Northwest Living | Bellingham Real Estate Market

Whatcom County - The Whatcom County Association of Realtors (WCAR) are promoting a huge CountyWide weekend of open houses through out Whatcom County with well over 600 homes open to the public on both Saturday and Sunday.

One of the biggest open house events being held this weekend will be in the community of Liberty Park in the North Bellingham area of Ferndale, WA. Custom home builder Roosendaal-Honcoop Construction will have seven brand new homes open to the public and for sale. Besides the homes being open to the public R/H Construction will also be putting on a free barbecue for guests & offering some pretty nice door prizes to those who enter a ballot.

Mike Kent will be broadcasting Saturday with his “Radio Real Estate” show live from Liberty Park from 10 AM to 1 PM as well. Mike is also an experienced Realtor that works at the local Windermere Real Estate Company. With this event, the builder is expecting well over 200 people to attend the open house and visitors will be able to view seven of his quality built homes.

If your going to attend any of the open houses this weekend from the CountyWide event around Bellingham or Whatcom County, I would definitely put this one on your list. In one stop you can view seven finished homes, enjoy a barbecue, and enter win some great prizes.

Peoples Bank will also be on site as well as Whatcom Land & Title. The builder will be on site to answer any questions about their new homes or if your considering having one built. I will also be at this event as well, because I’m proud to say I have represented Roosendaal-Honcoop Construction new home sales for the past 15 years.

Liberty Park is located just off of W. Smith Rd. between Northwest Rd. & I-5. For more Directions to Liberty Park & a quick Google map visit Liberty Park for Directions. The Liberty Park community is just inside the new city limits of Ferndale, WA.

Update Saturday April 18, 7PM: We had a huge turn out with between 300-350 people in attendance. Here is a link to the Podcast of Liberty Park’s open house on Mike Kent’s Radio Real Estate show conducted Saturday April 18th. Mike thanks for doing your Real Estate Radio show at our Liberty Park open house.

Jerry Campbell - The Muljat Group - Bellingham, WA New Homes

Roosendaal-Honcoop Construction, Inc., a Whatcom County general contractor, is celebrating its 30th anniversary with an open house Saturday, April 18.The public is invited to enjoy food and beverages from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 18 at Roosendaal-Honcoop Construction’s Liberty Park residential community in Ferndale, just a quarter-mile east of the intersection of Interstate 5 and West Smith Road.

Roosendaal-Honcoop Construction is owned and managed by lifelong county residents Gary Honcoop and Roger Roosendaal. The company offers experience in residential construction, both homes and remodels, commercial, industrial and pre-engineered steel construction.

Roosendaal-Honcoop Construction has successfully completed several residential communities in the Ferndale area: West 54th Lane, Byers Lane, Bellaire Estates and Myers Estates. It also built 13 homes at Westview Drive in Lynden and now is focusing on Ferndale’s latest flat-lot neighborhood, Liberty Park. Visit libertyparkhomes.com on line today.

With both partners still active in the business, Roosendaal-Honcoop Construction now has 30 employees. By developing and implementing educational programs and safe operating practices, company employees have worked more than 10 years without a time-loss injury. Via the Bellingham Herald. 

The company headquarters is at 5977 Guide Meridian in Bellingham. For more information, call (360) 398-2800.

Jerry Campbell - The Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Bellingham Home Builders

Initial construction of U.S. homes unexpectedly surged in February, after falling for eight months, according to a government report released Tuesday.Housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000 last month, up 22% from a revised 477,000 in January, according to the Commerce Department. It was the first time housing starts increased since June, when they rose 11%.

Economists were expecting housing starts to decline to 450,000, according to consensus estimates compiled by Briefing.com. Still, starts are down more than 47% from February 2008, when over 1.1 million new homes broke ground.

New construction of single-family homes, considered the core of the housing market, increased 1.1% to an annual rate of 357,000 versus 353,000 in January.

February’s increase was driven by a nearly 80% increase in construction of multi-family homes. New construction of buildings with 5 or more units increased surged 80% to 212,000 from 118,000 in January. 

Applications for building permits, considered a reliable sign of future construction activity, rose 3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 547,000 last month. Economists were expecting permits to fall to 500,000.

