I'm taking more and more listings these days. In part because folks need to sell because of economic and financial considerations.  But also because they see an opportunity to "buy up" in this market.  For many, though, finding inexpensive updates can be not just a nice perk, but a necessity. Here are a few recommendations that I've had my seller clients focus on, that won't put a big dent in your wallet. New paint. A gallon of paint will cost you less than $50 and is usually plenty to give you two good coats in a bathroom. Since most bathrooms have never been painted, white is the predominant color you'll find.  Consider a color that is neutral, yet adds some color to the bathroom.  Also consider that most bathroom floors tend towards brown or yellow shades, so a color that complements... 03/03/2011

This is one of my favorite photos of a waterfront home we staged in Edmonds, WA recently.  The view is really the star of the show, so we selected furniture and accessories that would enhance and not distract from the view.  Adding an area rug helps to ground the space and still shows off the beautiful wood floors.  Imagine the sunsets from this home! Staging by SISTERS Interior Redesign, Edmonds, WA, 425.776.7890, sisters@sistersredesign.com Give your listings the advantage of professional staging.  Contact us today for a complimentary quote. We look forward to working with you!     01/29/2011

I wish I would have taken some "before" photos of this Edmonds, WA condo we staged this week.  Just imagine white everywhere...except for blue floral curtains that were on every window, blocking light from this garden unit and making the condo feel somewhat dated. Living Room:  Dining Room: Kitchen: Master Bedroom: Master Bath: Guest Room/Den: Staging by SISTERS Interior Redesign, Edmonds, WA, 425.776.7890, sisters@sistersredesign.com Give your listing the advantage of professional staging.  Contact us today for a complimentary quote. We look forward to working with you!   01/29/2011

 I don't know about you, but most of my time at home is spent in my home office..."the den". We recently staged this den in a beautiful $1.5M home with a fantastic view in Edmonds, WA, a suburb of Seattle. How did we make this previously vacant room feel cozy?  * Added an area rug for color interest, soft texture and pattern.  An area rug will also decrease the "echo" you often get in a vacant home. * Selected a desk and desk chair to compliment, not compete with, the built-in bookcases and wood floor.  I love the lines on the front of this desk! * Softened the look of all that wood with a large green tree.  Plants bring life to a room.  This tree is the perfect scale and height for this space. * In place of traditional artwork, a large clock is a perfect accessory in a home office.  Th... 01/20/2011

When staging a bedroom/bathroom suite, it is important to keep the style and color scheme in harmony.  Not "matchy" but coordinated.  Here are some examples from a house we staged recently. The guest room is staged with dramatic stripes in green, brown and white. The adjoining bathroom is staged in similar colors.     Cute "girl's bedroom" is staged with bright pink, turquoise and white.  Did you know that pink is the newest hot color for spring?  Love this teen suite!  What girl wouldn't love her own bathroom!   Staging by SISTERS Interior Redesign, Edmonds, WA, 425.776.7890, sisters@sistersredesign.com Give your listing the competitive advantage of professional staging.  Contact us today for a complimentary quote. We look forward to working with you! 01/17/2011

This waterfront home in suburban Seattle has the most wonderful view of Puget Sound.  We staged this beautiful home last weekend and it was difficult not to be distracted by this spectacular view, which is seen from almost every room in the house. The master suite is truly "a room with a view!" Master Bedroom:  Master Bath: Master Bath:  Staging by SISTERS Interior Redesign, Edmonds, WA, 425.776.7890, sisters@sistersredesign.com Give your listing the advantage of professional staging.  Contact us today for a complimentary quote. We look forward to working with you!   01/17/2011

As professional stagers, it is our job to show potential buyers why they would love living in this home and how best to use the existing space.   We staged this 2600 square foot condo last week in a waterfront Edmonds community. The bedrooms and this master bath were all super-sized! Here is the huge master bath.  Prior to staging, this room felt really cold with all the tile and a huge expanse of flooring in the middle of the room.  Our solution to the perceived "wasted space" issue here was to incorporate a cozy area rug and a leather bench. This also added some pattern, texture and color interest. Staging by SISTERS Interior Redesign, Edmonds, WA, 425.776.7890, sisters@sistersredesign.com Give your listing the advantage of professional home staging.  Contact us today for a compliment... 01/04/2011

