The Seattle Real Estate Podcast (sample)

Jim Reppond and the Reppond Team, Coldwell Banker’s number one team in Seattle, host this informative blog on Seattle Real Estate. Whether your a seasoned investor or a first time home buyer, Jim’s vast knowledge of the Seattle Real Estate Market will captivate and educate…[display_podcast]

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Jim Marks: Hello and welcome to the first episode of the Seattle Real Estate Podcast. I am your host, Jim Marks of Virtual Results, and my guest for this episode is the founder and namesake of the Reppond team, the number one producing Coldwell Banker Bain team in all of Seattle, Jim Reppond. Jim, welcome.

Jim Reppond: Hi, thanks Jim.

Jim Marks: I’d like to open this inaugural podcast by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself, your team and your experience in the Seattle real estate market.

Jim Reppond: Well, I got started in real estate way back in 1976. It started with me when I first got out of college of purchasing 55 acres down in Eugene, Oregon, to open a organic winery. I was young and rather naïve and didn’t really know what I was doing and realized pretty quick into it that I was a little in over my head a bit, and it was probably a good idea to sell the property. At that stage, I was thinking that probably the best would be to sub-divide it and I again didn’t really know what I was doing, so that’s when I went and got my real estate license. From there, I did sub-divide it and fortunately did make a little money and moved on into more real estate sales work.

So, I’ve been in the business, actually I first started, I guess it’s been thirty six years ago, or thirty one anyways since I got my real estate license, but in the last six years I’ve been back in the Seattle real estate market. So that’s kind of my background with that. We have a team, there is seven in our team, soon to be eight, here in Seattle, four, soon to be five, of which are buyer’s agents, who strictly work with buyers who come to our website or have found us through other advertising media and help people purchase homes in Seattle. The rest are salaried staff who help with transaction management making sure escrows go in properly, managing listings and things like that. So, we have a pretty big and thorough team.

Jim Marks: Great. Now, from wine to real estate, that’s an interesting transition.

Jim Reppond: Yeah, that was a long time ago and there have been several detours along the way, but that’s how I originally got into it, and I was out of the country for ten years in Japan, and when I came back, that’s when I really jumped back into it full time.

Jim Marks: Jim, tell us a little bit about Seattle, why you feel it’s a great place to live and own real estate, and what distinguishing factors cause Seattle to be such a vibrant real estate market.

Jim Reppond: You know, Seattle is — I’ve been here off and on for over thirty, thirty five years. I love this area. It’s one of the most beautiful cities in the United States. We are really blessed with a quality of life that is just unsurpassed. We have natural beauty and we are sandwiched between the Olympics and the Cascades, we have lots of water including lakes and streams and oceans. It’s a very moderate climate, so it doesn’t get too hot and it doesn’t get too cold, yet you are near skiing and other summer time activities. It’s a great, great city for just quality of life. We also have a business climate here that’s really-really healthy. It’s a very diverse economy, and that we have lots of really good types of businesses here that are growing. There is the aerospace industry, there is the biotech industry, there is the Pacific Rim trade, lots of high tech, all of those contributing to a really diverse type of economy. And large and very successful companies like Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon.com, Starbucks, Nordstrom’s, Cosco, all are headquartered here, and they all bring in really good high paid jobs. So it’s one of the smart cities. It’s very clean, there are a lot of multi-cultural activities, arts and culture. We have major national sports teams here. We are the number one, most educated city in the United States, and we are one of the top ten destinations for people to move to in the US, and we were just voted the most wired city, being there are more internet connections here within the city than any other city in the United States. So, pretty high-tech and yet, a pretty laid back place.

Jim Marks: Let’s talk a little bit about real estate itself in Seattle. What are the most important things that a prospective Seattle home buyer should keep his or her eyes on in respect of purchasing real state in Seattle?

Jim Reppond: Well, for people who are relocating here I think the first thing to keep in mind is that Seattle is a geographically constrained area. We have water on both sides, the East and the West, and the further you go North and South is the further you are going to be driving distance from where you are probably going to work.

So, all of that means that like the bay area, a lot of this area was developed a long time ago and for us, that happens during the event of the Alaska Gold Rush in the 1920s. So, most of your homes are going to be older craftsmans and bungalows that were built in the 1920s and 1930s. Not all of the city is that way, but a lot of it is. So, someone coming here and saying, “Well, I want to live in a new home that’s got a big backyard, but I want to be near Seattle.” Gosh, you would have to go out to a suburb, and that’s okay, we have suburbs that have all of that, but within the city itself, we don’t have that type of newer construction very often.

