The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently changed the rules for condominium financing. The most significant change was the elimination of the “spot loan” approval process. The HUD used to allow condominiums that followed the FHA guidelines to be financed through FHA loan programs even if they were not officially FHA approved. This is no longer the case, therefore it is more important than ever for condominium associations to follow and apply for FHA approvals.
FHA loans are more favorable to a lot of buyers because the programs are more lenient towards credit scores and require smaller down payments. FHA loans often require as little at 3.5% down payment. Because condominiums are typically less expensive than homes they are financed easier through FHA loans.
I have provided with a list of the FHA approved condos in Bellingham. These approvals are current through 10/20/09.
Birch Bay Washington is one of the most affordable oceanfront locations along the west coast. Birch Bay is located just one hour south of Vancouver British Columbia and 2 hours north of Seattle which makes it an incredibly accessible location for both Canadians and Americans. Birch Bay has been a popular vacation destination for the last 100 years.
In the beginning, Birch Bay was just a group of small humble cabins located along the shoreline. Over time, Birch Bay has grown slowly but steadily. While many of the small cabins still exist today, there are also modern condominiums and timeshares mixed in along the waterfront. The main road in Birch Bay follows along the large public beach, while most of the homes and condos are located on the other side of the road.
One of the main summer time attractions in Birch Bay is the waterslides. The Birch Bay waterslides have recently been updated and are now part of Grand Bay Resort. The Birch Bay waterslides are open from Memorial Day weekend until the end of summer. The admission price for the waterslides is about $16 for the entire day.
If you are looking for fun day with where the admission is free, then you should check out the Birch Bay shoreline. There is typically plenty of parking and the shoreline is a beachcomber’s paradise. The road is extra wide for bicycles, rollerblades, or walkers. One of the unique aspects of Birch Bay is that the tide is unusually shallow and therefore has extreme highs and lows. The Birch Bay shoreline is a great place for people of all ages to enjoy the sandy beach and tide pools of sea life.
Birch Bay Village is gated community located at the north end of Birch Bay. Within this gated community one can purchase true low bank oceanfront properties in the $700k price range. This is an incredible opportunity for an oceanfront vacation home. In addition to reasonably priced oceanfront, Birch Bay Village also has a community club house, swimming pool, tennis courts, 9 hole golf course, private marina, and 24 hour security.
The activity on my Market Leader website has really picked up this week. I am still averaging a handful of new prospects each week, but some of the past prospects are beginning to become more active. This week I received 4 direct e-mails from active prospects looking for more information about homes.
One of these prospects wanted me to increase the price of their search criteria. I was having a hard time figuring out how to change their current listing alerts, so I called Market Leader to get some help. My call was picked up within 2 rings and answered by a sharp young guy in Kirkland, WA. He was extremely helpful and we fixed the search within a couple of minutes.
For future reference, you cannot change listing alerts, but you can create new ones and delete the old ones. My prospect had completely set up the wrong search and I was able to go into their listing alert account and create a new one with the criteria that they were searching for and delete their old search within minutes. I then sent them a quick e-mail to let them know that everything was back on track.
The team at Market Leader makes us look great to our prospects and prospective clients.
There are 9 main condominium buildings located within the core of downtown Fairhaven. Condos in Fairhaven range in price from $175,000 up to $1M+. To give you an idea of what your money can buy in Fairhaven, I have broken down the condo availability within price ranges.
$175k - $250k - This is a very tough price range for Fairhaven. There are a couple of studios and one bedroom units available in Harris Square or the Fairhaven Square building. There are also 1 bedroom units in the Larrabee condos that sometimes become available under $200k.
$250k - $300k – Pushing you budget over $250k and up closer to $300k, will make a big difference in your Fairhaven condo search. There are typically 2 bedroom (900 sq.ft.) condos available in Harris Square under $300k. This is also the entry price range for 1 bedroom units in the Fairhaven Gardens building. Judson Plaza also becomes an option near $300k, however there are seldom units available in Judson Plaza. 2 bedroom (900 sq.ft.) condos in Creekside also fall within this budget.
$300k - $400K – Stepping up over $300k will considerably open your options in the Fairhaven condo market. This price range also opens up the possibility of condos with views of Bellingham Bay. Nearly everything in Harris Square is available under $400k. There are 2 bedroom condos in Fairhaven Gardens available between $300k - $400k. Some of the larger units in Creekside are available around $350k. The Young condos and Fairhaven Heights also become available over $300k.