While the surge in new construction was a welcome sign for the nation’s battered housing market, analysts warned that the increase could be short lived.

“With new home sales still falling and the months’ supply at a record, there is no reason for homebuilding to rise,” wrote Ian Sheperdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in a research note. “This is a temporary rebound, not a recovery.”

New home construction surged in the Northeast, jumping nearly 89% last month. Starts also increased in the Midwest and the South.

In the West, where the housing market was overbuilt in the boom years and where there is a glut of foreclosed homes, starts declined nearly 25% versus the previous month.

Jerry Campbell - The Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Bellingham Real Estate

Mortgage applications remained at their highest level in more than five years last week, as borrowers took advantage of attractive rates and rushed to refinance their home loans.

While low rates are a great opportunity for borrowers with solid credit and plenty of equity in their homes, those in danger of foreclosure are sidelined, and defaults are expected to keep rising in the coming months.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday its weekly application index was essentially unchanged for the week ending Dec. 26. The index came in at 1245.7 from 1245.4 a week earlier. Applications surged earlier this month to the highest level since July 2003, when refinancing activity boomed at the peak of the housing market.

80 percent of applications came from borrowers looking to refinance at more affordable rates, the trade group said. Refinance volume dipped by 0.4 percent, while purchase volume rose 1.4 percent.

The trade group’s application index is still below its peak of 1,856.7, reached in May 2003 at the height of the housing boom. The survey provides a snapshot of mortgage lending activity involving mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts. It covers about half of all new residential mortgage loans each week.

An index value of 100 is equal to the application volume on March 16, 1990, the first week the MBA tracked application volume.

Interest rates have plunged since the Federal Reserve said last month it would buy up to $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities in an effort to bolster the long-suffering housing market. The Fed, starting early next month, will buy securities guaranteed by the government-controlled home loan giants Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, a federal agency.

The average rate for traditional, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.03 percent from 5.04 percent a week earlier, according to the MBA report. That was the lowest point in the weekly survey since rates fell to 4.99 percent in June 2003.

The average rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages fell to 4.79 percent from 4.91 percent a week earlier, while the average rate for one-year adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 6.15 percent from 6.36 percent.

Jerry Campbell - The Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Bellingham real estate

Lynden, WA - In an amazing comeback in the fourth quarter of the state’s 2A Football Championship, the Lynden High School Football team defeats power house Prosser High 35-34. With only 2:22 left in the game and down 21-6, Lynden scored two quick touchdowns to tie the game against the previously unbeaten and defending state champion Prosser Football team.

In double overtime, both teams scored two touchdowns, with the game ending on a missed two point conversion by Prosser. What an amazing ending to a high school championship and especially against a program like Prosser High. They are coached by Tom Moore who’s son Kellen Moore, quarterback’s the Boise State Mustangs who are 12-0, and highly ranked nationally. Kellen’s brother Kirby Moore set state records in receiving this year and is also headed to Boise State next year.

But on this day the Lynden Lions were a better football team and in the end they were crowned Champions of 2A Football. This is the second time Prosser’s season ended with a loss in the state championship to a Whatcom County football team. In 2006 The Ferndale Golden Eagles, led by Jake Locker defeated Prosser and Kellen Moore for the state championship.

Congratulations to the Lynden Lions Football team and coach Curt Kramme on a very exciting year. This is the Lions second state football championship in the last three years, winning the state crown in 2006 as well.

Jerry Campbell - The Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Lynden Real Estate

Bellingham WA - over the past couple of days I’ve talked to at least four to five local Bellingham mortgage lenders and it seems the concensus is that rates on thirty year mortgages are down around 5.25%. With those kind of rates being offered, most of these lenders are locking a lot of loans for consumers in our local bellingham real estate market.

I’m not sure if these loans represent home owners that are refinancing, buyers getting financing on a current home purchase, or buyers locking loans for something they plan to buy soon. The positive in all this good news, is that the activity in the local mortgage lending is up all across the board. I think the next couple of months, as long as rates remain low, will actually be busier in home sales than we have seen in the last year or two.

I’m really surprised that more home buyers are not taking advantage of this rare timing of really attractive interest rates, depressed home values and the fact that it’s a buyers market. I think once the holiday season is over and we start to get into to the new year, we will see some upticks in our local Bellingham real estate sales numbers.

