Carl Setzer

A few weeks ago, one of my local grocery stores rebranded.  After Safeway and Albertsons merged a few years back, the writing was on the proverbial wall. The Safeway branded store across the street was shuttered. A few months back, I noticed the start of a remodel. While talking with friends there, I was told the store would become a Safeway soon. That's now done.  A few days ago I noticed I felt somewhat sad looking at the sign. Well, the store has been an Albertsons as long as I can remember. Went there with my mom, watched the changes of the area, yet it was there. No longer, though.  Lynnwood, this little suburb north of Seattle, hasn't been as radically transforming as Seattle or the Eastside. Well, until recently. Stalwarts of my childhood have closed, buildings getting torn down, land redeveloped, vacant lots becoming neighborhoods. Housing prices sprinting upwards.  Change. Pretty rapid change, too.  Communities consist of these institutions, and the...

I've been calling myself an accidental real estate agent for quite awhile. It's well past time to explain what I mean. Most real estate agents I've met made a deliberate choice to enter this field. For many, it was money. Others I know are in this for the flexible hours, to be their own boss, and so forth. The specifics are less important though. They made a deliberate choice. Very few people in the industry stumble in. Just over five years ago, after a firey end to my last stint at Microsoft (if you want to hear the story, let's meet for coffee sometime), and I was burned out on the Fortune 500. My focus for the ensuing job search was Snohomish county. I stumbled upon a Craigslist ad for an office manager and was hired. A few months in I got my license and things changed a bit further. Now I've coordinated sales for hundreds of transactions, created marketing for even more, and developed great relationships with amazing, dedicated and talented folks. My career...

Was just reading about a few really nice changes coming up with two key loan types: USDA and FHA. The USDA has been directed to shift to a direct endorsement model. Right now, my understanding is that a representative from the USDA reviews every USDA loan. They take significantly longer than other loan types to close, which makes them less desirable than others. This change will speed up the process and make it more aligned with VA and FHA loans. And the FHA is looking at their condo approval process. Right now only 10% of condos are approved for FHA loans. One thing they're doing to tackle this is streamline the approval process. It's pretty onerous for any condo that doesn't have professional management. The other thing they're exploring is the owner occupant threshold. Currently at 50%, they're looking at dropping that to 35% of unit owners. This will also open up the number of units available to FHA financing. So, TLDR: more loans will be available. This shou...

After reading City Lab's "The Rise Of Renting In The US" , I'm struck by some key things. 1) The fact that housing takes up 60%, or more, of the lowest earners income should trouble us. I'm not sure what the best solution is to getting more affordable housing available. One if the most critical factors is inventory (good ol' supply & demand). Hence the drive for more multi-family projects. 2)'there are long-term impacts from the high percentage of the Pope's income that is burned through on basics. It impacts social mobility. I expect this will help drive more economically fragile people over the edge. 3) the concerns I have in point 2) are exacerbated by a 40% or more increase in year-to-year rental costs. I worry about the long-term impacts this will have on the demand for assistance. Especially as incomes are rising far too slowly 4) It's not all bad news. There are some upsides to communities with high percentages of renters. Especially...

My team just listed this property. Situated in the desirable north Everett, it's got a very nice view of Possession Sound. It needs a bit of work, but this classic Everett home comes laden with charm. Fantastic kitchen has great wood cabinets, tile counter tops, eat up bar, and stainless steel appliances. Bonus for the cook as kitchen is supplied with stove top range and a second range mounted next to fridge. Spacious master bedroom has unique touch with tiny fireplace mounted like a painting. Beautiful mill work throughout the home gives rooms a nice solid touch of character. Excellent hardwood floors throughout main living spaces.  Home has natural gas for the stove top, furnace, fireplace, & hot water tank. Enjoy this 4 bedroom & 3.5 bathrooms. Sold-as-Is Everett Homes For Sale Follow This Home! HUD Information Page First Time Home Buyer's Course Shop For Homes in Everett Shop For Homes in Marysville Your Home Value FREE List of HUD Homes...

