Gerhard's View from the Street

My son studies business economics at Wheaton College. The kind of math he does is a bit past my level. So are some of the books he reads. During the Christmas vacation at his grandparent’s home I had a cold and finding sleep was hard. Having read the newspaper front to back and back again and fee...

As I write this, Seattle and environs are very slowly being restored to normal life. Normal is what we take for granted; in this case normal is the supply of electricity. The things you can’t do without electricity are countless, but high on the list are filling your gas tank and getting cash fr...

“The days of paying thousands of dollars to real estate agents are over…” Working with the TV running in the background (a bad habit), this is what I thought I heard. I looked up to see a bird’s eye view of suburbia with signs of promised savings hovering over the landscape. Next, the viewer was ...

So I’ve redesigned my main website – GNAde.com - yet another time. I do this always myself because (a) I know how and (b) I enjoy doing it. Since I write it, design it, code it (strictly html and css) and optimize it all AT ONCE the site is cut from one cloth instead of being a patchwork put toge...

I was looking for one of my client’s addresses in order to send her a Christmas card. Not all the addresses had made it onto my new laptop so I looked through that transparent plastic file box marked “real estate archive.” Next thing you know I spent nearly three hours wading through these paper...

Can you think of a business where each transaction is like a new play being performed by a new cast of characters with only the most basic facts known to all? What is known? The asking price and the location of the subject property. There is no playwright and no director. Some of the actors barel...

As a consumer am I better of with the Internet? As a consumer of products, I routinely shop online: for books and watches at Amazon.com, for shoes at zappos.com, socks at footsmart.com. Yes, as a consumer of products I am better of. Great selection, the means could not be more convenient, pricing...

The obvious preparatory work before making an offer is to find out as much as possible about the property, the neighborhood, the comparative sales data, the market conditions, and, if possible, the seller. Armed with that knowledge and the input from the buyer we decide on the terms of the offer...

I work on both sides of the aisle – buyer and seller side (but never in the same transaction). So I get to see the deal from both perspectives. Understanding what motivates the seller and the buyer helps me to become better at representing either party. Nowhere are those perspectives more differe...

News item: Effective October 9, 2006, King County (Washington) will remove all Deed of Trust Documents from the County Recorder’s Web site. Possible identity theft is the main reason stated by the county. According to the Federal Trade Commission, 5,810 victims of identity theft were reported in ...