What I see is a Seattle area real estate market is turning around. What my clients see is the latest Case Shiller report and now they are worried. The "latest" is two months old. Many believe that there is a huge supply of bank owned homes ready to depress the Seattle real estate market again. Not true in Washington State, where deeds of trust are used for the purchase of real property. Read the rest of this entry »

Two of the least understood but most significant aspects of a real estate transaction are signing and closing. Often, buyers and sellers think they are one and the same. Simply put, signing comes first and is necessary for closing to occur. But what happens between the signing and the closing? Read the rest of this entry »

The federal law offering protection for tenants in foreclosed rentals has been extended. The “Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act” (PTFA) was originally scheduled to expire on December 31, 2012, but the Dodd-Frank Act has extended it to December 31, 2014. That's good news for renters. Read the rest of this entry »

When I began this series of three cheers for Seattle I knew that the first cheer would be for "scenery" and the second for "smarts," two aspects of Seattle that are firmly established. I planned the third cheer to be about silver linings, a much less sure thing, given the vagaries of the political and economic landscape. I'm happy to report that the clouds that made Seattle area real estate values go down the drain now have silver linings. Read the rest of this entry »

Who is in what position? A loan or lien is considered to be in first lien position when it is recorded prior to any other loans or liens. Loan priority is established by chronological order of recording, not by the date of the document. Financial institutions require that their purchase money or refinance loan is in first lien position in order for a transaction to close, since being in first lien position gives them the first right to reclaim the property in the event that the borrower defaults on the loan. But what happens if there is another loan, recorded later, that will not be paid off at closing? Read the rest of this entry »