So that’s the first thing to keep in mind is that, it may not be like where you are from in terms of the type of architecture and real estate that you’re used to. But for buyers in general, I think they really need to kind of, realize that every neighborhood is going to control the value and demand that the properties get. So if you are in an area that’s got a very high demand you may have five people bidding for that property because of the high demand for it, and the price may be 30% or 40% higher than a home that would be even a few miles away that would be a lesser desirable neighborhood. So it’s very local, it’s very neighborhood specific and that’s kind of the nature of our market here. So it’s really important to work with an agent who will stay focused on properties for you if you are in one of those highly competitive neighborhoods who will help you find a home and you need to be ready to make an offer when you know you have found the right home. One of the biggest mistakes buyers often make is, they look at many, many homes and they’ve passed by the one that they love, they know they love it, but they just want to keep looking at everything, and it’s gone and days, sometimes hours after they see it. So, they’ve missed out the opportunity and they keep comparing back to the one that they loved and I just hate to see that happen. So people need to be somewhat aggressive and know when they need to jump to make an offer and be ready for that if they’re in one of these competitive areas.

Jim Marks: Jim, does the specific architecture of the homes and the style of the homes create any inherent problems that an experienced realtor could help a buyer with?

Jim Reppond: Absolutely Jim; in fact, that’s one of the things I want to talk about in of our future podcasts is, how there are some very specific things here that you’d want to look out for. Realtors are not necessarily construction experts, and we don’t pretend to be, we can’t give that kind of advice, but we do know from our experience of day in, day out that there are some common elements and issues that tend to arise from these types of homes. A good example would be that because most of the homes were built in the 1920s, when they put in the sewage system they used all clay pipe. Well, guess what? The life expectancy of clay pipes is about eighty years, so now, there’s a number of those neighborhoods where they have started to crack, some of them are failing and there’s issues with, they need to be rebuilt. So we can advice that, hey, you may want to have that type of an inspection done, what we call sewer scope inspection when you purchase the home. A buyer who is not from this area may not think about that.

Jim Marks: Well, that’s something that we’ll certainly look forward to in a future podcast. And speaking of future podcasts, what can our listeners expect out of this Podcast Series? What kind of things will we cover, and let’s tell them a little bit about how this particular podcast will help prospective real estate buyers and sellers.

Jim Reppond: That’s a great question because I am really excited about we can be doing here. I think we can be a great source of information for people who are interested in real estate in Seattle. Let’s start with what I don’t want this to be, because I want people to understand where we’re coming from. I don’t want this to be a place where it’s a commercial for my listings or other agent’s listings. I really don’t want this to be something that is self-promotional in nature where it’s just a bunch of fluff, and people see it as just marketing stuff that they can’t really use. And also, what I don’t want it to be is something that turns into what could be construed as legal advice because I am not an attorney, and so I have to be careful that when I talk about things, they are really just, from my opinion, that they could be helpful things that you might want to think about. But that being said, what it’s not, what I’d really like to focus on are things about, like the state of the market and where the market’s been headed. I have a pretty good sense and my finger is on the pulse as to when the market is going up or down or when things are slowing down or what segments of the market are really hot.

And like I started to say, issues relating to inspections, that will be a great discussion topic and we will probably visit that over and over again at different times. And then there are issues that are relating to purchase and sale contracts that if you are not a realtor you may not think of these things – and well, I am not going to be getting into legal advice, we will be talking about things like recent Supreme Court rulings that affects a buyer beware status on contracts and how you should really make sure that the Form 17, which is the Seller’s Disclosure Statement is filled up properly and things like that. And there is all kinds of other areas like green construction is a big deal now is Seattle and you may want to know where to find it and how to make sure it truly is green. There are a variety of topics like that. I think we can find many, many areas where people will benefit from this.

Jim Marks: Jim I am also excited about future Podcasts. And before we finish I would like to remind our subscribers that they also can influence the content of this Podcast by submitting questions or suggestions for topics for the real estate Podcast to the Reppond Team blog at www.theseattlespecialist.com. Jim, again a very informative Podcast and thank you so much for your time.

Jim Reppond: You bet Jim. I am looking forward to more of them.

Jim Marks: This has been the Seattle Real Estate Podcast featuring Jim Reppond. Thanks for listening.

Total Duration: 11 Minutes.