St. Patrick’s Day is always a special celebration for me – even though I’m a few generations removed from actually being very Irish. But I do know that my O’Shea family originally came from County Cork and County Kerry in Ireland. I also know that I’ve been saving money so that my wife and I can go tour castles in Ireland on our 20th wedding anniversary!

If you decide to experience some authentic Irish celebrations – here are a few local Irish Restaurants and PUBs:

Seattle area:

Kell’s Irish Restaurant and Pub – Pike Place Market, 1916 Post Alley, 206-728-1916 (come early!)
The Dubliner – Fremont, 3405 Fremont Ave N, 206-634-3161
Fado Irish Pub – Downtown, 801 First Ave, 206-264-2700
Paddy Coyne’s – Lake Union

Northend:

Mick Finster’s Pub & Grill – Edmonds, 24001 Hwy 99, 425-775-2121
Shawn O’Donnell’s Rest. & Pub – South Everett, 122 128th St SE, 425-338-5700
The Irishman – Downtown Everett, 2923 Colby Ave, 425-374-5783

Eastside:

JJ Mahoney’s – Redmond, 8932 161st Ave NE, 425-558-1866
Wilde Rover Irish Pub – Kirkland, 111 Central Way, 425-822-8940
Celtic Bayou – Redmond, 7281 Sammamish Pkwy NE, 425-881-0704 (shuttle bus from Marymoor Park every 15 mins from 4pm to 2am)

Or you can stay home and cook up this fine Irish feast.

May your blessings – outnumber the shamrocks that grow And may trouble avoid you – wherever you go.

P.S. Do leprechauns get angry when you make fun of their height? Yeah, but only a little!

Happy St. Patty’s Day, Andy

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Embodying everything ‘Lodge’, at 4500 square feet, with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and 3-car garage, on 1.75 wooded acres located midway between Bothell and Snohomish, off Highway 9 in Cathcart, this home offers refuge from the hustle and bustle.

There is a primeval connection between humans and nature that makes it impossible for us to step through the door of a log home without acknowledging the union of beauty and emotion that occurs when nature’s raw materials are rendered skillfully into architectural bliss. Only the blackest of hearts could remain unmoved by a tour through a home this exceptional. Even if your bell is only rung by the sleek chromes, blacks and whites of Modern architecture, or your heart simply sings at the sight of a freshly reworked turn-of-the-century Craftsman, I defy you to resist the tug of that portion of the human genome that has no memory of plastic.

Inhale the spruce and cedar scented air, slide your stockinged feet on the gleaming maple floors, and gaze into the open-beamed log rafters 21′ overhead as you melt into a chair in the living room, heated by that most primal of all elements- fire; held captive in the Bitterroot Granite and slate gas fireplace that stretches gracefully upward through the cedar tongue and groove ceiling.

Finishes and Construction Details include: Clear finished Engellmann Spruce Swedish-cope logs, Maple hardwood floors with Brazilian Walnut border inlays, Cedar-wrapped double-pane windows, SIPS insulated roofing panels under architectural composition roofing tiles, Granite countertops, Hickory Cabinets and built-ins, Cedar Tongue & Groove ceilings throughout, tile kitchen floor, 1500 square foot entertainment deck with hot tub, R/V Parking with 50A service, Built-in 10KW backup generator, Approved 4-bed septic system, Additional basement storage with roll-up door, 4′ height crawl-space with concrete floor for additional dry storage, Abundant storage throughout.

List Price: $850,000
MLS#: 34200
Address:8828 172nd St. SE Snohomish, WA 98296
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 2.5
Square Feet: 4,500
$/Square Ft: $188.88
Lot size: 1.75 Acres
Year Built: 2004
Taxes: $7,962.70
School District: Snohomish
Property Flyer: Log home flyer

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Tags: log home, luxury, Snohomish

We recently returned from a business trip to New Orleans (and before everyone asks – no, it wasn’t during Mardi Gras!), which was host to the international convention for Keller Williams Realty International. The trip yielded many new ideas and philosophies for our business, but I won’t bore you with that right now. Instead, we want to share with you our five favorite things about The Big Easy.

