So you found your dream house, but the walls are (insert color that is hideously ugly to you, here). Paint the house BEFORE you move all of your stuff in. Have another house that you are selling? Get your agent to write the offer so that you get possession of your new house a few days before you possession on your old house closes. This will give you the necessary time to get in, paint, and move your stuff in.

Today’s tip is for sellers - clear off you counter tops and fridge fronts! I was looking through the MLS today and was blown away by some of the photos that I saw in there. There was so much clutter that I couldn’t see/concentrate on the kitchen below it and all that it made me think was that there must not be very much room because there is just stuff everywhere.

So, keep only the ESSENTIALS on your kitchen counters. Example, coffee maker and spices. Do you use the toaster every single day? If no, then put it away and only take it out when you need it. Also, clear your fridge front! I realize that you love looking at Aunty Betty’s Christmas photo, but the potential buyers of your house don’t necessarily want to see it. They want to see your pretty clean fridge and that’s it!

SO CLEAR UP THE CLUTTER!

Here are the real estate sales statistics for Bellingham, Blaine/Birch Bay, Ferndale, Lynden and Sudden Valley for Saturday October 28, 2006. The percentages shown are pending ratios which means the percentage of homes listed that have pending sales. Here they are:

Bellingham: 22%
Blaine/Birch Bay: 14%
Ferndale: 17%
Lynden: 15%
Sudden Valley: 15%

To view graphs for each city and for a further explanation of what the numbers mean, click here.

Also, if you would like to know how many homes sold in the month of September compared to last year in Bellingham, North Whatcom County and East Whatcom County, click here. These stats get updated every month.

Today’s tip of the day is a general one for buyers and sellers - know what you are signing! As you progress through the transaction from signing the Purchase and Sale agreement to closing, you will be signing or initialing more papers than you care to count! Make sure to ask what you are signing. A good agent or title company will explain it to you anyways, but if they don’t - ASK! Even after they explain, if you are unsure or don’t fully understand, ASK before you put pen to paper!

Agents and title companies do these transactions every day and are so used to it that they can sometimes forget that it does not automatically make sense for other people, particularly if you are a first time buyer. It is your name and money that are on the line, so just ask.

Finally, an easier way to search for open houses. Kelli Martin has started a new website www.WhatcomOpenHouses.com where agents can all post their open houses. This new site has huge benefits for buyers and agents. Buyers get much more information about the property, bigger pictures and often multiple pictures, and best of all, they are organized by price and area!

Pretty much anyone who has gone to open houses has had that frustrating experience - you open the paper to the section with the open houses and proceed to look through pages and pages of ads! Each company has their own page, with their own format. Then you have to look through each individual ad to find the ones that are in the area you want and the price range that you want.  With www.WhatcomOpenHouses.com, you can choose the area, then just scroll through your price range - you don’t even have to look at the rest.

The other nice thing is that you get so much more information. Let’s face it - we’ve all looked at a classified ad or open house ad before and wondered what the heck does that abbreviation stand for? While in print each word and letter counts and costs money, on the internet, you have the freedom to explain the houses a bit more fully. This also might save you from going to see a 2 bedroom house when you know that you need a minimum of three because there is more room to describe the house.

As for agents, they benefit because posting their open houses on www.WhatcomOpenHouses.com is FREE!!!!

So far Kelli has been getting 40-50 open houses per week and it keeps growing. So check it out!

We’ve all heard it before in real estate, Location Location Location! While I am not disputing that at all, I would say that there is a very close second: Presentation, Presentation, Presentation!!! While this does apply to both the interior and the exterior, I’m going to focus on the interior today. We’ve talked about this a bit before with the vacuuming and the lights.

Today, the magic word is staging. Whether you have a professional stager, your agent, or just a friend who has a knack for interior decorating, get your home staged. You have your home and furniture set up in a manner that works for you and your lifestyle. However, it could be that a different way shows off the house a bit better. So remember, don’t take it personally when they want to move something, and let the stager do what they came to do.

6 new tenants have signed leases for the new shopping plaza located at Bakerview and Eliza (near Whatcom Community College). Woods Coffee Shop (there are also 3 Woods in Lynden and 1 in Bellingham), Oishii Teriyaki (there is also one at Sehome), Outlaws (new restaurant), Cordata Post & Parcel (from the owners of Fairhaven Post & Parcel), a hair salon and a nail salon are all set to open sometime this winter or spring.

The Bakerview area has grown substantially in the past several years and adding these business will give local residents and students of the college even more options. To view more about this development go to www.bakerviewsquare.com

Today’s tip is for buyers - stop and listen. Once you have found “the house” and you are looking through it one more time before making an offer, take a moment to stop and listen. Do you hear traffic? Dogs barking in the neighborhood? Trains? Or just peace and quiet?

Here are the weekly sales statistics for Whatcom County looking specifically at Bellingham, Blaine/Birch Bay, Ferndale, Lynden and Sudden Valley.

The pending ratio (percentage of homes for sale that have a sale pending) for each city is as follows:
Bellingham: 21%?
Blaine/Birch Bay: 16%
Ferndale: 20%
Lynden: 14%
Sudden Valley: 14%

Here are some graphs showing the real estate sales trends in Bellingham, Blaine/Birch Bay, Ferndale, Lynden and Sudden Valley over the past year and a half. Real Estate Sales Statistics Graphs  

For more information on what these numbers mean and how we gather our information, click here.

Today’s tip is for sellers - when you know that your house is going to be shown (ex/ an agent calls and says they will be there that afternoon) before you go out turn on every light in the house. I mean EVERY light! Turn on lights in walk in closets and leave the doors open - otherwise the prospective buyers may not even know that it is there. Also, everything looks better and bigger when it’s bright. So turn them all on!