Dean Curtis

The following information was taken from the Ellensburg Daily Record news paper on 1/19/11

How to submit flood damage information to the county:

• Go to the county's website at www.co.kittitas.wa.us.

• Call in the information. For Ellensburg, call the city at 962-7239. For the county, call 962-7525.

• Schedule an on-site inspection. Call the city at 962-7239 or the county at 962-7506.

• Stop by the Kittitas County Sheriff's Office during business hours and complete a form. Forms can be dropped off at the sheriff's office or Community Development Services on 411 N. Ruby St.

Damage should be estimated and reported so the county can meet the threshold for receiving disaster assistance funds if they become available, according to a press release from the sheriff's office. The assessment forms are not a substitute for property damage claims through an insurer. Contact your insurance company to report property damage, and document all damage with photographs, if possible.

Damage to residences and businesses, including personal property inside, can be reported. Garages and outbuildings cannot be included in the estimate.

As the saying goes "there is no free lunch" and apparently this holds true in regard to Home Loan Modifications too. I just found this out, so if everybody else already knows this, then this may not be earth shattering.

During the Home Loan Modification period of seven years, (for the plan I saw) the lender lowers the interest rate on the mortgage to get the borrower to a range of 31% of their income for their mortgage payment.

What I did not know was that the lender adds the amount of savings the borrower receives to the end of the loan and that amount is basically a balloon owed upon sale of the home. So if a borrower was considering a Home Loan Mod, and they were not quite underwater on their home, perhaps in a equitable position at the time of the modification, they certainly would be up-side-down a few years later when they now would additionally owe the equivalent amount of whatever it was they saved in the modification process on top of their principle.

I must be missing something here. This has to be a certain recipe for long term disaster for the borrower. How could the borrower avoid being in a position where they were unable to sell their home at a later date due to the large balloon duefrom their earlier savings. Basically the homeowner is renting at that point and will certainly not have the ability to sell the home, having to walk away from the home at some point, unless they stay in the home for the now 40 year term of the loan.

How does this help the situation? I could use some feedback from AR, leave a response if you have some input.

I was looking through my statistics for my posts and found something very interesting. The top number of views and clicks from the posts I have made came from my outside local blog. And the numbers were not even close. My blog titled Schools in Ellensburg Washington has the most views with just at 400 with nearly 300 clicks. Somebody has been looking at my outside blog.......hmmm.

Of course I have never had a featured blog, I am sure that is purely political, but still, don't know what kind of views and clicks a featured blog would produce, but the second highest views and clicks come from my outside blog too. Hiking the Ridge trail near Ellensburg WA has nearly as many views with over 380 views. And third highest totals come from Fly fishing the Yakima River near Ellensburg WA with over 370 views. Right down the line, my outside blog has from 2 to 10 times the views of my AR blog.

What is the price point of sales in your market? What inventory would sell in your market? If you were to recommend to a builder the size, style and price of a home they should build in your market, what would that look like?

In my market the average price of an active listing is 339,000. The average sale price of a home in my market is 210,000. There is a shortage of inventory in the lower price range where sales are occurring. Sales in the price range of the average active home (over 300,000) are very slow.

Based on what is selling and level of inventory, I would recommend to a builder to consider a home with smaller square footage and fewer amenities such as granite and tile in order to meet the needs of the market.

I believe in the current climate buyers would consider a smaller, more basic home which may be up-gradable in the future, over a dressed-up home with thousands of dollars of fancy finishes. In this market I believe items such as expensive carpet, bronze rubbed fixtures and granite counters are not as important as price. Price is driving the market and buyers may be willing to accept a more basic home which meets their price. Formica countertops and vinyl flooring served well for years, and it is possible they may be making resurgence in the future.

Thank you Active Rain for my education over the last nearly 10 months. I say education because I have learned many things about the real estate industry by reading and being involved with AR. Where else would a person get this type of detailed information about issues effecting the entire industry? Knowledgeable professionals take their time to share in-depth insight that I would venture to say can not be found anywhere else. When I have a question about a real estate related item I type the item into the search on AR and usually get multiple past posts on the issue.

I signed up for my AR account on the 31st of January this year. I had written a couple things previous to that on Real Talk which I was introduced to via the E-Pro course. Today I have 100 comments received from my blog posts and 100 comments left for others. I have a blog, imagine that! I also have an outside blog which is local to my home sales area. Because of the details posted on AR about how to get ranking (google juice) on these posts, I have top ranking on several neighborhood searches with these posts. These posts also transfer to Localism which is there for potential clients to find on he web and view. I am ranked 1st in my city, and 1st in my County. I am ranked 195 out of 5600+ in my state. I have met several really great folks here on AR, I really mean that.

I enjoy that AR sends the featured posts to my email each day, and usually I spend about half hour reading the top 1 or 2 posts before I do anything else in my day, and I return to AR several times throughout the day. I look forward to the next many months and years of being in the Rain. Thanks to all of you who contribute to make AR what it is, and again thank you Active Rain!