5) Everything but Bourbon Street – We got to our hotel at about 1:00am on Friday night, and while our initial intention was to find a blues club and a glass of wine, I thought our late arrival would surely shelve these plans. One of our friends had arrived earlier, and in waiting for us, had brewed himself a pot of coffee, and there wasn’t any way he was going to let us go to bed without a quick walk down Bourbon Street. Our hotel was two blocks from Bourbon Street, so within a couple of minutes we were introduced to New Orlean’s most renowned destination.

I won’t get into everything we saw, smelled, or stepped on, but we all left a little wide-eyed. The street is woven in debauchery, and the seams are stitched with alcohol and waste. If you’ve been to Bourbon Street, I don’t need to describe it. If you haven’t been to Bourbon Street, you probably don’t want me to. I’m thankful that we were in New Orleans for several more nights, and that our experience of the city wasn’t defined by this one late night walk.

4) Architecture – Bourbon Street is located in a neighborhood called the French Quarter, and if you go on either side of Bourbon Street, the appeal of New Orleans grows considerably. The French Quarter is the oldest neighborhood in New Orleans, although not necessarily the most well-built. Most buildings share a wall with the neighboring building, and they don’t necessarily match in size, color, or style – which makes for an interesting study in contrast. Many walls aren’t square, nor are their floors level – but the exacting nature of the engineering is not what generates the appeal. These buildings give visitors a sense of history, and begins to impart a silent understanding of the city to its visitors. This city is resilient, as are its people.

3) Music - I told everyone that asked me about my upcoming trip to New Orleans that I was most excited about finding a blues club and enjoying the music with a glass of wine and a smoking cigar. Many of the clubs on Bourbon Street did have live bands, but they weren’t what I was hoping for. I thought for sure that off of Bourbon there had to be a place where I would recognize a familiar riff off a steel guitar, the warble of a harmonica, or the haunting melody of an organ. On Monday night, despite my exhaustion, Andy and Dennis talked me into delaying sleep to continue our search, and it resulted in the most memorable night of the trip.

We ended up on Bourbon Street, right at its start, at a watering hole called “The Blues Club.” We had had our doubts on previous visits, but when we walked in on this night, it was obvious that more locals than tourists were there, and they had come to hear “Rooster and the Chicken Hawks.” I don’t know anything about Rooster, and the club was dark, but I’m guessing he’s no younger than 75, and he was dressed to the 9’s in a powder blue, pinstriped, luminescent suit and pristine white leather ankle-high disco boots. My wine might have been in a plastic cup that night, but we were drinking the blues from a hose. If you’re ever in New Orleans, “Rooster and the Chicken Hawks” rock The Blues Club most Sunday and Monday nights.

2) Food - Andy should probably write this paragraph Andy is about 150 lbs and eats more than anyone I’ve ever seen. This was never more obvious than when we were in New Orleans. We ate gator sausage and crawfish remoulade  at “The Gumbo Shop” (although a couple in our attendance have had better gumbo elsewhere), we drank coffee and ate beignets at “Cafe Beignet“, filet blange and bananas foster at “Brennan’s“, pizza and calzones at “Angeli’s on Decatur“, and key-lime pie at “Crescent City Brewhouse.” All in all – the food here is decadent, and worth every one of the three-plus pounds we’ll all have to wrestle off at the gym.

1) The best part of New Orleans – the people. I have to think that the average living wage in New Orleans is far less than that of Seattle, but you can’t tell it from the faces of  the inhabitants. There are exceptions of course, but the people of New Orleans are either well-medicated or genuinely happy. There’s a sense of community here that we haven’t seen in other large cities – even more than what we’ve seen in most small towns. The cabbies all wave to each other, and you can’t walk down the street without seeing “Who Dat?” on a t-shirt or as graffiti on the wall. I have to imagine that enduring through an event like Hurricane Katrina and it’s aftermath will give an entire town perspective, and that a collective celebration of a recent Super Bowl victory might bring that same town some unity, but I think that what this town and its people share transcends an event or two.

Thank you New Orleans for being such gracious hosts to a bunch of real estate agents. Who dat?!

