About Allyn's Lakeland Village

Josh Murphy is new to our office, but not that new to the real estate business. We are very glad to have him on board. One of the first things that Josh did when he got here was to sign up for Active Rain. He already has two posts,and they are great. Please take a moment to welcome him to the Active Rain family, and maybe even share your favorite sites with him!

Welcome Josh!

I just read about a great site. It is blackfriday.info. Another Active Rain blogger, Jeannette Neerpat, shared this site in her blog from Florida, and I wanted all of you here in Washington to be able to find it. I expect some really great deals this year- so go and check it out. Happy Shopping! Don't forget to pick me up something nice-Dinah Lee

This morning at the Allyn Community Association meeting, I took upon myself to announce to the attendees that the local Real Estate community has been very active in providing informative commentary, photos and chitchat about the community and posting it to LOCALISM. It was convincingly suggested that each attendee go to the LOCALISM web site today and read what is being reported.

The response was very favorable and the discussion appeared to encourage the Realtors that attended the meeting to continue to be acting as blogging ambassadors for the community.

Also, in the Local newspaper, Localism was featured in my weekly News article know locally as "The Real State of Real Estate", the message was to promote Localism and see for themselves what the real estate contributors to localism are saying about their community.

In addition, the local Chamber of Commerce Director immediately went back to his office and added localism links within the Chamber Web site. Thank you Frank Kenny of the North Mason Chamber of Commerce.

Lastly, on the localism information pages our Communities and County are now highlighted as most active and popular sites. This is really Cool because our entire County only has a Population of around 57,000 people.

All of this has happen because of the enthusiastic real estate bloggers who are proud of their communities, who are providing an array of terrific photos and sharing their experiences.

KUDOS to the AR community, members and contributors.

Thank you local contributors for your support and dedication.

Some people would like specifics about their particular neighborhood as opposed to the whole county. We tend to "generalize" probably more than not. I hope this is beneficial to those who would prefer a little more detail...

LakeLand Village -Located in North Mason County in the town of Allyn, WA

The brief summary is that it seems April, September and October of this year has seen the most homes sold (3 in April and October and 4 in September) this year in LakeLand Village indicating that buyers are starting to purchase again. The inventory is also down from 42 active listings in the middle of October to a current active inventory of 32 homes. The end of October there were 34 active listings.

The other months only recorded 1 sale per month.This gives an average sale of homes since the beginning of the year at 1.6 homes per month for a total of 16 sales from January through October. That is a fairly significant reduction from 2007in which LakeLand had 23 sales from Jan 07 through October 07 at an avg $$ per square foot of $169.63. Currently the average $$ per square foot for solds this year from Jan to the end of Oct is $154.78- again a significant reduction from 2007. **

ACTIVE LISTINGS:There are currently34active listing in LakeLand Village. There are fewer choices for the buyers than as of 10/15 when there were 42 active listings.

The average square footage of the currently active homes is 2131.

The average dollars per square foot is $164.16 (slightly lower than 10/15's stats showed). This also only reflects the last six month average not back to January.

The average days on the market is 253

The average price is $352,691. This can be deceiving so to break it down a little further:

• There is 1 under the price range of $200k,
• 4 between $200k and $250k $250k,
• 7 between $250k and $300k
• 5 between $300 and $350k
• 6 between $350k and $400k
• 1 between $400k and $450k
• 5 between $450k and $500
• 3 over $500k

There are currently a total of 5 Contingent/Pending/Pending Inspection status homes. (One contingent, 2 are subject to inspection and 2 are pending).

SOLDS: The last six months of stats show us that there were a total of 11 sold properties. The averages for those sold were:

Average Sold Price $302,645.00 (again slightly skewed as the last home sold at $477,00 was a lot higher than previous sales - so this jumped the average up)

Average $$'s per square foot were $164.16.

Average Days on the market was 330-an increase from the last stats given on 10/15 due to one home that sold at the end of the month that had a market time of 539 days. This skewed things slightly.

**Why do we use the average $$'s per square foot of homes? That is an indication of what a buyer is willing to pay for homes using the heated LIVING space square footage of a home. Of course adjustments are made up and down when you break the homes down individually hence the "average." The dollars per square foot average is good basis to start from when looking for the fair market value of a home in the CURRENT market. SO if you have a 2000 square foot home- (not adjusting up or down) at $154.78 a foot, the fair market value starting place would be $309,560.

