sellers can give back $25,000 to their buyer upon closing the deal.

PLEASE ANY OF YOU OUT THERE, CAN YOUR GIVE US SOME OF YOUR IDEAS SO WE CAN SUPPLEMENT JOHNNIES?

One of our grandsons recently graduated from high school. Since when he was very young he has wanted to visit Japan. Because "grandpa" knew all about Tokyo (I had visited a few times during the Korean War),  I  was asked to be the one to accompany him. To make a long story short, I did, for seven days in late June.

It wasn't quite like what I had remembered. When I was there as a young lad the rubble from WW2 was still present;  the occupation wasn't to end until 1952.   However, this I will tell you if you haven't been there lately. Tokyo is a world class city of several million people. Five million/day ride on some 20 odd subway companies that make up the system. The charm of mixing old and new world Japan within the city was wonderful.

There appeared to be virtually no crime (we watched the TV shows and news each night). People dressed very well, especially the working women. The musuems were wonderful and while touring many children asked to be photographed with us. People were extremely helpful and a surprisingly large number spoke English (unless you were way out in one of the many districts off the beaten path).

Tokyo (formerly known as Edo) rose from the ashes of the 1923 earthquake and fire, then again when they prepared the city for hosting the 1964 Olympics. The number of tall buildings, overpasses and modes of transportation was astounding.

Especially surprising was the cost of our visit. It was the equivalent of what one would pay in most major U.S. cities. We ate mostly american food in our hotel (except for MacDonald lunches while shopping). Our hotel featured both American and Japanese resturaunts so we had choices.  

We wandered throughtout the Ginza district, however the gifts we eventually bought were from on-the-street shops. They were tasteful but not overly expensive. The hotel room, albeit small was very clean and efficient.

I left the U.S. in charge of my grandson but by the time we returned he was a worldwide traveler and needed very little guidance.

A few weeks ago our during a regular meeting of our professional engineering society we had as a dinner speaker a young army reserve captain who had just spent a year in Iraq. The story he told was an entirely different account of how things really are over there - and what the long term problems with the county really are.

As an engineering duty officer he commanded a group of about 100 reservists. They were stationed in a small village about 60 miles north of Baghdad. From the time his group arrived their approach was to get to know the citizens and befriend them as much as possible. Soon they were being invited into homes for tea on a regular basis.

 Although they spent about one forth of their time patrolling and looking for possible terrorists they saw virtually no action and no one in the command was wounded during the year they were there. The captain described the situation as follows:

There was virtually no employment in the region. Each family tried to farm a small piece of land handed down from generation to generation. As families grew the lands were divided into smaller portions as more sons were born.  There was no infrastructure in the region. Society and allegiances were based upon tribal relationships. There was no water or sewer system. Wells and effluents from animals and people ran together and mixed at different places. Schools were very poor and the facilities were atrocious. Some power was available some of the time but people tended to hook up all kinds of personal devices with no concern for safety.

When people died from an accident or sickness it was considered Allah's will and was therefore accepted.

The soldiers asked for and received packages from home that included food, clothing and in particular medicines. There was no hospital or medical facility in the area.

What all of the captain's report (including photos) told us was that if we didn't even have the civil war in Iraq the time and costs to bring the country into the 21st Century would be astounding. This kind of information is one of those newsworthy issues that we should all be made aware of - especially our politicians and foreign diplomats. If this kind of information is not made public, the American people will never be advised of the long-term costs that we may incur during our post-war efforts in Iraq. 

A large number of our friends are either retired, semi-retired, or are in the process of deciding when to retire.

 The number one topic of discussion among these people is becoming where to establish their residence upon retiring. You would think most would retire locally and live where their friends and families have resided for so many years. Especially because Washington is one of the nine (I think) states that does not have a state income tax. However all forms of taxation are now driving more and more of their decision concerning where to locate.

Local discussions used to revolve around which states had no income taxes and would these states have the quality of life the retirees would desire.  Recently in the state of Washington the legislature passed a "Death Tax" which could result in a significant percentage of one's estate to be taxed upon their death. The amount that is fenced seems to be one million; anything over that would subjected to a tax. When I say to my friends - yes but why worry, how many of us will have an estate over $1 M? It is surprising how many (never divorced) retirees that have had solid professions or businesses and good investments will in fact have over $1M estates.

Many of our retired friends now live, at least part time, in California, Nevada and/or Arizona. Some still maintain their primary residence in the state of Washington and live in their retirement homes only during the winter months.

It appears California has passed, or has contemplated legislation that would cause people that live in that state less than 6 months of the year to pay a prorate income tax based upon the percentage of time they live in California. And of course we have all read about professional athletes having to pay a share of their salaries to California based upon when they play a game in that state. California tax issues are unnerving many of our friends who have winter homes in California.

Perhaps the one good thing California has done in the tax arena is to pass Proposition 8 which allows individuals to be paid money back from their property taxes in cases where it can be shown that their property has decreased in value. If fact some communities in California are working on "blanket" methods to establish areas where property values have decrease such that they can refund automatically based upon the value decreases.

All of the above are creating some interesting factors for consideration with our friends who are thinking about where to live when they retire.