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Tags: fun, New Orleans, thoughts

Pickett Street Properties is proud and honored to announce that all 4 of us just received the “2009 – 5 Star Realtor Award, Best in Client Satisfaction,” recently published in Seattle Magazine. This is a great honor for us – because our greatest desire is to serve our clients incredibly well. Only 758 local Realtors received this award of the over 20,000+ licensed Agents in our area.

Here’s how the awards are determined:

First, over 22,500 people who recently bought or sold homes were surveyed by mail and phone.  Next, professionals in the mortgage and title industry were surveyed for their nominees.  Stacks of surveys were received, screened and scored by Crescendo Business Services.  Finally, a blue ribbon panel of local industry experts reviewed the finalists list – and the winners were announced!

Those surveyed were asked to evaluate their nominees based on nine criteria:  Customer service, communication, finding the right home, integrity, negotiation, marketing the home, market knowledge, closing preparation, and closing satisfaction. We want to thank our clients and those we work with for nominating us.  We are thrilled with the awards, and will continue to do our best to exceed our clients’ expectations and goals.

Several Agents we know keep telling us how lucky we are.  I think Thomas Jefferson said it best: “Luck is a dividend of sweat.  The more you sweat, the luckier you get.”

While many in our area continue to complain that “nothing’s happening” – and that the real estate market is “still dead” – we beg to disagree: As a team, we currently have 15 homes Pending, and many more homes For Sale that are receiving regular showings!  And as a team, we’re currently helping  12 different Buyers find great homes and properties all over Puget Sound.

Finally, I’d like to quote one of my kids’ favorite burger-makers, Ray Kroc (founder of McDonalds): “If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.”

We do love what we’re doing.  We strive to put our customers’ goals first.  And we’re thrilled to serve our clients, and to earn success. We’re proud to be winners!   And we’re looking forward to helping many more clients win in 2010!

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Tags: 5-star, Andy, Dennis, designation, Jesse, Lisa, Pickett Street, Seattle

I just listened to a great call with an eye towards what we can expect in the year 2010 in the housing and rate market.  A great point was brought up about the cost of waiting.  Right now the government has pushed some major incentives into the market.  In December of 2008 the government announced a purchasing program that pushed rates roughly 1% lower than where they were the previous month, and had been for almost a year.

The Government is also allowing for a TRUE TAX CREDIT of $8000 for first time home buyers that is set to expire in April.  These 2 things can make a huge difference for a first time home buyer.  If you wait to buy and rates go up the roughly 1% that most experts are forecasting, you would be looking at a cost of about 5% of your loan amount upfront to buy down your mortgage rate back down to current levels, on a $200,000 loan that is $10,000.  Add to that the loss of the tax rebate, that is nearly $20,000, or about 10% of the purchase amount.  A more impressive number is the lifetime cost of a mortgage that is 1% higher than the available rate today.  The 30 year cost of a $200,000 loan with a 1% rate increase is $45,000.

This is a call to action, if you are debating buying your first house, or moving up to a larger home, please consider the cost of waiting.

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One of the most frustrating forms of a real estate transaction of late is the “short sale.” We’ve had a lot of questions lately about this kind of sale, so I want to address some of the primary questions and myths.

1) A boy named Sue: There are a lot of misconceptions about short sales, starting with their name. A “short sale” is not a denotation of time – short sales actually take a long time to close. A short sale is a real estate transaction where the seller owes more for the property than the property is currently worth. In other words, the seller doesn’t have any equity and in order to sell, the bank is going to have to agree to accepting less than what they’re owed. For example, John Doe bought a property in 2007 for $380,000. It’s now 2010, and the local real estate market has tumbled. In a “choose-your-own-adventure” twist, let’s say that John (1) got divorced, (2) lost his job, (3) is transferred out of state, (4) develops a medical condition that forces a move, or (5) simply can’t afford his home anymore. John’s house is now worth $340,000, and since closing costs for most sellers run about 9% of the purchase price, if he was able to sell his home for $340,000 his net proceeds would be $340,000 (sales price) – $30,600 (closing costs), or $309,400. John owes the bank $380,000, so in order to sell, either John has to come up with $70,600 (which he doesn’t have), or (more likely) the bank is going to have to accept $70,600 less than what they are owed. The bank is going to end up short – so, this is a short sale.

