Early 2013 Update (with gratuitous sports commentary)

Tacoma real estate 2013 (with gratuitous sports commentary)

We erroneously think of January 2 as being the day the new buyers come out and the market wakes from its holiday snooze. In reality there is a lag. Most years it is around the second week of the month when our phones start ringing and we begin the process David calls “getting busy getting busy”, i.e. the time when we have a lot of those initial conversations with prospective buyers and sellers. This January, it was midweek last week that these calls and emails started coming in. I theorize that the loathsome flu virus going around delayed things. The virus took me down, but oddly enough, that couldn’t have happened at a better time; immediately after our holiday trip to Idaho and during that lag. It is always nice to hear from buyers, but at this juncture it is particularly nice to hear from sellers, since inventory is in short supply. We ended 2012 with about half as many north Tacoma homes as last year. This market needs good homes listed, the sooner the better. Buyers are ready, interest rates are favorable and the signs seem to point to improvement in values for 2013. If you have been considering selling Tacoma real estate, please call!

The other upside to being under the weather in early January was that I wasn’t out showing homes or sitting open houses when the Seahawks were in the playoffs. I got to see the game against the Redskins in its entirety, as well as that breathtaking game against the Falcons in which the Hawks very nearly pulled off a historically improbable comeback in the second half. It is remarkable and stressful how fast fortunes can change with mere seconds on the clock. I am really looking forward to seeing Russell Wilson and this exciting team in the coming years. Speaking of sports, the interwebs are abuzz with talk that NBA basketball may return to Seattle. The family who owns the Sacramento Kings reached a deal to sell to a group intending to move the franchise to Seattle and dust off the Supersonics name. Like with a real estate purchase and sale, the purchase and sale in the case of the Kings has a contingency, which is basically a big “IF”. It’s not contingent on inspection, or appraisal, like a real estate sale, but on approval from NBA Board of Governors. The mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson, himself a former NBA star, plans to present his case to the NBA in April for keeping the team where it is. So it’s not a done deal. We can all relate to the people of Sacramento if they must bid farewell to the Kings, and yet one way or another it would be positive to see a franchise in Seattle again.