Check out this beautiful Bothell/Kenmore 3 bedroom/2.5 bath home in Aspen Grove Estates.  The home is located in King county, just two blocks south of the county line.  Built in 2003, the home has many lovely upgrades throughout including polished hardwoods, a finished garage with workshop and a finished garden shed/playhouse in the backyard, storage througout the home, and much more.  It also has a wonderful terraced backyard with fruiting and flowering plants, and a patio and lower sundeck for enjoying summer afternoons!

For more informatin, visit the listing website for 7531 NE 204th Place, Kenmore or contact me for a showing!

Just listed this gorgeous like-new end unit in the Camden townhomes, located in Harbour Pointe at 4830 Pointes Drive.  This unit 2 bed / 2.5 bath home is listed at $309,000, and offers the best of Mukilteo living and all the benefits of new construction at an affordable price.

Here are just a few photos to give you a taste.  It really is a beautiful unit!

This is a 1,499 asf end-unit with soaring walls of windows on 3 sides.  Very light and bright, only has neighbors on one side, and faces onto a beautifully landscaped courtyard.

The living room features a gas fireplace and high vaulted ceilings, plus two stories of SW facing windows with remotely operated wood blinds.  The unit gets TONS of light year round, which is so important in our Pacific Northwest climate!

The home was built in 2006 and has been lightly lived in and immaculately maintained, so is like a brand-new unit.  Stainless appliances, brazilian cherry hardwoods and cabinetry, black granite in the kitchen, plus a master with ensuite 4 piece bath including tile and glass shower, upstairs bonus room.

There are so many great features to this unit, among them a quick (+/- 5 minutes) commute to Boeing and other local employers in So. Snohomish county, great schools, upscale neighborhood, side-by-side 2car garage with tons of room for 2 cars, plus additional storage in the unit.  

For more information, please visit the website for this listing: 4830 Pointes Drive Mukilteo MLS 86571.

Lori hit the nail on the head with this one.  This is the stuff I am talking about in my listing presentations and I am finding that the sellers usually get it. 

I attended Raincamp Bellingham yesterday and it was fantastic.  I feel so fortunate as a Seattle agent to be near the epicenter of so much innovation in the online real estate space.  So much great information packed into a full day of presentations by industry experts like Ben Kinney the awe-inspiring broker of the Keller Williams Bellingham office who has taken his online social media presence and turned it into a major business driver for a team of real estate agents that stretches from the Canada border to the Columbia river.  I was impressed with his generosity to present these ideas to agents right in the heart of his own market.  I came away with so many ideas for my own website (Sandykaduce.com), blog (northsoundpropertynews.com), Facebook profile, and that of Gallery Homes and can't wait to implement them all. 

The event was put on by Active Rain and featured panelists such as Galen Ward from Estately, Jonathan Washburn from Active Rain, Spencer Rascoff from Zillow, and others from Market Leader (formerly House Values whose products I have avoided like the plague for years, but it sounds like they may have made some improvements and might be worth another look when the time is right), and Docusign.

The final speaker was Barry Long, whose speech was hilarious.  No matter how bad things may be in this industry (and I do have some days where I feel they are very bad indeed) we have NOTHING on Barry's life.  He is such a great example of how to make the most of your life no matter what the circumstances are that life hands you.  Life landed him in a wheelchair at the age of 22, and he decided to go travel around the world and bungee jump in the chair.  Now THAT's a positive attitude!

I left the conference feeling motivated and inspired, and grateful to be living in an area where there is so much innovation taking place and so many people willing to share what they know, for such a nominal price.  I will definitely be attending other Raincamps in the future!

Mukilteo is a great place to live and it seems like all the big magazine polls are figuring this out.  Last year, Mukilteo was named one of Business Week's "Top 25 Affordable Suburbs."  Last week, Mukilteo came in #69 in the Money Magazine "Top 100 Places to Live" poll, one of only four Washington state communities to make the list.

 I posted about this on my blog, click here to see more.

Here is the market report for Harbour Pointe Village, the neighborhood where I live (and work).  This report covers the period of April 1 - June 30, 2007

• 11 homes listed
• 3 homes under contract (Subject to Inspection and Pending)
• 5 homes sold

Average list price: $528,577

Average sale price: $512,570

Average price per square foot: $245

Market time increased by 9 days on average over 2006, but sale prices also increased 7% over the same period.  We currently have about two months of inventory on the market.

Overall, in spite of recent changes in the real estate market, Harbour Pointe Village home sales are holding up well and continuing the neighborhood's 6 year trend of healthy appreciation.

The key for sellers right now, is to keep in mind that buyers this year have more to choose from, so make sure your home is priced right from the start, and prepare it well for the marketplace so that it looks better than the competition.  Staging DOES make a difference in markets like this one.

Here are the market stats for the month of June in Mukilteo.

All statistics are hand calculated by me, using NWMLS data, and include Mukilteo (in city limits) ONLY for the period June 1, 2007 through June 30, 2007:

Active Listings
Listing Count: 92 (this includes ALL listings currently on the market, regardless of date listed)
Average Time on Market: 88 days
Median List Price: $622,475
Average $ Per Square Foot: $259

There were 25 new listings in the month of June

Under Contract (includes Contingent, Active STI and Pending)
Listing Count: 21
Average Time On Market: 55 Days
Median List Price: $579,900
Average $ Square Foot: $252

Sold Listings
Listing Count: 29
Average Time On Market: 123
Median Sale Price: $620,820
Average $ Square Foot: $238

For the in-depth report and further analysis, please visit my blog at http://northsoundpropertynews.blogspot.com

I posted recently to my blog regarding May market statistics for Mukilteo.  Market time and number of listings available have both been increasing, so I would expect to see some softening on price this summer unless things change--which they may, as school has just let out.