2) Mr. & Mrs. Scott Free…: For a seller, deciding to sell your home as a short sale is not an easy one, and so we are always going to encourage our clients to consult with a bankruptcy attorney and their financial adviser. The primary benefits of a short sale to a seller will be reflected in their credit report – if they want to buy a home again in the next 2-3 years, then a short sale will be less damaging to their credit than a foreclosure and/or bankruptcy. The other benefit is simply timing – due to the overwhelming amount of short sales in recent history, the government has instituted The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act which runs through 2012. Under the provisions of this act, sellers that short sale their home will be forgiven the potential tax burden that would otherwise occur because of debt forgiveness. For example, if the bank forgave John Doe (in the example above) a debt of $70,000, the IRS would normally treat that as taxable income, and now John Doe owes taxes on the amount the bank forgave. Because of The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, this forgiven debt will not be taxed, and John won’t owe taxes because of it. There are exceptions to this act, which is why we encourage our clients to speak to their lawyer and their financial adviser. Still – the primary benefit of selling a home as a short sale is that it can be less damaging to your credit.

3) …or not? Why wouldn’t I sell my home as a short sale? While the bank may agree to accept less to get the property sold, this doesn’t always leave the seller off the hook for the remainder of the balance. Indeed, there are cases where foreclosure is a better option for clients than a short sale (in short, talk to a lawyer and your financial adviser). If the bank (or banks) has agreed to a short sale, they’ll often forgive most of the debt, and may ask the the seller to sign a promissory note for a lesser amount, perhaps in the form of an interest-free or low-interest long-term loan. In a short sale the seller may not get off completely scott-free, and may have remaining debt after the sale of the home. Still, this debt will generally be much less than the amount forgiven.

4) I want to sell my home as a short sale – what should I know and do? Contact a bankruptcy attorney and discuss your options (if you don’t currently have a bankruptcy attorney, call us for a referral to one). It might cost a couple of hundred dollars, but it could save your credit and a lot of pain and suffering. Contact a financial adviser to see how a short sale or bankruptcy would affect your assets and the future of your assets. Contact a listing agent that has experience marketing short sale properties, and make sure that they work with an experienced negotiator that is going to negotiate on your behalf with the bank. Be prepared – this is usually a long and frustrating process, but working with a team of capable people will save you some suffering. We have enough experience to know what banks will and won’t pay for, and which banks are going to take a long time (national franchise banks) and those that might respond more quickly (local banks).

5) Who pays the real estate agents? And the excise tax? We don’t work for free (not on purpose anyway), and the State of Washington is going to want their 1.78% excise tax on the sale of your home, so a lot of people wonder how these get paid in a short sale transaction. For the most part the bank pays these fees. They usually negotiate these fees down, so the real estate agents might make a little less, and the buyer might have to kick in a little money to get the bank to move forward to closing. The State of Washington doesn’t forgive excise tax easily, so the banks have to pay excise tax if they’ve agreed to a short sale.

6) I’ve heard buying a short sale can be a great value. They can be, but for a buyer, there’s nothing short about a short sale. The process can take 6 weeks or 6 months (even longer – one of our short sales took 2 years!). The seller doesn’t have any money, so the properties usually aren’t in great condition and they aren’t going to be paying for any repairs. Yes – there is value to be had, but only for the patient. If you’re looking for a real value, focus on bank-owned properties. There’s a reason banks agree to short sales – on average short sale properties cost the bank about 15% less than if they were to take that same property through the entire foreclosure process.

Moral of the story: if you’re thinking about selling your home as a short sale (or if you’re a buyer thinking of purchasing a short sale property), you need to call us. Everyone’s situation is different, so the internet won’t give you the answers you need. Let us sit down with you and go over your options. We’re happy to help even if we don’t end up listing your property. Leave us a message at (425) 502-5397 or email us at info(at)pickettstreet.com.

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Tags: excise tax, short sale, thoughts