Northwest Living | Bellingham Real Estate Market

The Building Industry Association of Whatcom County honored several of its members for their contributions to Whatcom County and the local building industry at the Annual Installation Banquet on Wednesday, Dec. 16.

Builder of the Year: Gary Honcoop of Roosendaal-Honcoop Construction was awarded the 2009 builder of the year. Gary and his Partner Roger Roosendaal have been building new homes in Whatcom County for over 30 years and have been members of the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County since 1991.

They are currently building new homes in Liberty Park, located in Ferndale Washington’s east side. They currently have three brand new homes under construction and one pre-sale as well. All three homes are one story becuase of the shortage in the new homes market for one story homes currently. Stop by and see what’s going on in their North Bellingham (Ferndale WA) location.

Some of the other awards handed out at this years Annual Installation Banquet also include the following:

Built Green Builder of the Year: Csaba Horvath of Astal Construction. Horvath has served as an active participant in Built Green since 2006, winning the 2008 Built Green Washington, Western Washington Custom Home of the Year award, a statewide honor based on resource efficiency, design, quality and craftsmanship.

Built Green Associate of the Year: Robert Stockmann, of Pinnacle Inspections for championing Built Green and Northwest EnergyStar as a verifier and advisor through his contributions to Built Green and the Program Development Committee.

Associate MRC Member of the Year: Scott Alderson of Nibs Construction for his contributions to the Master Remodeler’s Council and involvement with this summer’s MRC service projects.

Remodeler of the Year: Pat Rose of Rose Construction. Rose has been an active member of MRC and volunteered time working in the home show, participated in the 2009 service projects retrofitting access for a disabled community member, and in 2009 won three local Remodeling in Excellence awards.

Associate of the Year: Stephanie Artino, of Metcalf Hodges. A member of BIAWC since 2004, she was recently elected to the BIAWC board.

Most Valuable Political Player: Charlie Hudson of Hudson Remodeling was chosen for his leadership with the Governmental Affairs Committee over the past several years, and specifically for research and contributions in Whatcom County’s ongoing dialogue regarding land rights and affordable housing. Hudson will serve as the 2010 President of the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County.

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

WASHINGTON — Senators agreed Wednesday to extend a popular tax credit for first-time homebuyers and to offer a reduced credit to some repeat buyers. 

The tax credit provides up to $8,000 to first-time homebuyers but is set to expire at the end of November. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new homes sales fell 3.6 percent in September, and some industry representatives blamed uncertainty about the tax credit. 

Senators agreed to extend the existing tax credit for first-time homebuyers while offering a reduced credit of up to $6,500 to repeat buyers who have owned their current homes for at least five years, said Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. 

The tax credits would be available to homebuyers who sign sales agreements by the end of April. They would have until the end of June to close on their new homes, according to a summary of the legislation being circulated among lawmakers. 

Senators were still negotiating the expansion of a separate tax credit that lets money-losing businesses get refunds for taxes paid in previous years, providing them with an immediate source of cash. 

Senators in both political parties were hoping to add both tax provisions to a bill that would give people running out of unemployment insurance benefits up to 20 more weeks of federal aid. The Senate could vote on the overall bill as early as Thursday, but lawmakers were still haggling over several unrelated amendments Wednesday evening. 

Popular bills like the one to extend unemployment benefits often attract amendments that would have a difficult time passing on their own. 

Republicans were demanding that they be given a chance to offer amendments to restrict federal aid to the beleaguered community activist group ACORN and on requiring that people receiving unemployment insurance be processed through E-Verify, an Internet-based system that employers use to check on the immigration status of new hires. 

Majority Democrats have refused to add the amendments. 

If the Senate passes the bill, it would go to the House, which passed a similar bill extending unemployment benefits last month. House leaders have also said they support extending the tax credit for homebuyers. 

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., has been negotiating for several weeks with Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., to craft an extended tax credit for homebuyers that would pass the Senate. 

Lawmakers didn’t release a cost estimate for extending the tax credit, though similar proposals were projected to cost about $10 billion. 

Industry representatives said uncertainty about the tax credit is hurting new home sales. September’s decline was the first since March. 

It takes 45 days to 60 days to close on a house, making it unlikely a sale made today would be consummated by the end of November, said Lucien Salvant, spokesman for the National Association of Realtors. 

“Buyers right now have an incentive to hold off, not knowing whether the credit will be extended,” Salvant said. 

About 1.4 million first-time homebuyers have qualified for the credit through August. The National Association of Realtors estimates that 350,000 of them would not have purchased their homes without the credit. 

The tax credit for money-losing businesses is a favorite among Republican lawmakers. Businesses could get tax refunds by using losses from 2008 and 2009 to offset taxable profits made in the previous five years. Under current law, they can only offset profits from the previous two years. 

The provision would help a variety of industries, including retailers, manufacturers and home builders, though it’s expensive. 

“It’s clearly a way to put cash in the hands of some major economic players,” said Clint Stretch, a tax policy expert at Deloitte Tax. 

A similar proposal that was ultimately dropped from the economic stimulus package enacted in February would have cost nearly $20 billion over 10 years. Lawmakers are working to reduce the price tag. 

“Because everybody is so cash strapped, this is a good way to get refund when businesses need it for operating expenses,” said Rachelle Bernstein, vice president and tax counsel for the National Retail Federation.

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

The U.S. housing market has started to recover from the most far-reaching crisis since the Great Depression, data released Thursday shows.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose for the third month in a row in June, the National Association of Realtors reported. That hasn’t happened since early 2004, during the boom.

“The turnaround in the housing market appears finally to be here and indeed may be gaining some speed,” wrote Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc.

Stocks jumped on the news, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising above 9,000 for the first time since early January.