I also posted community events for the summer, including where to go for 4th of July fireworks, the Mukilteo Chamber summer concert series, and other events taking place in or near Mukilteo/Everett.

So, my husband and I took a much needed vacation to Cabo last week, and naturally, all heck broke loose as soon as we got home.  It don't rain but it pours I guess.

On this topic, someone here on Active Rain (I should go back to see who it was but I am too tired/lazy to do it tonight, and I will forget about it by tomorrow) wrote a great post about the law of attraction and how when you go on vacation your clients always choose that time to come out of the woodwork and make a move.  The movie the Secret talks about this--how whatever you are thinking of, whether you are thinking of it and wanting it to happen, or thinking of it and wanting it NOT to happen, has a way of coming to pass.  Because your energy is focused on that thing (for good or bad) and so, your energy attracts whatever it is to you. 

Now, I don't know whether these things can be scientifically proven (and, being married to an engineer I am very aware that there are some people out there who always want scientific proof for anecdotal theories) but, regardless, I believe it because I have seen it work many times in my own life both personally and professionally.  Depending on your religious preferences you might call this focusing of your energy "prayer" or "mindfulness" or whatever, but whatever it is, it does work.

Anyway, this woman (pretty sure it was a she) drew the connection that this is why your clients always want to do something when you are trying to go do something else.  You cause it by thinking to yourself, "Gee, I hope my clients don't need me while I am on vacation."  Then inevitably, they decide NOW IS THE TIME, to do whatever it is they have been putting off!

Now, there may be other reasons for this besides just, "the law of attraction."  In my case (maybe yours too if you have ever been in this situation), before I go on vacation I always make sure to contact everyone that I know is "thinking about" doing anything and let them know my plans.  I don't want them to try to call me when I am at the beach and I can't help them so I try to give them some notice about my plans and make sure they will be covered if they need anything. 

So, it's not entirely attraction at work, it's also that I gave them a little nudge.  All this is just by way of observing that I am suddenly feeling very busy!

So I second the original blogger's advice that if you want to attract business you should book a vacation! 

Okay, maybe not, but at the very least pretend you are going on vacation...and think whatever thoughts you normally do before you go!

Jeff Brown wrote a great post at Bloodhound Blog about "Why the Traditional Brokerage model is fading away." I had a couple of points I wanted to add but it ended up being so long I thought I better post it here.

What real estate is going through is not so different from what a variety of other industries have gone through when facing a commoditized marketplace (lots of people all trying to sell basically the same thing).  When that is the case, profit margin comes from being able to add value to the transaction.  In some cases, this takes the form of brokerages getting involved with ancillary services.  What ancillary services do is give clients a convenient alternative to shopping their business around.  When it is of value to clients, it is a competitive advantage for the broker.

Before real estate, I worked for a consulting services firm that had to face this challenge in the wake of Y2K.  The industry had grown too large to support the amount of business that remained after Y2K was over, and this had a lot to do with the "dot-com bust" of the early 2000s.  I saw first-hand what happened to companies that didn't focus on competitive advantage.  You didn't have to be the biggest or even necessarily the best to survive, but what you did have to do was provide something that your clients wanted.  Mid-size firms like the one I worked for moved into a variety of what I suppose we might call "ancillary services" to ensure that they didn't leave potential revenue streams untapped.  From the client side, it ultimately came down to whether they would choose a variety of "lowest bid" vendors to service their IT needs, or if they would pay a little more for the convenience of having it all under one roof.  The latter were the clients we wanted to get, because with the advent of offshore outsourcing, competing for the lowest bid was just too low margin to be worth it.  Of course, we also moved into offshoring, but it was intended to support rather than compete with, the primary business lines.

My job was to work with our various practices to help them create their competitive advantage statements, and to look at their businesses as part of an integrated service model.  Given their origins as stand-alone companies that only did one thing, getting them to think in those terms wasn't always easy.  That experience has flavored how I approach real estate.  I am always thinking in terms of differentiation--"How can I set myself apart so that a client would choose me over the next person?"

And this is the right approach, it's the approach that led the traditional brokerages to provide ancillary services.  But, when everyone provides them, they lose their status as a competitive advantage.  Then you are back to competing on your other merits or coming up with something new that differentiates you.  Which is kind of where we are today.

Now, there is something to be said for one-stop-shopping.  Most of the clients I have worked with want to get a good deal but they don't REALLY want to shop around for title, mortgage and escrow.  Also, their definition of "good deal" isn't always "who is the cheapest?"  A lot of them will pay for convenience (ultimately this is why they have chosen a real estate agent versus trying to go it alone or do a private sale).  That kind of client might choose to work with a different vendor than the person who is shopping solely on price.  Each client has different requirements.  I try to help them find someone who fits with their requirements.  I give them a list and tell them the pros and cons of each provider (this one is less expensive, but that one is really easy to work with...whatever the case may be) and let them decide what criteria is important to them.  I don't think I push them in one direction or another--I try not to anyway.

Ultimately, some will choose to use the ancillary services, some will choose to go elsewhere, and whatever they decide is fine with me as an agent.  My broker might prefer if they used our title, our mortgage, etc. but I've never been pressured about it per se. 

One other point I wanted to make about commoditization is that ultimately what happens in industries that have become commoditized, and particularly in industries where the internet has a disintermediating influence, is you will eventually have a thinning out until the level of competition returns to a level that the market will bear.  When that happens, a lot of the "mediocrity" will by necessity leave the industry. 

I always think it's interesting to ask agents what they do that is different or better, what makes them stand out, and it never ceases to amaze me how many can't answer the question.  The ones who won't make it are the ones who can't think in terms of competitive advantage.