Yesterday was an interesting one. While sitting in a clock hour class up above downtown Everett, our region's windstorm made it's presence well known. Quite the bluster! Even in the 6th floor of a modern high-rise, we could hear the wind. My friends and family came through reasonably unscathed, most injurious were power losses and fence destruction. With the storm, traffic was significantly eventful and my poor instructor quite late. I took the opportunity to chat with many of the good folks at Everett's First American Title office. Such great people! A few folks I've known for years, but have never met. Such is the nature of modern business! Our class covered the Escrow Process, where we focused on several key changes and issues facing this sector. One of the biggest: cyber-fraud. I've been hearing an amazing number of cases of spoofed, or near-spoofed email addresses where funds are redirected. With this, we covered ways in which our business is responding t...

Walking this evening, I was looking at these houses in Lynnwood. These houses from the 50s and 60s garages have itty bitty garages. Today's cars don't fit. And I remember those 50s, 60s, 70s vintage cars. They were a tad bit bigger than cars today. Clearly, garages were for storage, not auto storage. Anyway, I've been around these houses most of my life. I'm rather fond of them, quirks and all. Actually, the quirks add delight, to me, at least.

Was just reading a lending market update which included a note about the puzzling behavior of the stock market last week. Faced with a number of positive economic indicators, the market sold off pretty heavily. Well, with my time at Fortune 500s, I’ve seen this before. I learned a long-time ago that Wall Street, the stock-markets and prices of such things is driven, on a day-to-day basis primarily by emotion. This also feeds into the quarter by quarter mentality of most stock valuation. Time and time again, in most markets, it’s those with long-term views and understanding that do well. This is true in real estate as well. If you can shift your view out 5, 10, 20 years in the future, you can escape the variability of these emotionally based fluctuations.

We in the real estate business have been hearing TONS about the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) lately. The biggest piece for us has been the changes in the required disclosure documents that will be launching "soon". Mainly, the required documentation has been cleaned up/made less confusing (and I think they've done a reasonably good job at that part). (More details in the video below.) However, I do have some concerns. As a fan of federalism, I am not too keen on this organization being (relatively?) clear of Congressional oversight . I highly value the mission and role of the org, but also deeply value governmental transparency and accountability. I would like to see more of that with the CFPB, even considering the partisan and often grandstanding nature of Congress. But that's another issue.

I am concerned about the current steep rise in overall housing prices. The sales prices are rising quickly, but that's only part of the equation. Rental prices are rising faster. Demand keeps rising and inventory is nearly constant: thus prices climb. Part of my concern is simply access to affordable housing. As this is a fundamental human need, issues with access deeply trouble me. Another concern , though, is on first time home buyers, those just starting out. In this kind of marjet, it's hard to keep up. And the rising rents eat away at your ability to buy. Ultimately,  though, markets balance out. Patience is crucial, I guess.

I've seen some creative uses of PDFs, Adobe's ubiquitous document tool. My favorite lately: printing out the fill-in PDF form, filling it in on a typewriter, then scanning and resending. A rather unique blend of old and new technology. This got me thinking about how important the PDF has become. In real estate now, the PDF is used for most documentation. And our transaction forms (at least in Seattle) are all fill-in PDFs. The ability to edit and manage these forms is critical to business. Fortunately, there are many tools for this, and one isn't bound by the brutal Adobe pricing structure. I fully recommend this investment for every business.

The end of this week, leading into the weekend, I have been barraged by a huge number of "open house" and "newly listed" marketing messages. It's a completely subjective analysis, sure, but reinforces many of the messages I've been getting lately: this summer's Puget Sound real estate market is hot.  As a seller, expect multiple offers on any reasonably priced home. (Note: strong seller's markets do not equate to a magical "I can charge anything I want" pricing strategy.) As a buyer, be prepared for being one of many and that you might need to make offers on many homes to get in. It's easy to get what I've heard called "buyer fatigue" (a great descriptor). Tenacity and realistic expectations are very helpful right now.  Anyway, just an observation. Go and enjoy the weekend!

We agents have been getting blasted with information about the big online sites: Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com, mainly. It's really ready to get caught up in the dialog. These sites are charging how people relate to real estate. But they're but likely to change the relationship with agents. People still value the one-one connection. The changes seem to be more about information, and it's accuracy and timeliness. Zillow, et al, are not perfect, and that's the opportunity for agents. But we have to be in our game, know the current market, what's influencing it. It's also good to know what Zillow and such say, do we can be better able to engage and educate. So, no threats to us agents. Unless we aren't willing to stay current, keep our knowledge fresh. And, perhaps, if that's your mindset, failure should not be unexpected. I'm not sweating it, nor is my team.

