Seattle & Washington Real Estate

Real estate is local — and understanding the Washington housing market requires more than national headlines.

In this section, you’ll find:

Seattle-area housing insights
Sunday Drive neighborhood features
Local market commentary
Washington housing programs
Community highlights

Whether you’re buying in Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, or surrounding communities, local expertise matters when structuring your financing strategy.

I’ve been helping clients throughout Washington State for over 25 years, and this section highlights insights specific to our region.

Sunday Drive to Mount Baker – Bellingham

March 6, 2011 by Rhonda Porter Leave a Comment

We decided to spend the long Presidents Day weekend at Mt. Baker with our kids for a short family vacation.

We rented a condo at Snowater, in Glacier, just minutes from snowboarding, skiing or inner-tubing in the beautiful scenery of Mt. Baker. The condo at Snowater is located just off the north fork of the Nooksack River and did not have internet access or cable tv…yep, we were unplugged for the weekend and it was wonderful! Snowater does have other ammenities (indoor pool, ping pong, etc.) which our kids really enjoyed. A majority of our time was spent on Baker. It takes about 2-3 hours to reach Mt. Baker from Seattle. Do check driving conditions (chains may be required) for Baker. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Seattle & Washington Real Estate Tagged With: bellingham, mount baker, sunday drive

Two Great Real Estate Events coming to Seattle Center in March

January 11, 2011 by Rhonda Porter Leave a Comment

In less than two months, real estate agents, mortgage originators and other real estate folks, there will be two events they really should consider attending at the Seattle Center’s Northwest Rooms.

On Wednesday, March 2, 2011, Frank Garay and Brian Stevens (the guys from Think Big Work Small) will be here to teach real estate peeps about video blogging at the Northwest Video Marketing Summit. This is an all day event (sounds like a boot camp to me) where at the end of the day, you will have your own video blog. This event is open to all real estate peeps and real estate agents may receive 3 clock hour credits. The cost for this day long education (which includes your blog) is only $100.

The following day, Thursday, March 3, 2011, is something near and dear to my heart: Seattle RE Barcamp. This will also take place at the Seattle Center Northwest Rooms (same place as last year).

The Seattle RE Barcamp is an “un-conference” where real estate professionals learn peer to peer – not planned presentations. The agenda is determined the morning of the event by what the attendees (participants) want to learn. Ideally, participants are sharing with each other “what they’re doing now”. It is all about active learning and sharing and it’s not limited to social media; latest real estate trends and issues are also discussed.

There is no fee to attend the Seattle Real Estate BarCamp – it’s FREE! We depend on our sponsors to keep it that way. If you’re interested in supporting this ad-hoc event and having the love and adoration of 300+ real estate professionals. By the way, I’m a proud sponsor of this event and so are Brian and Frank.

I hope to see you at both events.

Please spread the word! You can retweet on Twitter (hash tags for the events are #vmssea and #rebcsea) and post this info on Facebook. Here’s a flyer for Seattle RE Barcamp that you can print and post in your office.

Filed Under: Seattle & Washington Real Estate

Seattle Scenes

November 20, 2010 by Rhonda Porter Leave a Comment

Just a few photos I caught with my Droid-X while we were cruising through Seattle today. With the "s" word in the forecast, we stopped by REI for some mittens and other warm winter wear.

The first two photos are of Seattle's historic Steam Plant.