Whats really fueling this drop in interest rates is the ten year long bonds which have droped from a range of about 3.25 to 3.50 down below 3.00 and as low as 2.67 just today. That’s just incredible and reflects strongly in whats happening with interest rates on all kinds of mortgages. I really can’t see interest rates dipping to much further and I would strongly suggest anyone thinking of locking a rate, should be doing it sooner than later. This is obviously just my opinion, but I really can’t see why anyone is waiting if they want to secure some great rates right now. 

Jerry Campbell - Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Bellingham Real Estate

Bellingham WA - in a recent survey more than half of the real estate agents who responded think the national real estate market will finally hit bottom sometime early in 2009, according to the Campbell Communications marketing-research firm. Fifty-two percent of agents who took the survey said the country should see the bottom of the housing market in the first six months of 2009. Additionally, 7.7 percent said prices have already bottomed out, and 16.5 percent believed that the bottom will happen in 2010 or later.

Traditionally, by the time you get to March, you’re entering into the spring-summer homebuying season, and that’s when sales pick up. If interests rates are still under 6% by then and home prices are still soft, we should start to see some improvements in our local Bellingham real estate market. Sales this year have been down about 32% across the board, if you include all of Whatcom County’s home sales.

So if the survey is correct, then what the real estate agents are saying is that as sales pick up, prices are also going to firm up or solidify at some point. I think locally as we approach the end of 2009 and the spotlight starts to shine on the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics we will most definetly see our Whatcom County real estate market return to normal.

In the survey, more than 2,500 real-estate agents also identified the three most resilient markets in the nation for selling homes. They mentioned that if they had to pick three states in the country that are large states and where property values really haven’t declined that much and employment has held up, the three states that would fit that criteria would be Texas, North Carolina and Washington state. It seems like every article that has been written during the past three years always includes Washington State and the Puget Sound region as one of the top performing areas in the country.

The biggest problem were having in Bellingham is that buyers that want to buy have to sell their current Bellingham home first. This creates a challenge for both home buyers and home sellers in making successful transactions.

Some of the fears home buyers have are with the difficulty in obtaining financing and the thought that home prices will continue to fall. Most Bellingham Mortgage lenders that I have talked to though, say that locally, lending has not been anything near as bad as other areas of the country. Locally, you can get thirty year fixed mortgages at around 5.75%, which is pretty good coupled with lower home prices.

I think people are just waiting to hear that the market has hit bottom, and once that reasonates through the markets, that’s when you will see buyers return in numbers. Right now, home buyers just seem afraid to purchase a home and then have their home value decline immediately by 10 percent or so based on what is happening to other properties in some communities across the nation.

But I also belief that some sellers are are also a little unrealistic about what their home is worth on the market, pricing it well above the going rate. When your in a down market or soft market like this, the last thing you want to do is price your home above the market. If you take this approach and home prices continue to drop, the home seller will be chasing a down market and end up getting less than if they had priced it right to begin with.

Well, lets see what happens this coming spring and hope that our Bellingham real estate and Bellingham homes for sale markets will begin to return to something more normal.

 Jerry Campbell - Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Bellingham Real Estate

Bellingham WA - For home sellers looking to sell in this tough real estate market, the exterior of your home could make or break a sale. Whether it’s just doing a thorough clean up, exterior painting or an exterior remodeling project, that’s where home owners today will see their highest return when it comes to time and money spent prior to marketing their Bellingham home.

On a national level, wood deck additions and all types of siding replacements - Hardiplank fiber cement, mid range vinyl, and upscale foam-backed vinyl - returned more than 80% of project costs upon resale. Of these, the most profitable project was the Hardiplank fiber cement siding, which recouped 86.7% of costs, followed by wood decks at 81.8%, mid range vinyl siding at 80.7%, and upscale foam-backed vinyl siding at 80.4%.

Because today’s home buyers have much more to choose from in the way of housing inventory, any Bellingham home for sale must make a positive first impression. If you can wow a potential home buyer on the exterior, they will usually want to see the inside for a closer detail look, and increase your chances of making an offer. The curb appeal of a home today is very important in the eye’s of today’s home buyer’s. Most exterior clean ups can be performed quickly and easily, but for what ever reason they are not always being done. This is a missed opportunity by many Bellingham area home sellers.

