Tacoma's Blog: All Categories

In preparation for some showings this morning I've run my numbers on the Eatonville real estate market.  For those of you not familiar with Eatonville, it's a small rural community on the road to Mt. Rainier, approximately 35 miles South of Tacoma WA.

Active listings: 51

Pending: 7

Sold in last 6 months: 14

While there is little doubt the Eatonville real estate market  can accurately be described as a strong Buyer's Market, there is some encouraging news for Home Seller's as well.

With only 14 homes sold in the past 6 months, the current number of Pending homes (7) is a positive sign for home sellers.  Low interest rates and high inventory indicate a strong buyer's market in Eatonville.   These 7 buyers understand that the best way to take advantage…

We've experienced some growing pains of late here at the Tousley Group.  The combination of online marketing, steady real estate market and a great REW website have forced us to start looking for another Admin person.  I've always wanted to try a VA (Virtual Assistant) and now looks like the perfect time to bring one onto the team. 

We began looking yesterday, researching websites, comparing available services and skills  Finally we settled on 3 that looked very promising and decided to contact them. Unfortunately, no one picked up the phone so we sent them  each an email.

It's been 24 hours, an eternity on the web, and we've heard nothing from any of them.

No doubt these 3 VA's are top notch in their field and are probably swamped with work right now.…

As any good real estate webmaster can tell you, a very large percentage of home buyers are on the web looking for local information and listings.  Many of these folks are out of towners, people relocating into our areas that need more information to help them make an informed decision.

In the past many agents would purchase "relo kits" from local chamber of commerce or prepare their own and mail them out.  Not only was this time consuming and expensive, the information was often lacking for the potential relo client.

We've recently started offering our online relocation packets directly on our website and are receiving positive feedback from our visitors.  Rather than the buyer needing to wait for a snail mail packet, they can view an online report…

While reading a prolific Phoenix blogger today I ran across a link to a "url valuation" posted by an LA Mortgage Broker Ricardo Bueno.  Always curious I visited the link and found my website is worth a staggering $2,997.00!

Seems this website determines the value of your website or blog by the number of back links you currently have.  While I wouldn't consider selling my Pierce County real estate website, the low valuation did open my eyes a bit.

So it seems while I continue to stumble along on my blogging adventures, I'll actually be adding value to my site in the eyes of http://directory.sootle.com/website-worth/  ?

I'll let you know when I pass the 100K mark.

As I'm located close to Ft Lewis and McChord we get a lot of online inquiries from service members moving into our area.  One of the most desired areas is Dupont.  Dupont is a nice little "nearly all inclusive" community just across I-5 from Ft Lewis. Offering large homes, quiet streets, new schools (still on the way), and many local services, Dupont is tailor made for many military families.

Unfortunately Dupont is missing a key ingredient in their community....A Grocery Store.  For the large percentage of military and retirees that live there, it's not much of an issue.  After all they can cross the freeway and shop on base at prices not found in most off base retail stores.

But if you don't have privileges to the base, it's an annoyance at best and a…

While this is my first entry to my new rew blog, I'm not actually new to the blogosphere!  Yes I have the great distinction to own the first blog posted ever on Active Rain.  That and $2.00 still won't buy you a latte around here.  The competitive nature of their platform is tough to keep up with for me.  I just don't have hours each day to research blog articles and post comments to rack up points.  I do still visit the site from time to time and chime in, but I'm not active by any means.  However; I did just notice that a lender friend of mine has just passed me for Pierce County, I'll have to head over there once I'm done and pass him up again...Ok maybe I'm a little competitive?

While I can certainly fill this blog with market stats and helpful tips…