$400k - $500k – Once you start shopping over $400k in Fairhaven, you can begin to look at some of the larger condos that Fairhaven has to offer. Nearly all of the condos will be over 1,000 sq.ft. and will have bay views. You can also begin to look at some of the higher end finishes. There are a couple of corner units in Harris Square that fall in this price range. There are also units available in the Young Building in this category.
$500k and Beyond – While there are not a lot of condominiums over half a million dollars available in Fairhaven, they do exist. The Waldron Building currently offers the most expensive condos in Fairhaven with prices ranging up to $1.4M. The Young Building and Fairhaven Gardens also have some units that valued well over $500.
If you are interested in purchasing a condo in Fairhaven, work with an expert. I have been located in downtown Fairhaven for over 6 years and have detailed knowledge of every condominium building located within the core of Fairhaven. I would be happy to educate you on the market and give you a personal tour of the inventory if you think that Fairhaven might be the right place for you.
Ryan Martin – Windermere Real Estate/Whatcom, Inc.
If you are looking into joining the Growth Leader program, be prepared for some lag time. As you are probably aware, real estate can be a 3 to 4 month business. In other words, the things that you do to increase your business today, will likely take 3 to 4 months before they payoff. This is especially the case when working with Internet prospects. Most prospects that are signing up for accounts through the Vision websites are in the very early stages of the home buying process. The good news is that Growth Leader has already planned for this.
The best part about the Growth Leader system is that it takes care of itself. When your prospects sign up for listing alerts, they receive listings without any effort on your behalf. It is sort of like a buffet, you just have to prepare and set the food out on the table and the prospects can take whatever they like on their own schedule.
The key for you is to ask the prospects questions and stay in touch. You can use the default responses to keep in constant contact with high volume of prospects in a fairly short amount of time. Courtney Cooper even came up with a great idea to send one e-mail out to all of your prospects at the same time. Courtney did a great job on the tutorial, so check it out if you have the time.
My Week 8 Weekly Update:
Last week my Growth Leader website produced 91 visitors and 1 new prospect. Currently I have generated 45 active prospects since I joined Growth Leader near the end of March. Of the 45 active prospects, 55% have signed up for listing alerts.
There are a lot of homes in Whatcom County that rely on private wells as their primary source of drinking water. While Whatcom County boast some of the cleanest drinking water in country, it is important that you test your well for E. coli and coliform bacteria. Coliform bacteria will not likely cause illness, but it is a sign that there might be disease causing organisms within the drinking water system.
Whenever you purchase a home on a private well, you should test the water quality by performing an E. coli and coliform water test. If your test comes back positive for coliform bacteria, you should watch this video to learn how to correct the problem.
Coliform bacteria can be eliminated by “shocking the well.” To shock the well you will need a hose, some bleach, and a ratchet set. First, locate the well head and remove the cap with the ratchet. Next, pour bleach into the well. Now, run the hose into the well and turn the water on. Cycle the water between the hose and the well for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, go into the house and run all of the faucets and showers. This will run the diluted bleach solution throughout the house. Run the water through all of the facets for 1 hour.
The coliform bacteria should no longer be present. To retest the water quality, get a test kit from Avocet Lab in Bellingham and fill the bottle up to the line from the kitchen sink. Bring the bottle back to Avocet within 24 hours and wait for conformation. That is it. The process is actually pretty simple.
I have been using the default responses to maximize my time in Vision. One of my favorite things to offer new prospects that sign on is the addresses of home listings. This gives me a chance to offer something in an attempt to build a personal relationship. However, I just realized today that the default response that I have been sending out has a typo, or at least sounds odd. This is something that Vision should take a look at correcting.
Here is the default response.
Addresses of Home Listings
"I have activated your account to be able to view all the addresses of homes for sale in the MLS. From now on, just go back to my site http://www.servingbellinghamrealestate.com/, sign in, and the addresses will appear at the top of the home details.
When you're ready, please call me to let me know you want to go out and visit any homes that catch your eye."
The last sentence sounds really awkward to me. Maybe if it said... "When you're ready, please call me to let me know that you would like to take a look at a couple of these homes." There is just something about that last sentence that doesn't sound right to me.
It is important to understand that there are many micro markets in real estate. When someone says that home prices are down 10% are they talking about homes across the US, within the state, in the city of Bellingham, or in your neighborhood? While real estate is affected at a broad level, it is also highly sensitive to the neighborhood.