My wife, Karen and I had the occassion to take a two week vacation between 21 March and 6 April. We drove from our home in Silverdale, Washington through parts of Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Idaho. We stayed with friends in Palm Springs, Victorville, Calif and Mesquite Nevada along the way. I played golf numerous times and of course we ate at many resturaunts enroute. These things we noted:

 Gas prices varied from in the $2.40/gal range in Utah to an average of  $3.29 in California for "regular".

 On-the-road prices for meals and motels were very inexpensive in Idaho and Utah in particular. We stopped at a number of truck stops and mom and pop resteraunts in small towns wherever possible.

 Going South from home, traffic along I-5 and HW 99 was horrific in most places. Too many trucks and a tremendous amount of road construction along the way. Returning North (en-route home) we took Mainly I-15 and I-84 from California into Portland, Oregon. That route from California through Nevada, Utah and all the way North to Portland, Oregon was very pleasant. Utah had the most beautiful scenery of all of the States.

As far as incidents along the way, we had three close calls, all by drivers in California cutting us off while driving on freeways. We drove at about 80 miles per hour on most freeways. Even at that we were seldom in the "fast" lane. We took a large rock in the windshield while traveling in Idaho and the glass now needs replacing.

We did not see a drop of precipitation from the time we left home until out return - which was unbelievable.

 Real Estate seemed to be booming everywhere we went. In some areas there were a large number of homes on the market, however. Most of the desert communities we were familiar with were booming compared to our last visit two years ago. Drinking water appears to be of the greatest concern in many of the high growth areas in the Southwest.

 As we drove through the West and Southwestern parts of our country we couldn't get over the high percentage of "unused" land, and of course we thought of the poor souls living in LA, Chicago, NY and the like. Why does anyone subject themselves to the ratraces we experience in our large cities we wondered. (Yes, we know employment is the major driver.)

Our "bottom line" after this sojourn was - our country has it's problems, but we are so lucky to live in these beautiful United States of America.

About one month ago we lost a sale as a result of an inspection process wherein the inspector wrote that a building permit for an add-on RV garage on the home had never been approved or signed off.

 The would-be buyer was so concerned that he might have to tear down this beautiful garage, or at least have it reinspected and brought up to today's criteria, that he opted out of the contract.

After much research on our part as the sellers agents we found the following:

a. The sellers had lived there 4 years and had no knowledge of the 10 year old permit or it's status.

b. The County could not tell us what their archives on the matter were because there was a suit being brought by one of two contractors who maintained the archives for the county and therefore none of this kind of data could be accessed at this time.

c. The sellers contacted the original owners and their contractor and were told the final inspection had taken place and the permit was signed off. The contractor indicated he would sign an afidavit to that effect if needed.

As Realtors we begged the question why an inspector had checked with the county in the first place to determine if an old permit had been satisfied. He didn't document any problems with the structure, he just raised the question about the permit. In any event he instilled enough doubt and concern in the mind of the buyer that the deal was not consummated.

Now comes an article in our local paper, the Kitsap Sun on 7 March revealing that there are thousands of building permit "in limbo" in our county from many years back (See Article Here). In the article it pointed out some 2,700 building permits were never officially closed out. But the real eye opener in the article goes on to state how the county has handled some of these "open" permit issues over the years. There are many examples of actions the county has requested, most of which would require large expenditures by present day owners, most of whom were not even the owners when the supposed transgression occurred.  

Lastly many of the home owners have been paying taxes for structures listed on their respective county records that the county claims have not satisfied their own building permit requirements??

The good news is that a local developer, Ron Ross has come to the aide of one couple and documented the situation, at a cost of $14,000 (see video at www.kitsapspeaks.com) in order to help the county and the public resolve this long standing problem.

An interesting question for homebuyers has always been what will be the cost of utilities for the home they are purchasing? Many buyers request that a seller provide them with a representative number of bills for the various utilities as part of their data gathering process before purchasing a home.

In recent years there have been significant changes in comparative costs for gas verses electricity. In the past the Pacific Northwest had been fortunate to have had relatively cheap electricity, due in part to our wealth of water driven power plants along our various rivers. The relatively large disparity in gas vice electric costs has now disappeared. Only the dreaded concern of foreign oil having a significant impact on future natural gas prices limits more companies and individuals from using more natural gas-fueled appliances.

A major concern with electrical power usage is that unless something is done in the near future, we will not be able to cope with the ever increasing power demands. Data indicates that in the United States power usage has been increasing at a rate of 1.7% per year while capacity increases have only been on the order of 0.5% per year. One solution would be to reduce power consumption during peak load times, thereby saving power and reducing costs to consumers. Most power companies employ a system wherein customers are charged more per kilowatt hours when used at peak power periods than they would be changed during normal or off-peak periods.

In an effort to reduce electricity costs in the future, the Associated Press published an article recently that described a potential method for homeowners to better control electric appliance power usage. To verify the adequacy of the concept a pilot program has been started in several Washington State cities. The program consists of placing dryers and water heaters, each having special circuit card installed, in a sample number of homes in various areas of the state. The special circuit card will allow the monitoring of selected characteristics of the local power grid through the home's electrical outlet. If the pilot program is successful future appliances will have the capability to recognize a peak load period on the power grid and consumption can be delayed, or deferred to a less than peak usage time with no degradation to the particular function the appliance is providing.