Take advantage of the expiring Federal tax credit! These free home-buying seminars will be presented at the John L. Scott Real Estate Office in Barkley Village in Bellingham.
Sign up for any one of our 2 hour evening classes. Dates will be Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 6:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M., April 6th, 8th, 13th, or 15th.
Whether you are a first-time homebuyer or a repeat homebuyer, you will learn about what has changed in the mortgage industry, credit criteria, loan programs, interest rates, how to qualify today, and much more! Please contact Paul Balzotti at 360.920.5901, or email paulbalzotti@johnlscott.com for more information and reservations.
Bellingham’s new campaign to be one of the first cities to be a part of Google’s new fiber optic high speed internet. Google’s internet is said to be 100 times faster than today’s high speed.
This is a beautiful and amazing video of Bellingham, WA!
I wanted to share a couple of great places to check out in Bellingham. Last night I started out in the lounge for happy hour at the Black Forest Steak House on Barkley Boulevard. This was my first time their for happy hour, and I was really impressed! $2.50 for a glass of wine, and $3.00 for a pint of micro-brew and many other great drink specials. The atmosphere and decor is classy but also casual. Seating is comfortable, and there is flat screens in every corner (important in this case since I was watching the NCAA tournament).
The bar menu between 4-6 is really reasonably priced and the food is excellent. The most popular has to to be the $10 steak dinner.
I then headed down to the Upfront Theatre, and watched an improv show. The upfront theatre was started by Ryan Stiles, best known from the TV show ”Who’s Line Is It Anyway?”. The improv act was laugh-out loud funny through-out. It is an intimate setting, and they get the crowd involved as well. All three of the performers were extremely talented and I was totally entertained. With ticket prices of $5 on Thursday’s and $10 on weekends, this is an affordable and fun night-out that is a perfect for an alternative to going to the movies.
Very cool to find out that John L Scott Real Estate, has partnered with www.Zillow.com. All John L Scott listings will now appear on the 2nd most popular Real Estate website in the country. I am not a fan of Zillow’s “Zestimate” tool, because it can be incredibly inaccurate in coming up an estimate home value. It uses a computer program, which can’t take into account the condition of the home, the floor plan, views, and many other important variables in assessing your home’s value.
But Zillow is a very popular website, and John L Scott is smart to form this partnership to make sure all of it’s listing are getting maximum exposure!
The numbers under $300k in Bellingham are staggering for February! Clearly, first time buyers are getting back in the market trying to buy before the $8,000 tax credit is set to expire again (offers need to be in by the end of April).
Under $300k, 54 homes pended, and 32 homes closed, compared to only 150 homes on the market. From $300k-$400k, the market is also showing some improement, but in general, $300k and up in Bellingham and in the county is still slow.
There is a downward pressure on prices still on the upper end in Whatcom County, but home prices will likely be appreciating a little bit on the lower end, due to the overwhelming lack of supply and high demand for first time home buyers and investors buying this spring.
Chart 1 shows 0-$300k in Bellingham.
Here is the numbers for $300k and higher in Bellingham below
Coming up with a logo for your business is VERY difficult. But www.LogoTournament.com was awesome. You can submit exactly you are looking for in your logo, and get very specific in the style and colors of the design you have in mind. Then you create a 5 or 7 day auction, and then dozens of designers from around the world compete to create differen logos for you, and then you pick a winner. You can make changes, give feedback, and get multiple designers working for you to get exactly what you want. I had over 100 submitted designs that I had a chance to pick from.
I ended up really happy with it, and it’s just the first step in a new custom design for www.PaulBalzotti.com that will be complete by the end of March. I want to provide not only a home search for Bellingham Whatcom County home buyers, but also valuable information on the market, and some extra information for buyers and sellers in the Bellingham area you won’t find anywhere else. I think my company’s website www.johnlscott.com has the best home search in the state of Washington, but I want my own Real Estate website be something completely custom to Bellingham and have plenty of valuable content for everyone. Can’t wait to launch it in April!