Interested in View homes in Edmonds in ‘the bowl'?  Unless you are familiar with Edmonds, you may not have heard of ‘the bowl'. Maybe you've driven through town to take a ferry ride across the sound?   Did you notice the bowl shape of the hillside and the Edmonds community as you drives towards downtown?  Perfect for great view of Puget Sound, sunsets over the Olympics, watching boats head out of the harbor. Many of the view homes in the Edmonds Bowl are within walking distance of downtown, with all the amenities this great neighborhood has to offer: shopping, art galleries, great restaurants, parks and theaters. Even on a blustery winter day you have the smell of salt air, the beach park, the sound of the ferries sounding their whistle as the land and depart through the harbor.   View ... 11/17/2010

New stats came out this month that show our neck of the woods is still suffering from economic jet lag.  For the Edmonds/Lynnwood/Mountlake Terrace neighborhoods, housing sales volumes dropped from 158 homes sold last September to 126 this September, for a drop of 20.3%.  Year to date, though, we've actually sold more units than last year at the same time.  But it might still be too optimistic to say we're out of the woods based just on that statistic alone. After all, the median price of $295,000 for Sept '10 is still 2.5% lower compared to last year ($310,000).  Oh, and it's taking twice as long to sell real estate than it did last year at this time.   On a bright note, these numbers are better than other areas in Snohomish County - like Everett, Mukilteo, Mill Creek, Monroe, Marysvil... 11/02/2010

This weekend we staged a charming Edmonds rambler.  With only 1100 square feet and priced under $230K, this is the perfect home for first time buyers.  We took our color cues from the existing wall paint and went for a cottage, casual Pottery Barn look. Love these hardwood floors!   Living Room:  Such a pretty pale blue on these walls. Kitchen and Dining Space:  It was important to stage this area as this is the only eating space in the house. Master Bedroom:  Staging by SISTERS Interior Redesign, Edmonds, WA, 425.776.7890, sisters@sistersredesign.com Give your listing the competitive advantage of professional staging.  Contact us today for a complimentary quote. We look forward to working with you!     10/25/2010

Here are some statistics courtesy of PMI and the National Association of Realtors.  These housing and mortgage data may be a bit much but it gives you a good snapshot of what the national market looks like today. You can follow this link for regional data.   CaseyEdmonds, WA 10/19/2010

According to CareerCast's 2010 list of most stressul jobs, real estate agents have cracked the top ten list at #10 (out of 100 that were rated). If you're interested to see if your job is any more stressful, here's a link to the article.   Real estate agent came in No. 10 as most stressed occupations on a list of 100 jobs. Have you hugged your Realtor lately?   10/19/2010

You may have heard that mortgage lenders like Bank of America have started to freeze their foreclosure processes because of lax protocol.  In most, if not all, of the cases uncovered thus far, it's likely that the borrower was indeed behind on payments. That's not the question at hand. The problem is that the lenders haven't bothered to follow their own rules on the process of getting to actual foreclosure.  If borrowers are required to dot their i's and cross their t's, well it makes sense that the lenders should do the same. But keep in mind that these lenders have a massive back log of delinquent properties to process. I've heard that Bank of America has 1.5 million homes currently foreclosed upon already.  That's a big number. Here's an article on the national impact of these ill-pr... 10/13/2010

The Seattle suburb of Edmonds, WA has the motto "It's an Edmonds kind of day!"  My business partner/sister Alisa and I both grew up in Edmonds and currently live here with our families.  It's always a treat to stage in our own backyard, this time a condo in the waterfront condo community of Point Edwards. This is a cozy condo, with just one bedroom and one bath, but what a huge view!  Here are some of my favorite photos from this staging. Bedroom:  Home office:  And the great view!  Staging by SISTERS Interior Redesign, Edmonds, WA, 425.776.7890, sisters@sistersredesign.com Give your listing the advantage of professional staging.  Contact us today for a complimentary quote. We look forward to working with you!   10/07/2010