If your marketing your home in the fall or winter you can do simple things like cleaning up your flower beds, rake up the fallen leaves, empty out the gutters, clean windows, and add some holiday decorations. In the spring and summer make sure the grass is cut, weed the flower beds, add some hanging or potted plants, and clean the sidewalks, driveways and porches. Always start at the front of the home working towards the sides and then eventually the back of the home. The staging of a home is not just for the interiors, the outside might be even more important to attract potential home buyers.

In addition to wood decks and siding, window replacements and kitchen remodels also returned a relatively high percentage of remodeling costs on a national basis. All types of window replacements - upscale and mid range wood and upscale and mid scale vinyl - returned more than 76% of costs. A major mid range kitchen remodel returned 76.0% of project costs, while a minor mid range kitchen remodel returned 79.5% of costs.

A home’s overall condition, appearance, location, and the areas economic climate are all factors that will influence the value of any remodeling project. That’s why it’s important to consult with a professional Realtor in your area when you want to enhance the value of your home. As Realtors we see hundreds, if not thousands, of homes every year with home buyers and we can provide valuable insight into what projects and improvements will make a difference with local home buyers. Give us a call and we would be happy to answer questions or view your Bellingham property in person to consult you on the local Bellingham real estate market.

Jerry Campbell - The Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Bellingham WA Real Estate

Seattle, WA - Advancements in technology have forever changed many aspects of our lives, especially in our homes. While smart home devices have been around for years now in small numbers, a new breed of computerized products from a new diverse group of suppliers is ready to enter the marketplace. This is good news for developers who, if they add smart home automation systems as a value added service, can expect long-term revenue streams. 

One product example being marketed for homes is a wireless keypad that can activate lighting, arm and disarm a security system, operate a garage door, set off a panic alarm, and change temperatures. It features an elegant, slim design which mounts on any wall where a light switch is desired but electrical wires aren’t available to connect it to.

An LED indicator on the front of the switch visually confirms that a signal has been sent. Applications for the new keypad include the ability to control lighting where a wired switch is not possible and to place the control station anywhere desired, e.g., a desk drawer, bedside or in a detached building for safety purposes.

In the Seattle real estate market there are new homes for sale with high tech features of the future, a smart building technology with premiere interactive software design and networking that provides residential services all with the touch of a button. The interactive network allows owners to utilize the homes amenities, observe security functions and review and communicate various home functions. This is all done through one unified system, a wireless touch screen located in the residence. Features include:

 
• Always on High Speed Internet. With near T-1 speeds to the unit, residents enjoy lightning fast downloads and send and receive music, pictures and videos like never before. 
• High Quality Digital Phone Service. “Ready-to-Go” digital phone service provides owners with flexible service allowing unlimited local and long distance calls as well as advanced digital phone services. 
• Automated Amenities. With the touch of a button residents can retrieve their car from valet, add and remove access rights for guests, access security cameras around the property, place a spa reservation, etc. — Video and Entertainment Services. The television will never be the same with the highest quality digital television on display in each home. Channels are available from around the world.

To help builders generate revenue streams, an idea has been spawn with a new business model that enables developers to generate revenues from advertisers and commissions from nearby service providers that soon reap a return on their smart home investment.

Everybody wins; the resident gets the convenience of smart home automation and value-added services, the developer gets additional revenue streams, and advertisers and local service providers gain access to their customers.

The concept could be used in large condo projects or even some housing communities. Centering on elegant touch-screen control panels, a company could provide residents with a wide variety of smart home features, such as security, lighting and climate control, as well as managing all their music, satellite TV and home theatre entertainment and digital storage systems. In addition it could enable numerous interactive communications and services with the larger community.

For the developer, the system could provide an essential security solution and is also a medium for communicating community news, upcoming events, alerts and general information about the community that would be of interest to residents. For nearby shops, restaurants, sports clubs and service providers the technology provides a medium for them to unobtrusively advertise themselves to their customers.

The old idea of smart home features like climate control and automatic curtains is only a fraction of what today’s technology is capable of, systems today enable developers to provide their residents and local businesses with true value added services which in turn generates an ongoing revenue stream for them.