That does not necessarily mean either that that is a good list price for your home in this market. There are other factors as well to look at. For a more detailed look at your home, drop me a line or give me a call, I offer a no Obligation, FREE MARKET ANALYSIS for your home into today's current market. I also will update it for you at no charge at least every six months.

I hope this information the way it is formatted is not confusing. If you would like to see it presented differently or have other ideas, please let me know! ~~ Valerie~~

**Information is from a reliable source but not guaranteed. **

This time of year I start my thinking for next year's plans all around both personal and business- it is time to evaluate our family's affairs like homeowners insurance, car insurance etc for next year along with my business plan.

I didn't used to do this with my insurance as often as I should have. Actually I take that back.... WE DID DO IT, we just figured that we had enough (it seemed like a lot when we looked at the policy). We'd purchased homeowners insurance when we bought our house,we paid it every month and didn't think too much of it until we had to file a claim 4 years ago because our home burned down.

Don't get me wrong, our insurance company's service was great. The coverage we had was good... The home itself was covered,but where we fell short was our personal belongings. We thought we had more than enough coverage and when we started doing an inventory of things in the house with the insurance adjuster after the fire of what we had and started adding it all up - well -we fell short - ALOT. Way more than we had ever anticipated. We used to do an inventory of our bigger purchases and take still pcitures but not in as much detail as we should have. (And yes we had replacement coverage, but the problem was, we just had SO many things that we took for granted, that you don't think much about, that we fell short).

Like you know - all that junk in your junk drawer? Well you purchased most of it at one time for one reason or another. And guess what - when you go to replace that junk drawer of items piece by piece as you need it? And actually keep record of it? WOW! You will be amazed at the speed in which the black becomes red.It adds up QUICKLY.

Cd's and movies - have you ever counted how many you have or their titles? We didn't even think about that until the adjuster asked us how many CD's were in our case? What were the movies? How many movies?

Linens - Do you know what the cost of your linen closet is???? WOW! How many towels do you have in your closet? Faceclothes? Sets of sheets? Blankets? Pillows?

Picture frames, lamps and I could go on for ever! All the little gadgets - oh my I STILL haven't replaced my pie spatula and every year since then during the holiday get togethers I remember I need one!

How about the phones and all the gadgets for technology today like the wireless router that you probably don't have on your inventory or the cable companies modem? There are so many things you don't think about. So take the time to STOP -take your videos, pictures, handwritten inventory and sit down and really, really look around and in each drawer and closet and evaluate your insurance coverage.

People say to make sure you take pictures etc of your personal belongings. Then make sure you are storing them some place safe OFF the Premises unless you have a fireproof safe. Don't assume a metal gun safe is fireproof because they are not all fireproof. SOooo many things we don't even really "see"...

Essentials - the basics to live - like toilet paper, soap, deodorant, shampoos, makeup, socks, shoes, underwear, sugar, milk, etc. ..... things that we don't normally place a big value on but you will STILL Need to purchase if something were to happen that caused you to lose everything.

Make sure you check your insurance every so often to make sure that you are covered adequately. It doesn't hurt to review your policy and ASK QUESTIONS if you don't understand something. Don't just think about the structure itself make sure you are taking in ALL personal inventory as well.

We were extremely fortunate living in such a giving and caring community; the community support was amazing, and we can't thank them enough and we are very thankful for living here. We could have helped ourselves better though if we had reviewed our personal coverage a little bit better....

We are insured through a local insurance company (Shop local) - Michael Lester with Farmers Insurance. I don't have his link but will find it and put it in here when I do! In the meantime here is a phone number for Marin at Farmers Insurance can answer all of your questions and get you a quote if you would like - 3670-277-0476.There are many others out there as well and just like your real estate agent - use someone you trust, are comfortable with, is looking out for your best interests and more importantly KNOWS AND UNDERSTANDS THEIR BUSINESS AND THEIR MARKET.

I strive to know all I can about my market, whether it be real estate statistics or just available sources and resources in the community.Drop me a line!