Home sales rose 3.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million last month, from a downwardly revised pace of 4.72 million in May. Sales were up in all four regions of the country.

It was the highest level of sales since last October and beat economists’ expectations. Sales had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 4.84 million units, according to Thomson Reuters.

In another encouraging sign, the share of foreclosures on the market is shrinking. About one out of three homes sold in June was foreclosure-related, down from nearly half earlier this year.

And the glut of homes up for sale dwindled to 3.8 million. That’s a 9.4-month supply at the current sales pace and another important sign of a recovery. When the market balances at a 7-month supply prices should begin to stabilize, the Realtors’s group said.

That probably won’t happen until next year because of a backlog of foreclosures that have yet to come on to the market. The median sales price was $181,800 in June, down 15 percent from year-ago levels but up slightly from $174,700 in May.

Nevertheless, prices have risen for three straight months in about half of the 55 major metropolitan areas tracked by the Associated Press-Re/Max Housing Report, also released Thursday.

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

Whatcom County - The Whatcom County Association of Realtors (WCAR) are promoting a huge County Wide 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 County Wide 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  half mile west of the intersection of Northwest Rd 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. The company has also built 14 homes on 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

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

Sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose 5.5 percent for September 2008. This was the biggest gain since July 2003, and the inventory of unsold homes fell 1.6 percent. Sales additionally were up 1.4 percent from September of 2007, the first year over year increase in three years. Hopefully this is a sign the housing market could be stabilizing and we can finally reach a bottom. Were hopeful in my own local Bellingham real estate housing market. 

September sales of existing homes rose to a 5.18 million unit annual rate from the 4.91 million unit pace set in August. Economists had expected sales to rise to only a 4.93 million unit rate. The positive number is important because this is the highest number of sales since August of 2007. In a real estate market like this, a .25 (25,000 units) above the expert’s expectations is a nice surprise to the upside.

The increase in sales was spurred, in part, by a rise in foreclosure and other distress sales in regions of the country hard-hit by the ongoing housing downturn. The foreclosed units are making it’s way through the market & the faster we can get these through the market the faster we can get back to a market resembling something more normal. However, 82% of the sales were homeowners that were living in their homes and that’s a very positive sign.

Leading the way were home sales here in the West recording a 16.8 percent jump. The Midwest saw an increase of 4.4 percent and the South saw a 2.2 percent rise. In the Northeast, sales fell 1.2 percent.

In some regions like the West, the lower prices are seeing buyers return to the marketplace. This was a nice jump and hopefully this trend can continue because the first step in stabilizing the housing market is an increase in home sales.

A huge supply of unsold homes, tighter lending standards and record foreclosures have pushed down home prices. The number of homes unsold in the market also went down last month which was another good sign.

However, For the 12 months ending in August, U.S. home prices fell 5.9 percent, and the cumulative decline since the April 2007 peak is 6.5 percent, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s House Price Index. The closer we are to a bottom we should start seeing more and more signs like this with buyers getting back into the market place. Via CNBC News.

Jerry Campbell | Muljat Group | Bellinghma WA | Bellingham WA Real Estate

This month we are featuring this brand new two story home in the new community of Liberty Park in North Bellingham. The home is located at 1412 Patriot Lane, which is just inside the city limits of Ferndale, WA.

This home features a covered front porch with a concrete aggregate base, nice rock finish touches, and detail trim finishes giving a taste of that Northwest look. Yard is completely finished w/turf sprinklers, lawn & landscaping. The back yard & garage side yard are already fenced. 

The interior of the home is very comfortable and inviting with high ceilings in the great room and is very elegant & full of custom features throughout. The kitchen has hickory shaker cabinets & large pantry, granite counters; hardwood floors in kitchen, nook, entry & half bath, slate in master bath, vinyl in bath 2 and laundry rooms; & fully wrapped windows.

The home was built by local custom home builder Roosendaal-Honcoop Construction who have been building homes in the Whatcom County area since 1979. You can also see more homes being built in their new homes community at Liberty Park Homes.

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

A Realtor in Sarasota, Florida is in the midst of a legal battle launched at him by the Sarasota Association of Realtors®, (SAR) where he is an active member, because of the use of “mls” in his website address.

According to Marc, the use of “area mls” in a Realtor’s website address was widely recommended in a 2002 an article written by “Mr Internet” in a publication by the National Association of Realtor’s® (NAR).

Marc Rasmussen, a Sarasota Real Estate Agent, purchased his website address “thesarasotamls” back in 2003 based largely on the advice he read in the article and when marketing real estate on the internet was a new venue for real estate agents.

Over the last five years Mark worked hundreds of hours and spent thousands of dollars creating one of the top Sarasota Real Estate websites. For all his hard work he had achieved high rankings in most internet search engines for Sarasota, Fl.

A recent change in Article 12 of the National Association of Realtors® Code of Ethics, now allows local Realtor® Associations at their sole discretion to determine if their members are permitted to use the term “mls” regardless of how long they have used it and especially with disregard to the recommendation featured in the Mr Internet article.

It should be pointed out that “mls” is not a trademark of any Realtor® Association, instead the trademark for Major League Soccer (MLS).  The public has also come to know mls as a common everyday term for real estate property listings.

Morgan Carey, owner of Real Estate Webmasters and web designer for Marc explains this situation in detail on his blog. Read more on Marc the Realtor® vs the Sarasota Association of Realtors® on REW’s blog. It will be interesting to see what happens in this case and if it sets precedence for MLS’s across the country.

Read more linked articles about this interesting battle over the use of the word mls:

• Inman News - MLS Name Dispute Lands in Court
• Eric Blackwell -  SAR: The Real Cybersquat
• Ryan Ward -  Sarasota Association Slaps one of Their Own
• Judy Orr - Sarsota MLS attacks Its Own Member 

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