The Florida Surfside condo building’s collapse is a real estate tragedy with 98 lives lost. Alaska doesn’t have any twelve story, 136 unit condo buildings located on a barrier island but there are lessons any condo owner or community board member can learn Continue Reading
Archives for 2021
Advice on Home Inspections
As a real estate broker, it is my responsibility to approve termination agreements. Unfortunately, I am signing far too many as a result of buyers and sellers’ failure to come to terms over home inspection repairs. Both buyers and sellers enter into a Continue Reading
Disruptions in Today’s Real Estate Market
In my forty years of residential real estate sales, I have yet to meet a buyer or a seller who was not well intended when it came to buying or selling a home. However, fast forward to today, when the repercussions of the Covid pandemic are disrupting every Continue Reading
Home Prices Reach Record High
Anchorage’s average sales price rose to $428,313 for the first half of 2021 with a 7.95% increase. Even higher was May’s average sales price of $458,580 which was the highest monthly price since January 2013. No crystal ball at the end of 2020 would have Continue Reading
A Life, Liberty and Property Story
Last year, Mark Tuovinen, a Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Alaska Realty Realtor, was hosting a $200,000 condo off Victor Road when he met Barbara Knapp, a community volunteer who teaches classes on citizenship and helps immigrant families with green cards and Continue Reading
Why We Need Unit Lot Subdivisions
The Anchorage residential market continues on its robust journey of higher prices and multiple offers. The May 2021 average sales price was $458,580, the highest monthly sales price ever recorded since January 2013. Yet, of last week’s 112 pending sales in Anchorage and Continue Reading
Time to Test Your Alaska Real Estate Knowledge
In my forty years of real estate, never have I seen a market quite like this. Not even during the oil boom of the early 1980’s. It is the perfect storm of almost historic low interest rates and lack of inventory due to years of under home building generated in Continue Reading
A Round Up of Local Housing News
The first five months of 2021 has seen the continued fast pace of residential sales. Despite lack of inventory, unit sales increased by 25% when compared to the same time last year and total volume has increased by over 35%. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the average Continue Reading
Memo to a New Administration
With change comes opportunity and there certainly is a lot of opportunity to make housing more affordable in Anchorage. The cost of housing always begins with the cost of land which is calculated not just by square foot or acreage but by its current allowable use as defined Continue Reading
Why I Love New Homes
Because they have no ghosts; no fingerprints of a past life; no lost memories. It’s a new beginning mingled with the smell of sawn cedar, LED lights and smooth, freshly painted walls with no texture. It’s a first coat of paint—pure and simple—in so many different Continue Reading
Connie Yoshimura, Owner/Broker of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Alaska Realty.