Archives for 2016

Condo sales in the Municipality of Anchorage have remained consistent YTD when compared to the same time as last year’s, and prices are stable with only 0.82% increase from 2015. This bodes well for the first-time home buyer and downsizers who are looking to scale back their Continue Reading

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit with a family moving to Anchorage from Houston, Texas. Like all savvy buyers, for several weeks prior to their arrival, they had been looking at homes on Zillow. Zillow is the most popular site in the world for real estate searches, Continue Reading

According to the latest statewide MLS statistics, homes sell within 98.04% of their current asking price and within 95.90%  of their original asking price.  How your home is priced when the for sale sign goes up plays an important role in the number of showings and how Continue Reading

According to the Municipality’s own assessment, Anchorage annually needs 909 new housing units which include multi-family, duplex, and single-family. Since 2008, when they began the needs assessment, Anchorage has fallen far short on meeting the acknowledged goal, and this Continue Reading

There’s been lots of talk from a wide variety of experts about the demise of the housing market in 2016 and comparing it to the real estate crash of 1986. But, there’s one important difference that everyone seems to have forgotten. In 1986 mortgage interest rates were 10.19 Continue Reading

It’s a big number—half a million dollars! Yet, in 2015, one hundred and forty-nine home buyers took the leap and bought homes in Anchorage between $450,000 and $500,000. So what did they get for half a million? Homes in this price point almost always have four bedrooms, 2.5 Continue Reading

Every time I take a break from real estate and head to the island of Kauai and Poipu Beach, I end up thinking about buying a second home at the end of the road of Paradise, or at least one of those almost historic ranch homes in the little town of Waimea. That, however, Continue Reading

All across the nation (and Alaska being no exception), buyers are demanding extras, upgrades, and changes to stock housing plans that have been the mainstay of builders profitability for the past twenty years. In the financial uncertainty of homebuilding, repeating a plan Continue Reading

Several years ago, I sold my luxury home on Campbell Lake and moved downtown into a new duplex. I live upstairs with my husband and two poodles. On the first floor is a 1,200 square foot apartment that over the years we have rented out to an airline pilot, a slope worker, a Continue Reading

The big take-away from the International Builders Show held last week in Las Vegas, with over 100,000 attendees (over 120 from Alaska,) is the Art of Personalization. Baby boomers crave personalization. Gen Xers expect, and want, personalization, and millennials, or the Continue Reading