The International Builder's Show in Las Vegas was brimming full of ideas for new designs and amenities. How much of that can be incorporated into Alaska home building is an open question, but there are some trends that just won't go away that local builders should pay Continue Reading

     Welcome to my "insider" column on real estate where I'm going to share my thoughts and ideas with you in hopefully what will be an informative and frank discussion about real estate in Alaska. So how come it is that two homes with the same floor plan and square footage Continue Reading

     The lower 48 is full of real estate headlines about how the housing market has finally bottomed out. But, that's old news for Alaskans who recognized that turnaround earlier this year. This past August there were only 986 homes for sale in the Municipality of Anchorage. Continue Reading

     With Anchorage's rental vacancy rate at only 2.3% as reported by the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation's annual statewide rental report, a lot of small real estate investors are picking up condos to use as rentals.  The Anchorage rental market has a plethora of Continue Reading

     If you're an Anchorage home buyer looking to buy a foreclosed property, you better act now. Anchorage defaults decreased over 50% for the first six months of this year compared to 2010.  In fact, the 289 recorded defaults on mortgages are the lowest in four years.  In Continue Reading

     Not long ago, I was called by a former client to provide him a fair market analysis of his home. I had sold him the home, which was brand new, some twenty years earlier. He and his wife were planning on retiring to the lower 48 in 2011. The home, which was located on an Continue Reading

Most of you have heard by now that we are soon to have a new Title 21, the ordinance dealing with the municipality’s land use regulations. All of the chapters except Chapter 14 which deals with definitions have been provisionally adopted by the Anchorage Assembly. Just Continue Reading