In our market in Whatcom County, I could see a community system like this being of great value to communities like Semiahmoo Resort, Homestead in Lynden, or one of the future Bellingham communities where residents want community information. Developers are continually pushing the envelope in terms of the level of luxury they are providing for their residents. Now that they can turn what use to be considered an additional cost into a source of revenue, I can see developers adopting smart home solutions for their high end customers.

Smart home technology has generally entailed either large-scale custom solutions for luxury homes, or inexpensive gadgets used by tech-savvy consumers wanting to design and implement the solution themselves. A new range of wireless technologies look set to take the price of automating a home into the middle ground between the two extremes seen previously, meaning that automation is set to become much more affordable, and mass-marketable.

At a time when property development is changing, so too will the minds of business development decision makers. Builders and property developers who view smart home automation systems as a cost-effective value added service and invest in this unique way to conduct business, could be at the forefront of realizing long-term revenue streams.

Jerry Campbell - The Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Whatcom County Real Estate

Puget Sound, WA - When the U.S. housing market hit the skids, home builders in our area that thrived by offering large homes and expensive amenities began to rethink their home designs with an eye toward making smaller, less costly homes.

Three years into the downturn, that trend appears to be intensifying, as many builders scramble to make their wares palatable and affordable to new home buyers and compete with a market full of resale homes and deeply discounted foreclosed homes also on the market. The problem with builders shrinking their floor plans, is the basic fact they actually make less money on the new home because hard costs like lot prices, permit fees and sub contractor prices haven’t moved much at all. 

Puget Sound home builders are taking steps, as the industry seeks to stem losses due to falling home prices, tighter mortgage lending standards and skittish buyers. New home sales fell in August to the slowest pace in 17 years, while the median sale price fell 5.5 percent, but on the plus side sales were up 5.5 percent.

The trend in smaller homes is a reversal of more than two decades of expanding floor plans, during which median size single-family went from less than 1,600 square feet to more than 2,200 square feet.

That steady drive by home builders to deliver increasingly bigger homes peaked during the housing boom. Derided by some as McMansions, these super-sized homes packed with amenities helped drive up home prices even more.

Beyond competing with preowned homes on the market, declining home prices have also made it less profitable to build large homes. Builders need to factor in much more into the equation of building and marketing a home a lot more today than in the past ten years.

The only way to respond to the lower price environment … is to make the home smaller.  As you kind of reduce the floor plan size, we’re getting back to more the way things were historically, kind of undoing the excesses, not just from a price perspective but home size and fewer amenities.

In my Bellingham real estate market, a builder I work closely with, had to re-evaluate the size of homes and amenities in them to make them more affordable towards their demographic market of empty nestors and retirees. After a thorough evaluation of their market they have made the required adjustments to meet the price point that would attract those buyers, without sacrificing quality.

In some markets of Seattle I’ve seen homes, while smaller, feature large open spaces, a so-called great room often linking the living room and dining room area that might have previously been walled off. The homes also have a two-car garage standard and storage space.

Sometimes the builder has to look beyond just the square footage and instead focus on the utility, efficiency and flexibility of the home. It’s all about creating a niche and differentiating your home from the competition. You could have a three-bedroom, 2,500 square-foot single-story home and all you had was wide hallways and bigger rooms. It wasn’t really giving (buyers) the utility.

The bottom line is that builders need to first get back to the basics: What people can afford is the type of home they’re going to buy. If you can add a few extra items to set yourself apart and still have decent margins on the sale, then consider yourself lucky.

Builders will continue to build smaller houses and that’s a function of price, because financing is more difficult to get today.

Home buyers’ tastes, possibly influenced by tighter mortgage lending, are also helping drive the changing trends in new homes.

Big formal entries, high ceilings and lavish light fixtures are also not as high a priority among many buyers these days. In the mid to lower range newer homes, fewer buyers are opting to upgrade from a standard laminate kitchen counter top to a granite counter top.

Builders have also had to downgrade the level of amenities and finishes built into its showcase homes, to reflect the base price of homes.

With move-up buyers, for a long time everybody wanted the biggest house on the biggest lot with the best view and all of the options. What we’re seeing today are instead homes being built instead with a lot fewer options and the size of home considerations.

Jerry Campbell - Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Ferndale Homes For Sale