Nelya Calev

Part of the confusion in today's market stems from the fact that most buyers and sellers do not really know what an agent does. Sure, most people know that an agent puts a house on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and handles offers as they come, but there is a lot more that goes on when you hire a full service agent.

For many agents, ‘full service' means that the agent does the following.

1. Places the house on the Multiple Listing service
2. Gives you suggestions on how to make the home more saleable
3. Finds ‘comps' in the area and suggests the appropriate price for the house
4. Creates flyers and hangs a sign on your front yard
5. Receives offers as they come in and negotiates on your behalf
6. Helps make the inspection and closing processes as painless as possible

For many agents, this is what they call ‘full service'. For a number of individuals that are Internet savvy, agents' fees seem rather high given these services. After all, if someone spends enough time searching on the Internet, he/she can get a good idea of the prices themselves.

In my opinion, if an agent only does the above he/she is not a ‘full service' agent and is doing very little work for the commission - regardless of the percentage that agent charges.

The following is what any agent that uses the term ‘full service' should include.

1. The agent must use a professional photographer to take pictures of your home. After all, you are selling something worth hundreds of thousands of dollars - why have pictures worse than those you find for a $10 item on EBay?
2. Besides simple suggestions, the agent will spend a significant amount of time helping you stage your home. This generally means that the agent will bring a pro stager to do the job for the purpose of making your home look nice. I am an accridited Home Stager and very often I do the job myself. The agent will visit your home several times and spend many hours ensuring your home looks perfect before the first prospective buyers arrive. As my mentor says you can't host a party on Saturday and have caterers come on Monday.
3. To help you better understand the market, a full service agent will be happy to spend a day with you showing you the comps in person. Most agents just show you a piece of paper with a description, but when properly pricing a property it is key to see the properties that will compete with yours in person.
4. A full service agent will provide you with a home warranty while the property is for sale. This means if anything breaks in your home while you are trying to sell it, it is covered.
5. Besides placing the property on the Multiple Listing Service, the agent will advertise your property in a number of other ways. The advertising techniques will depend on the property but typically include magazines, hanging flyers, radio advertisements, and Internet presences.

In the end, a typical ‘full service' agent will often spend 100 hours or more working to make sure your property sells as quickly as possible and for the best price.

Recently I noticed that someone found this site by querying what constitutes a bedroom in Seattle. This is a very good question, as I have noticed a number of listings do not calculate the number of bedrooms correctly. Therefore, for buyers, it is important to understand what actually is a bedroom - though a good real estate agent should point any deficiencies out when viewing homes.

Bedrooms are strictly regulated by both the building codes of the neighborhood where you live and Multiple Listing Service requirements. Ultimately there are three sources that have slightly differing version of what is a bedroom.

1) Building codes. We will talk about these in detail but if you want to build or remodel a new bedroom in your house, you need to follow these codes.

2) Tax appraisal codes. Tax appraisers have there own definition of what a bedroom is. For the most part, it is a superset of the building codes. There are some differences though - for instance a tax appraiser will call a room a bedroom even if it does not have a fire alarm. However, building codes require a fire alarm (wired to the house if new construction). Tax appraisal codes in King County also require a closet and heating. The property appraisal codes determine what your property taxes will be.

3) Multiple listing service requirements. While on paper these are very similar to the tax appraisal codes - also calling for a closet and heating - they are not necessarily identical. In general it is up to the realtor to properly disclose the number of bedrooms in the house. General realtors look to the tax appraisal information for guidance, but sometimes this information is not correct. If a realtor sees four bedrooms in the house, the realtor will list the house with four bedrooms.

Building codes

Building codes may differ from town to town. What follows are the codes for Seattle, which have been derived from international codes and therefore may be similar to those of your city or town.

If you would like to read the codes for yourself, they are online at Seattle's web site. Note that the information below comes from chapter 3 - building planning. Also note that in the code it is not called ‘bedroom' but instead 'sleeping room'.

If you live elsewhere, the easiest way to find the codes for your town is to go to its web site and look for residential codes. Note that most cities adopt the international standards and make amendments to them, but do not list the original standards on its site. In this case, a call to the town hall can usually clarify what the standards are.

Here is a summary of the codes for Seattle.

1) All bedrooms must have one operable escape or rescue opening. Almost always, this is a window.

2) The window can not be any higher than 44 inches from the floor. Many basement ‘bedrooms' I see violate this.

3) If the window is below the ground level, a window well that follows specific codes must exist.

4) The minimum size of the window is 5.7 square feet, with a minimum height of 24 inches and a minimum width of 20 inches.

5) A smoke detector must be installed in the room. In new construction this smoke detector must receive power from the building wiring. This also applies if you add a bedroom to an older house.