This is one of my team' s listings in Mukilteo. Not far off of 52nd Ave W/Beverly Park Rd, this is just a little south of the Speedway. Part of a very well maintained community with nicely manicured lawns and friendly neighbors, who you'll actually see out walking. If you work at the Everett Boeing facility, or the surrounding support community at Paine Field, this is a very livable community with only a few minutes of commute. Biking would be quite easy! If you work in Redmond, say at Microsoft, this is easy jaunt onto Highway 525, feeding you easily on to 405. And if you commute to Seattle, it's a short drive to the Mukilteo Sounder Station  or the Ash Way Park & Ride. With a recent price drop, it's quite competitively priced for the neighborhood. Take a look while it's still available. 13122 45th Ave W, Mukilteo, WA Get Directions Click Here Property VIDEO Description Photos Maps & Local Schools My Reviews $ Click for current price ...

I'll write more about this later, but I wanted to share some notes from the past week at KW Family Reunion. First, modern real estate lives on smartphones. It's nearly impossible to imagine doing this work without a smartphone. I'm using my trusty Samsung S5 and LG G tablet. The majority of phones I've seen this week are iPhones. iPads are prevalent for the heavier lifting begging for tablets. I've been surprised, and pleased bug the number of Surface devices (former Microsoftee here). I'm pretty sure that will be my next "laptop". So many people crowd the relatively few outlets around the Orange county convention center. Finding plug-in spots provided some challenges. I bought an external battery pack/charger. Wise. Charging my phone waking around, never having to find room at one of the charging stations, nor find an outlet somewhere: priceless! Just a few lessons for you. Cheers! 

Real estate agents sometimes struggle with an over-inflated sense of self. More often, however, it's the opposite, that they don't see their own value-add. Well, outside of a real estate transaction. Perhaps that's why so many people lose contact with their agents, even though they're happy with the service. Realize there's plenty to add to those you love, to the community around you. It's hard to think of reasons to connect if you only think your value is the single transaction. Calling and talking are a chore, you're worried about bugging people. Deeply understanding your value-add really is critical.

Tomorrow, dark and early, I head off to Seatac airport for my next journey: off to Orlando and Keller Williams ' " Family Reunion ".  TLDR, it's a convention for real estate agents part of Keller Williams. However, it's apparently, much more. This company's agent enthusiasm has been amazing, and it will be on bold display. I'm both excited and, well, displeased. I absolutely hate air-travel anymore. Fortunately for everyone, my motion sickness is nicely managed by Dramamine. The masters of misery, a joint collaboration between the TSA and most major airlines, have crafted excesses of discomfort rarely seen this side of a crimes-against-humanity tribunal. Gloriously, I get to donate about 16 hours of my life over the next week to this exercise in packed unpleasantness. More powerfully, I loathe time away from my family. My absence distresses my son. Hopefully, the boost in grandparent time will compensate. Now, after all that, the surprise: I'm ex...

I'm quite pleased we were able to pull off hitting page one of "Marysville WA Realtors" again. The market is highly competitive right now, so having high ranking is powerful. Anyway, this was squeal-worthy to me.

The past few years I've worked in real estate. One thing I've noticed: a general dis-trust, or at least dislike for many technological solutions. The slow adoption of e-Signatures are one that particularly get me. It's hysterical to me how many institutions refuse to accept them. Many of the government owned properties as well major banks amongst them. It's so much easier to forge a ink signature compared to electronic, that I really am not certain that's the reason for the refusal. These institutions tend to have very rigid, and exacting, contract terms, what they want signed and all that. I've wondered for quite some time why they don't each build their own website for the offer and contract process. Electronic forms can be set to demand a signature/initial for each item, with prompts set up and refusing to advance in the process until completed. It seems so much cleaner to have folks go to a website and fill out the form with prompts than to email me in...

After working in real estate for the past few months, several things became clear. In today's age, a small home owners or condo owners association must, MUST have a website. This should contain contact information and the scope of the org. Really, this is a basic yet powerful communication tool for your membership. A simple blog would do wonders. I've heard many HOAs reps complain about banks not dues. Yet they make it nearly impossible to track them down. A basic website, around long enough for crawlers to grab key SEO terms, can get this accomplished. Extend this out to small governmental and quasi-governmental orgs. I'm thinking mainly, right now, about small water associations. A simple website can make you, well, findable. So, a little rant on a Saturday morning. Thanks for listening. Well, reading. Peace and well-being to you all.