It is not necessarily a bad time to sell your home. It really depends on your micro market. Let’s look at Bellingham as an example. There are currently 512 homes on the market within the city. Over the last 6 months the average days on market for homes in Bellingham that have sold is 105 days. Based on these figures you might think that your home in Bellingham will take 4 months to sell, but that is not necessarily the case. Let’s look a couple of niche markets within the Bellingham real estate market.
Cornwall Park is a pretty established and popular neighborhood. Most of the homes were built in the 1920’s. The average price pint in the Cornwall Park Neighborhood is under $300k and lower than the average in Bellingham. This makes the Cornwall Park Neighborhood an ideal location for first time home buyers. Over the last 6 months the average days on the market for the neighborhood was only 39 days. If you currently own a home in the Cornwall Park Neighborhood and wanted to upgrade to a larger, now is a perfect time. Where would be a good place to buy a home in Bellingham right now?
The Barkley Neighborhood might be a good place to target. Most of the homes in the Barkley Neighborhood are priced over $300k. On average, the homes in the Barkley Neighborhood are larger and newer than homes in the Cornwall Park Neighborhood. Over the last 6 months the average days on the market for the Barkley Neighborhood was 134 days. While it looks like it might not be a good time to sell a house in Barkley, it does look like a good time to buy one.
It is important to know your mirco market when making decisions about buying and selling your house. Don’t rely on national media or your local newspaper to sway decision to buy or sell. You should be contacting a real estate professional that knows your micro market. Original Article
I was recently introduced to Roger Hutchison of WebVideoDesigner.com. Although Roger and I both live in Bellingham, we actually met on Twitter. Over the last several months Roger and I have had several tweets go back and forth. At one point he referred one of his friends to list their home with me. The referral ended up not working out as the friend was able to get their former agent to reduce their commission. To no surprise I am pretty sure that their house is still on the market.
Getting back on subject, Roger had been producing a lot of long distance web videos, but was interested in doing more local video projects. Specifically he wanted to launch a new product for local businesses. I have always had a fascination with web video, so Roger and I ended up creating the following video. I think the video turned out great. Had KC and I been better public speakers, this could have turned out even better, but Roger truly did a great job.
I missed my post last week, so I’m writing two this week. Instead of giving another update I figured that I would provide some more useful information with my second post. With that said, I attended Gary Keller’s seminar in Seattle on Wednesday and watched a presentation on Top Producer. I’m also messing around with Graphical Data’s backend IDX right now, so I have been keeping a close eye on the various products that are available to real estate agent right now.
Jumping right into Top Producer, I was impressed with their Market Snapshot product. I like that fact that the monthly updates are e-mailed monthly. That is a really nice feature for real estate agents with a large database of contacts. If Market Leader was to produce a competing product, I would recommend using Google Maps instead of Microsoft. I just prefer Google’s maps to Microsoft’s. I would also make the map a little bigger and try to organize the data a little better. The graph that is next to the map is stupid. They should get rid of that and use images of the homes that sold. That would help consolidate the information as well as add a better visual affect.
Moving on Graphical Data’s IDX and products, I think that they need to more forward on automated information. Currently, they only offer to automatically e-mail listing, which most MLS’s offer at this time. I think they need to get ahead of the curve on the automated systems for agents. I do however like their map search. I was actually a bit surprised that Market Leader doesn’t offer one. I also like how their template websites are hardly templates and that virtually all of the information can be edited, tweaked, and optimized. Here is a sample of my Bellingham Graphical Data Site.
Ryan Martin is a REALTOR® at Windermere Real Estate - Bellingham in the Fairhaven Branch providing full time professional real estate services in Whatcom County and Skagit County. Specializing in Anacortes real estate, Anacortes waterfront homes, Bellingham real estate, Bellingham waterfront homes, Birch Bay real estate and Birch Bay waterfront homes.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
In the beginning, Birch Bay was just a group of small humble cabins located along the shoreline. Over time, Birch Bay has grown slowly but steadily. While many of the small cabins still exist today, there are also modern condominiums and timeshares mixed in along the waterfront. The main road in Birch Bay follows along the large public beach, while most of the homes and condos are located on the other side of the road.
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It is not necessarily a bad time to sell your home. It really depends on your micro market. Let’s look at Bellingham as an example. There are currently 512 homes on the market within the city. Over the last 6 months the average days on market for homes in Bellingham that have sold is 105 days. Based on these figures you might think that your home in Bellingham will take 4 months to sell, but that is not necessarily the case. Let’s look a couple of niche markets within the Bellingham real estate market.
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