About Bellevue's Microsoft

When foreclosures began to rise in Seattle a few years ago, Bellevue didn't seem to feel the initial hit. Over time, though, there's been a growing inventory of distressed properties creeping into the more affluent communities around Puget Sound, and Bellevue has seen its own inventory of bank-owned homes on the rise.

To be fair, the number of foreclosures in Bellevue is fairly small compared to those in Seattle, even after taking into account population differences (Bellevue is about 1/5 the size of Seattle in terms of population). However, the rate of increase is still a significant trend on the Eastside this year.

Houses:
There were 73 Bellevue bank-owned homes sold in 2010, more than doubling the 37 sales in 2009. In contrast, there were 437 Seattle bank-owned homes last year, and 295 in 2009. Both cities are showing a huge jump in the percentage of REO sales, but Bellevue's inventory numbers show a big difference in the two cities' markets.

Bellevue has just 21 bank-owned homes actively listed for sale today on the NWMLS. Seattle has 216. Although those numbers might seem to put both markets at around 5-6 months of inventory, the Bellevue numbers are so small that they don't give a large degree of confidence, statistically. 21 active bank-owned homes is really just a handful of inventory, and these foreclosed homes in Bellevue seem to sell more quickly than those in Seattle.

Condos:
The condo market can be a bit tricker to gauge statistically, because of the large number of properties that are tied together by their developer. An entire project with 200 condos can be foreclosed upon in one year, even though the project had been going south for the past three years. 17 bank-owned condos were sold in Bellevue in 2009, and 50 were sold in 2010. Seattle had 57 bank-owned condos sold in 2009, and 159 sold in 2010.

In short, the Bellevue real estate market is still not particularly burdened with distressed properties. The trend, however, will likely continue in the short term with an increase in the small number of foreclosures and bank-owned homes. While some of these homes are listed at market prices, there are some that are sold at a discount for a faster close. Home buyers in Bellevue seem to be scooping those up quickly.

"You get what you pay for."

How many times have you heard someone say this? People use it to support their salaries, pricing, commissions, etc. It's one of the top-tier cliches in the American lexicon, and I'm here to tell you that it's also one of the worst pieces of advice that someone could give.

"You get what you negotiate."

I know, you saw this quote on a cheesy ad for a seminar in an airline magazine. No, I haven't spent my weekends with Blagojevich & Spitzer Negotiation Professionals for the past year, but the statement rings true, no matter the messenger. We, as real estate professionals, should be keenly aware of negotiation's value.

If you've spent any time as a real estate agent showing homes to clients, you know that some homes are wildly overpriced, and others are great values, based on the current market. You wouldn't recommend that your client buy the most expensive home in their neighborhood based on price, would you?

I think this argument is fairly simple.

There's an inherent value in a market of higher-priced homes, but it's not because they are priced higher. It's because a real estate professional has evaluated the market and determined the inherent value of each home. There will always be a few homes that are overpriced, based on a homeowner's insistence and his/her agent's reluctance to relate the reality of their current market's conditions. There will be others that a bank or owner will need to sell based on some outside factor. Their pricing is based on other circumstances, and creates a greater value. Negotiating the best price is highly dependent on the seller's situation and offering, and much less dependent on the initial pricing of the asset.

So, on to your commission.

This is where so many agents, in my opinion, lose their voice. Your total listing commission is 6%. That's great, plenty of wonderful agents earn their 6% commission every month. However, you're not more valuable because you're charging 6%. Tell us why you're better. I know some agents who aren't worth 3%, and others who should get 7%-8% because of the non-stop, tireless hours they put into a listing agreement.

My company creates more local Seattle-area web traffic than any other brokerage in the Seattle market. That's our value. This is why we are worth our 6% commission. We're not better because we're "full-priced", or "full commission". We're worth more because we're better than anyone else at creating local exposure.

Why are you better than your competition? Why are your services worth your commision rate? How will your clients get "what they pay for"?

SAM DEBORD - MANAGING BROKER - WASHINGTON STATE REALTY - SEATTLE LUXURY HOMES

If you're like me, you spend a lot of your work day on the road. One of the easiest ways to stay up to date with your work is using free WIFI hotspots at cafes, coffee shops, or libraries. You probably don't worry about your computer's security.

Well, you should be scared. It's always been possible to hack into your web traffic over unsecured wireless networks. As of today, it's become not only possible, but very easy. A new plugin named Firesheep for the popular Firefox web browser allows fairly novice users to not only view your web traffic, but to actually log on to your Facebook, Twitter, or other account and control them. Spending five minutes in a Starbucks could jeopardize nearly every one of your personal accounts' security.

How easy is it? If they have the right computer, a user can download a couple of simple plugins, restart, and start viewing all traffic over the public network. It took me about 20 minutes to set it up, and I'm not an IT pro. It's as clear as it sounds. You can view all users logging into accounts on the network, click on a user, and start using their accounts.

YOU CAN LITERALLY LOG ON AS THE OWNER OF THE ACCOUNT AND CHANGE THE OWNER'S PASSWORD IN SOME CASES, EFFECTIVELY TAKING OWNERSHIP OF THE ACCOUNT.

The real issue here isn't that WIFI is unsecured (although that creates its own issues), but sites like Facebook make it particularly easy to hack your account. They use very low security settings, making your accounts vulnerable to very simple attacks (http instead of https sites). This is another in a long line of Facebook security gaffes, but it extends to dozens if not hundreds of other sites as well.

Should you quit using free WIFI altogether? That's up to you. Definitely secure your home wireless network. If you're going to use public WIFI, be more careful of what you're doing online. Log out of any unsecured applications, and make sure to only use a secure email account. If not, your friend across the cafe might be writing your next "status update".

** UPDATE: Blacksheep "fix" **

I'm seeing some comments that this is "fixed" or that now you're "safe" because there is a new plugin called Blacksheep. It's used to sniff out anyone using Firesheep on your network and warn you. There are a plethora of other ways that hackers can steal your identity on unsecured wifi and unsecured web sites. This just blocks one.

Blacksheep totally misses the point. Firesheep was created to highlight how unsecure and unsafe your web practices are when companies like Facebook play it fast and loose with your data. Firesheep hackers are rookies. The real hackers are still out there, and have plenty of other options, so long as you're logging in to unsecure web sites.

Techie Notes-- For those of you out there who think this is a great reason to download Firesheep and start snooping around, a few warnings:
First and foremost, you're probably breaking the law. I only used it to view computers on my home network with the security temporarily disabled. Just because you can do it...

More than that it doesn't work on every PC's chipset (Intel doesn't work, Broadcom does, etc.). Some computers' wireless adapters can't be set to "promiscuous" mode, so they will only see their own traffic. It doesn't take a high-end PC, you just have to be lucky enough to have the right hardware.

There's also a second application needed to get Firesheep working correctly, and a few settings that you need to tweak. No, I'm not going to help you. The goal of Firesheep and this post is to make people and companies aware of the danger and push them to make their applications more secure. Sometimes, fear is the best motivation.