6) No opening (door) is allowed between a bedroom and a garage.

7) The area of the window must not be less than 8% of the area of the room. So the window in a 14×14 foot room must be no less than 15.68 square feet. Note that this applies for all habitable rooms - not just bedrooms.

Most interesting, though, may be what is not required for a bedroom. Current codes do not state that a bedroom must have a closet, though typically they do. Nevertheless if a room meets the above requirements but does not have a closet, it can still be considered a bedroom.

Tax assessments

While in general a room must have a closet and heating, the tax appraiser may make his/her own call in the case of old houses - which may have been built without closets.

However, other than for property taxes, the number of bedrooms stated by the tax appraiser isn't as important. If the tax appraiser lists the home as having two bedrooms, it may not necessarily be listed with only two bedrooms on the market.

Multiple Listing Service requirements

In the State of Washington, bedrooms must have a closet and heating. Like with tax appraisals, it is up to the realtor to correctly list the number of bedrooms. Failure to do this properly may result in discipline by the MLS.

In summary, besides following building codes when adding or remodeling a bedroom, make sure that it has a closet and proper heating if you intend to sell your home in the future.

In my previous two posts I covered how to use the IMap tool to find information about King County properties. If the house lies in the city limits of Bellevue, you can also find useful information about the property through the City of Bellevue's web site. Note that similar resources exist for other cities. The tools is quite difficult to find using the navigation features on the city's web site, so I will link to the page directly. The front page is quite simple and asks for the house address. Note that it does not parse addresses as well as IMap and you must only use the abbreviations listed. After searching for the property, three links are provided.

My Community

This page lists the school information for the property. If you have young children and want to determine how good the schools are there, you will need to first determine what the school is. This page will tell you. The next step is to research the school on the Internet to find more information about it. Generally the better the school the more expensive the neighborhood.

Zoning

Most of this information is also on IMap, but here you can see the square footage of the property and tax information. More helpful is a map of the area showing you zoning information. For houses, the house should be distant from retail, manufacturing, and multifamily housing zones.

Demographics

This will give the racial makeup of the area in the vicinity of the house, as well as the male/female ratios and the percentage by age group.

To the far right, you can click to see a satellite image of the property. You can zoom in here and the level of detail is decent. You can also add contour lines and some of the information available in IMap. The satellite image is very useful for determining how a house sits on the property and for getting an idea what the house looks like. This is especially useful when the listing does not contain pictures.

Yesterday I covered how to find homes on IMap and discover information about them. Today I will cover more of the information IMap covers. As I explained yesterday, I will not cover all features - just the ones I believe are most helpful.

Yesterday we covered the Assessor Property Characteristics Report. Today, we will cover some of the information located in the links at the bottom of this report. The first link of possible interest is the DDES:Permit Applications Report. In general, this report is rarely useful because it only covers properties that are located in unincorporated King County. However, if the house is in unincorporated King County, you will see all of the permit applications for the house - giving you a good idea of what work was recently completed on the house. If the property lies within a King County city, you can still find the permit history online. For Bellevue, Bothell, Burien, Duvall, Gig Harbor, Issaquah, Kenmore, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Mill Creek, Sammamish, Snoqualmie, and Woodinville, check MyBuildingPermit.com.

The next link that may be of interest is the EReal Property Report. Some of the information in this PDF document is repeated from the assessor's report, but there is also a good deal of new information here. One of the pieces of information I find most valuable is information about the property view. This information is often incorrect - for instance it is completely wrong for my home. In general though, if you are looking for a view home it may contain information about the quality of the view. One rule of thumb I have found for listings is the following.

If a property listing says that the house has a view, but there are no pictures of the view with the listing and the EReal property report lists no view, then it is highly unlikely that the house is a 'view house'.

If the property is a waterfront property, details of how much waterfront footage the property has and other information about waterfront access are also available in the report. On the next page of the report you will find the tax history. This is very valuable for seeing how the taxability of the property has increased in the last several years. On the next page you can see an abbreviated permit history. This history covers permits that are in incorporated or unincorporated King County - however it just lists the permits. For details on the permits you will need to consult sites similar to those listed above.

All of this information is available through clicking on the assessor's report. However, the IMap tool itself offers a lot of additional interesting information. On the right hand side of the IMap tool you can see numerous "Property Layers" and "Planning Layers". This will give information about the property that is otherwise difficult to obtain. The first link of interest is properties sold in the last three years.

Granted, your realtor should also give you this information and there are other web sites that contain a better presentation of it, but if you are interested you can see this information here as well. By selecting other properties and viewing the assessor's report for each of them, you can see what other houses nearby have sold for.

