The Northwest received almost $330 million in Federal resources to revitalize our
communities, put people back to work and speed America back on the road to
recovery from what has come to be called “The Great Recession.”

In passing the Recovery Act, the Congress and the President specified a
wide range of activities to which state, county and city governments hard hit
by the downturn could apply Recovery Act funds – your tax dollars – from
meeting critical capital needs to expanding the supply of affordable housing,
from preventing homelessness to helping small businesses gain access to much
needed capital. Under the Act, those local governments were given full
authority to decide for themselves the specific what’s, where’s and how’s of
the projects that would best benefit their communities.

Here are some of the programs that will be funded
by the Federal money in the King County area:

• Promoting Energy Efficiency and Creating Green Jobs
• $40,250,758 to Washington State’s 29 housing authorities.
• $14,863,303 to 30 tribal organizations in Washington.
• Lead Hazard Reduction/Healthy Homes – $6,725,000 to to King County, City of Spokane
  and State of Washington.
• Supporting Shovel-Ready Projects and Assisted Housing Improvements
• Promoting Stable Communities and Helping Families Hardest Hit by the Economic Crisis
• Emergency Shelter Grant Program/Homelessness Prevention – $24,948, 653 to 10 grantees in Washington.

Whether you’re a cat person, a dog person or something in between you may be impacted by the “pet restrictions” that are part of your next home purchase.  When pet policies are part of a home’s or condo’s rules they can affect both your personal uses and investment potential.

For instance, in the Seattle market, I heard an interesting statistic that more home owners have pets than children (more…)

Seattle City Council has just adopted an updated plan for row-homes, townhomes, and cottages.  The first decade of the millennium was full of new construction and a majority of designs in Seattle were the townhomes.   

I don’t want to give you the wrong idea; I do not have anything against (more…)

It’s official: FHA was just given authority to change the amount charged to borrowers for both the Up Front and the Annual Mortgage Insurance premiums…and change them they did.

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When you are in the market to buy a condo there are some thing you need to know about Home Owners Associations (HOA).  The HOA is responsible for building amenities, maintenance and, in some cases, utilities.  As an owner, you may have some voting rights for the management of the budget, but the majority has the final say.  I like to make sure that my homebuyers review the building’s finances to know whether or not the HOA is financially strong or as useless as a Deutsche mark.   

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This spring I handed house keys to a first time buyer who’d been dreaming  of owning his own home for over ten years.  In fact he’d been (more…)