Nancy Conner, ABR - Olympia/Thurston County WA

I like to take a look at the statistics of new listings and new pending sales for a past month and see what they seem to indicate as to the direction the market is headed. I looked back to September and checked out new listings and new pendings for single family homes only and just in the main Olympia/Lacey/Tumwater core area, and sorted them by price bracket. Here is what I found:

NEW LISTINGS NEW PENDING SALES

Under $200K 27 21

$200-250K 97 32

$251-300K 58 32

$301-350K 27 13

$351-400K 18 9

$400-500K 21 8

$500-600K 11 0

Over $600K 13 3

Obviously most of the activity is in the price bracket under $300K, and especially once you cross above $351K it is tough going as far as buyers ready to choose and buy. But I am encouraged to see that in the active price brackets, sales are indeed still happening - it looks to me like once buyers sort out whether they can get approved for financing they are ready to move forward. Depending on their criteria, there may be quite a bit to see, but buyers do not seem inclined to sit on the fence forever in hopes of somehow finding lower and lower pricing. Since the desire to own your own home is still strong with many people, the reasons to go forward are outweighing the thought of just shopping endlessly. And comparing the investment prospects of real estate or the stock market, a tangible investment that is also a place to live sure beats mysterious and hard to get a handle on stock selections (does anybody really have a clue which stock market choices will make you smile instead of cry?)

I really love the fall season even though the shorter days and rainier weather make me crave sunshine. But the glow of the golden leaves on the trees and the crisp feel to the day, plus all the vegies to harvest in the garden make this a beautiful time to live in the Northwest! And all the fun activities available can make this a terrific time to have a great time with family for very low cost (or even for free).

Some wonderful places to check out include Lattin's Country Cider Mill and Farm - each weekend this month you can take horsedrawn wagon rides to the pumpkin patch to select your pumpkins for Halloween, find your way thru the corn maze, bob for apples (talk about old fashioned fun!!), and pig out on apple crisp, caramel apples, apple butter, apple cake, baked apples, apple pie, apple fritters... might need another hike thru the corn maze to burn off calories! (9402 Rich Rd SE, Olympia or call 360-491-7328 or go to www.lattinscider.com)

Pumpkins are also available at Hunter's Pumpkin Patch along with killer views of Mt Rainier (7401 Yelm Hwy SE, Olympia or call 360-456-0466); Pigman's Organic Produce Patch which offers a huge variety of organic vegetables and fruit, U-cut flowers & a picnic area (10633 Steilacoom Rd SE, Olympia); Rutledge Corn Maze with an awesome corn maze to wander thru before you pick out your pumpkins (302 93rd Ave SE, Tumwater or call 360-357-3700 or go to www.rutledgecornmaze.com); Schilter Family Farm's Pumpkin Patch which has apples, winter squash, gourds, hayrides, petting farm, corn maze and pumpkin cannon and pumpkin sling shots too! (141 Nisqually Cutoff Rd SE, Olympia or call 360-459-4023 or go to www.schilterfamilyfarm.com.

OK - now with all this talk about pumpkins, I am going to go make a batch of my favorite pumpkin/zucchini muffins. Enjoy the fall flavors!!

It has been interesting to try to explain to our exchange student how the real estate business works in this country (or at least what is customary here in Washington state). One question he asked me seems to really hit the nail on the head for a needed change - he cannot understand how commissions currently work with the seller paying the agent who works for the buyer. He kept asking me "But why does not the buyer pay the agent if the agent works for them?" - and the only answer I could really come up with is that it is custom and is a remnant of the "pre buyer agent" real estate world - and that as an industry we don't adopt changes very quickly or easily.

Bottom line is that it really does seem like we probably will and should move to a new custom where buyer agents not only have buyer agency agreements with their buyers, but that those agreements will contain a specified compensation for that agent. Then the listing agreement will include the specified commission amount for the seller to pay their agent, the listing agent. So much simpler and I think it would be easier for the public to understand. There is just something kind of confusing about telling a buyer that you represent them in the negotiations but that you will be paid by the other party to the negotiations?? Doesn't really make much sense does it?

So how do we best move forward to fully embrace that buyer agency includes a new custom of buyers paying their agent directly with the amount of that compensation discussed and captured in the buyer agency agreement?

This weekend will be the annual Home & Garden Show in Olympia, sponsored by Olympia Master Builders. It runs Friday - Sunday at St Martin's Pavilion and always has a great collection of booths for anyone interested in the latest and greatest ideas and products for their home and/or garden.

I am hoping to attend when I can catch Marianne Binetti's talk on gardening as she is one of my favorites. She is quite expert on Northwest gardening and I love her philosophy that if a plant is not doing well in your garden, you should yank it out and add it to the compost pile - she often writes that plants are not your children so you can dispose of them as necessary! Nice to feel that it really is OK to do that when something is just way more trouble than it is worth in the garden!

The actual gardening advice is wonderful, too, as I continue to try to learn more about native plants that flourish here, especially drought resistant ones. I love to see color and variety in my garden, but I really hate to have to fuss over anything that needs constant feeding, fertilizing, pruning just so etc etc. I think I have finally overcome my urge to plant flowers I remember from my childhood in Illinois, as surprise surprise may of those midwest favorites don't really do that well in the Northwest! But I am still learning about some of the glorious plants that add color at different times of the year so you don't just have spring blooms and then downhill from there.

So - see you at the Home & Garden Show!!

This Wednesday was the first day of high school here for our exchange student from Slovakia, and it has certainly made me realize what a courageous thing it is for a student to come here to school from their home country. Imagine traveling to another country to stay with a family that you have never met except via email. Now imagine attending classes like Anatomy, Advanced Algebra, American Literature, US History - and doing the schoolwork in some language that is not your native tongue! Now imagine doing all of that at 17 years old! Of course maybe at 17 it is easier - I think I was braver about venturing into unknown territory at that age. Although I never took on a venture quite like attending high school in another country!!

It is really fun though to revisit what high school is like through the eyes of someone new to our country. And we are all getting pretty good at finding synonyms for unfamiliar words until we manage to bridge the language gap and understand each other. And it is definitely humbling to realize how so many people of other countries routinely become fluent in multiple languages - I don't think my high school French would get me very far at all. I am attempting to learn some words and phrases in Slovak - so far it is definitely good for laughs from our exchange student, so I might not have quite nailed the pronunciations yet!!

Now I just need to run across some real estate clients from Slovakia and I have the perfect translator to help me along.