One of the most useful features I like is the availability of contour information. By clicking on one of the contour options (generally one of the 5ft options) you can see the contour of the property. This is very helpful if you want to know whether the lot is sloped. If you are interested in a yard, a heavily sloped lot will be of little use to you. By looking at the contour lines, you can get an idea of how steep the property is.

Another interesting option is Imagery. This allows you to see satellite images of the property. Granted, there are several other sites where you can also find satellite images and these images are only fair. What it does offer though is the ability to see images from the last several years. For areas that contain the full set of images, you can see how the property and neighborhood have changed in the last ten years.

The following other information is contained in the IMap layers.

• Streams and lakes. A property that has a stream going through it or very near it will often have environmental limitations - meaning you will be restricted in your use of the property.
• Parks
• Zip code boundaries
• Nearby cemeteries, community centers, libraries, and government buildings
• Zoning information
• Illegal drug labs (though thankfully I have yet to see one near a property of interest)
• Properties owned by King County

This wraps up the discussion on IMap. In the next post, I will cover some of the other useful sites that are available on the Internet.

There is a frightening amount of information available on the Internet for those who are interested in researching a potential home to buy. Generally, this is the job of the real estate agent - my job. Therefore you are by under no means obligated to even navigate to these web sites if you don't want to or don't have the time. It is my job to find the most ideal homes for you and negotiate the best price on your behalf. However, many of you, like my husband, like to find out as much as possible about a potential house before setting foot on it. For those of you who do want to research, there are a number of invaluable tools available. Note that in this post I will only cover those that help for King County. Other areas of the country have similar web sites and most realtors will be happy to give you information on them.

For researching properties in King County, by far the most invaluable tool is IMap. This site has by far the most information of any web site out there for King County properties, but it can be confusing at first for some. When you navigate to the page, click on the "Start IMap" button that will bring up a window similar to the following. Make sure to wait until the "Building New Map Image" popup disappears - otherwise I have noticed the tool can become unstable.

The above image shows what the site will look like when the IMap tool has opened. This tool has numerous features and I will only highlight those which I find the most useful.

To get started, you will need to select a property. To select a property, click the "Property Search" button on the left hand side of the screen. The default search method is parcel number, which most of us do not know. To search by address, which most of us do know, select the "Search by Address" link at the bottom of the screen. After loading the property, the screen will look similar to the following.

The property you are interested in will be highlighted. From this screen you can see nearby roads and other properties. To get more detailed information about this particular property, select "Get Accessor Report". This report has a great deal of valuable information.

1. At the top of the page, you will see the appraised land value and the appraised property value. Keep in mind that these values will almost always be below the listing price of the home and do not give you an accurate estimate of what the home is worth. They do tell you, though, whether the value of the property is in the land or in the structure. In general, newer homes will have more value in the structure, while homes with land or homes with views will have more value in the land. If you seek to buy a property for resale value, land generally appreciates faster than structure. This makes sense as land is a finite resource, while structures will get older and gradually become out of date.
2. Next you will see the sales history of the property for the last several years. You will be able to see here what the sellers paid for the home and when they bought it. Depending on the date and price listed here, you can often determine whether the house has been "flipped".
3. The lot size, usually in square feet, will be listed. Generally this should be the same as the listing.
4. The square footage of the home will be listed, as well as how it is divided in the house. The number you are likely most interested in is "Total Living Sq Ft". This is the total square footage of the home minus unfinished basement and garage. If the square footage of the property listing does not match this number, there are several possible reasons.
   1. Unfinished space was recently remodeled and has not yet been entered in the public database
   2. Unfinished space was recently remodeled, or new space was added, but a permit was not applied for
   3. The selling agent has misrepresented the house - either by including the garage and/or unfinished space or the agent has simply overstated the square footage
5. How many floors are in the home and the square footage on each floor will also be listed. The number of bedrooms and bathrooms will also be listed. Again, these should correspond with the numbers on the listing, though bathrooms may often be off because assessors often miss half baths. Keep in mind that there are strict regulations on what determines a bedroom. If the numbers do not match, the King County records are more likely to have the correct number.
6. Chimney information will also be listed as well as building grades and information on the heating system. Electric heating is usually significantly more expensive than gas.
7. Garage information. This will state how large the garage is and where it is in relation to the house.

This is quite a bit of information. Today you have learned how to look up a potential property in IMap and discover whether the property may have been misrepresented in the listing. Unfortunately many realtors are not aware of what constitutes a bedroom and often overstate the square footage to drive in buyers. A good real estate agent should find this information for you, but if you like you can use the methods above to do some of your own research.

In my next post I will cover more of the information available out there.