Health Care Reform's Impact on Real Estate: Fact or Fiction? A little known clause in the health care bill passed earlier this year includes a little-known provision for a 3.8% excise tax on real estate sales. I've received emails and read articles on the internet about this slight of hand by those on the Hill.  But rather than take a position one way or the other - because the sky is neither falling nor are we witnessing heaven on earth - on health care reform, let's take a closer and try to answer the question of the day:  Does the new health care law impose a 3.8% "sales tax" on real estate sales?  For most Americans, the answer is no. However, some exceptions do apply. Irrespective of your views on taxes, Democrats, rich people, sick people, health care or UFO's, here's a quick look... 10/05/2010

Hey Edmonds, Are you interested in a little orcehstral fun right here in our backyard?  Rainbow City Band is relocating from Seattle's Capitol Hill area to Edmonds for the upcoming 2010-2011 concert series. Their concert series kicks off Saturday October 16th with "ENCHANTED - A Night of Disney Magic!" at the Edmonds Center for the Arts (ECA).  Join Rainbow City Band for an evening of princes, Dalmatians, beauties and beasts, as we celebrate 80 years of Disney music, including When You Wish upon a Star, the sweeping melodies of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a suite of music from the movie Enchanted and the music of The Incredibles (cape and matching boots optional).  Tickets are available through the ECA box office at (425) 275-9595 or online at www.ec4arts.org.       Details of their firs... 09/30/2010

Edmonds - Lynnwood - Shoreline Diabetes Exams Your optometrist wants to see you for your annual eye exam sooner, rather than later. Diabetes is an unfair disease. Your eyes won't tell you what's silently happening. Without a thorough retinal exam, diabetic changes may begin to affect your vision health before you know you have type 2 diabetes. There is no obvious discomfort associated with early diabetes eye damage. But it's still doing its' dirty work. One of the first parts of your body it effects, are the tiny blood vessels of the retina. The early stages of non-insulin diabetes may go unnoticed for years. You may not even have a clue that your eyes are under attack, before the disease causes diabetic retinopathy. That's why an annual exam including the optomap® retinal exam is recom... 09/26/2010

Well, I guess it's offiically: the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has pronounced the Great Recession OVER.  As of June 2009. That's right, over a year ago.  We can all breathe a sigh of relief and go back to work now.  Oh, wait. We all can't go back to work because our unemployment rate still hovers somewhere near 9% in this state. So what gives? I think there is a scientific (more or less) definition of a recession and a practical definition.  While economic indicators may point to signs that we are growing, those indicators have yet to reach mainstream America.  Corporaate profits are up, but corporate America hasn't really started hiring yet.  And in my opinion, we won't see real economic recovery until unemployment starts to shrink.  Warren Buffet has the same common-se... 09/24/2010

               Why I love Edmonds.....   Reason #3     The coho are coming!  Our access to the waters of Puget Sound are unparalleled. Go fishing!  Don't we live in such a magnificent area?!  I caught two coho (8 lbs and 12 lbs) last weekend.  I was reminded that so much of what keeps our property values up in Edmonds is the natural beauty within which we live.  Keep up the good work, Edmonds! 09/24/2010

The Seattles Times is reporting today that the number of homes sold in King County was down 18% from a year ago.    I decided to do some quick number crunching and found that here in Snohomish County, sales volume has dropped even further: 25% (from 635 homes sold in 2009 to 476 this year).  That number is three percentage points higher if you account for condominium sales as well.   Our fair city of Edmonds did far better, closing just 13% less homes August '10 (39 sold) than in August '09 (45).   Here's a quick breakdown of how each neighborhood in Edmonds did last month (compared to year-ago figures): Edmonds Bowl: no change (4 sales in August '09 & '10) 5 Corners: +300% (3 sales last month vs. zero in August '09) Downtown: +200% (2 sales last month vs. zero in August '09) Edmonds Co... 09/03/2010