Colleen's (and occasionally, Joe's) Blog

Situated close to the beautiful, scenic, and activity-filled convergence of the Columbia, Yakima, and Snake Rivers in southeastern Washington lies the growing and bustling community of Kennewick, the largest and most populated of Tri Cities area, also comprising Pasco and Richland.

Kennewick’s history spans just over a century, with its official founding having occurred in 1904. Since then, the city has grown and developed considerably. The population of Kennewick, according to a 2004 census estimate, was pegged at slightly more than 60,000, although it has grown—not in leaps and bounds, but steadily—since then. Even at 60,000, Kennewick is nonetheless the largest city population-wise in all of Washington’s Benton County.

One of the biggest drawing features of Kennewick—for visitors and prospective buyers interested in the Kennewick Wa real estate market—is the beauty and activity associated with its nearby waters, particularly the surrounding Columbia, Yakima, and Snake Rivers.  Here you will not only come across plenty of natural, scenic beauty, but also a plethora of water sports and other water-based activities and events. Sports lovers will also appreciate the variety of sporting events hosted by Kennewick’s Toyota Center.

With a growing population, a dynamic community filled with all kinds of activities, interesting entertainment, beautiful attractions, and a wide assortment of gorgeous, spacious, and diverse homes and other real estate properties, Kennewick makes for an excellent destination for visitors to indulge in all that the city has to offer, and also makes for a thriving real estate market.

Kennewick is in full swing with the yearly hydroplane racing event. Tri-Cities Washington stops for the Columbia Cup in Kennewick. This year's 45^th Annual Columbia Cup water follies are this weekend, July 24-26, 2010. The day is full of high speed action on the water and in the air. Many people turn out every year to enjoy the weekend full of hydroplane races, air shows, food, and sun. There is a variety of ticket options to choose from on the water follies site if you are going to head out there a Saturday and/or Sunday. If you are going on Friday, there is no cost to attend, the only thing you need to pay is $5 for parking in Columbia Park, the one thing you need to know is that there is only one entrance open to get into Columbia Park and that is the one closest to the Blue Bridge with the hydroplane statue, it can only be accessed if you are coming from the Blue Bridge. Check out the schedule of events for the weekend to see all that is going on! There is lots of news from the Tri-City Herald regarding the Water Follies. See our Kennewick Water Follies page for more information and resources.

Joe and Colleen Lane are Southeast Washington State Realtors® specializing in Real Estate Tri Cities WA buyer/seller services for Kennewick Real Estate, Richland Real Estate, Pasco Real Estate, West Richland Real Estate, and surrounding areas.

Tri City Herald reports growth in Tri Cities Washington agricultural and non-farm jobs:

"Nina Pyle ran a spot on a local radio station earlier this week to find job hunters. Pyle, office manager at Atkinson Staffing in Pasco, needs to fill about 250 positions at a food processing plant in Hermiston. "There's a lot of work out there," she said, adding it's often difficult to find people looking for work.

That's not surprising because the Tri-City economy is doing well, the state's regional economist reported Tuesday. The Tri-Cities added 2,500 new nonfarm jobs in the last 12 months, said Dean Schau of the state Department Employment Security. Of those, 652 were at Hanford's vitrification plant, a massive facility that will treat high-level radioactive waste...[more]"

When items are discounted at the grocery store, there’s always a reason. Maybe the bread is a little bit stale or the item has been discontinued. Before buying any discount produce, you should probably understand why it is being discounted. The same is true for homes and while there are many cheap homes on the market, learning why that Pasco WA real estate is selling for such a low price will go a long way towards telling you just how worth your effort that property may be...[more Cheap Homes Are Cheap]

The Multiple Listing Service, better known as the MLS, is awash with homes for sale displayed by agents desperately looking for potential buyers. While that does present a lot of options, it does give a buyer’s agent the tough task of finding a needle in a haystack, or even a few needles to have something to show you on a Sunday afternoon. However, as a potential buyer, you have the ability to cut down on some of the excess MLS homes for sale and get to the core set of properties you’re looking for...[more MLS Search]

Lately, there has been a number of instances whereby a potential link exchange partner asks for an exchange.  I check the person's site to make sure it is relevant, trustworthy, etc., only to find a mess.  Here is a great article about what makes a site link friendly.  Posted two days ago by Seomoz's Randfish.,

I've been reading a lot lately on the importance of who we are linking out to creates a picture of authority and credibility in the search engine's eyes.   The term bantered about is "Co-Citation."  Personally, I've been linking out to authority sites like Wiki, my local chamber of commerce, etc., when adding content, writing blogs, etc.   Here and here are a couple of articles I've read lately that discuss outbound links and co-citation.

I found this article on linking.  As linking is probably half our work in ranking our sites, this article breaks down linking into four types: your internal navigational links, the links you give yourself from other sites, the links you ask other sites to give you, and lastly, the links other sites choose to give you.  What I found interesting about this article, is the author's emphasis on the internal navigational links.  To read more, click here.

Many home buyers and real estate investors have been prompted by steadily increasing interest rates to be more aggressive in their hunt for bargain homes. Competition for the best-priced and most attractive homes has only increased in most real estate markets and because of that intensity, foreclosures are drawing more and more interest from prospective home buyers and investors.

While foreclosures certainly offer some financial benefits, there are also risks involved, as you might expect. Not every foreclosure is the same and while the interest in them is growing, you need to be aware of what to look for when evaluating whether or not a foreclosure opportunist is right for you. Here are some things to look for...[more]

Related Resources:

• Home Purchase Pitfalls
• Bridge Loans
• Do Not Flop Your Flip
• Investing Partners
• Real Estate Foreclosure

When a West Richland Wa home buyer gets involved with buying a home, thoughts usually tend to center on staying in that home for a lengthy period of time, building both a family and equity. However, as we all know, your life can change in an instant and you never know when the next great job offer or life change will be presented, prompting you to leave town and seek a new beginning. It is those opportunities that prepayment penalties prey on and you should be well aware of what you’re getting in to if they are a feature of your mortgage.

Prepayment penalties typically state that if you decide to pay off the balance of your mortgage within a period of time (generally a few years from the start of the mortgage), you agree to pay a sort of penalty that is usually derived as some percentage of the interest on your mortgage over a period of time. The penalties serve loan agencies well as they seek to get some profit out of your loan even though an owner has decided to end it early, but they do a disservice to the home owner.

Naturally, you should be aware of all of the aspects of your real estate loan, but the section discussing prepayment penalties is perhaps one area to pay special attention to. These penalties can cost as much as a handful of monthly payments, so they do represent a significant cost. Every loan is negotiable and it is up to you and your realtor to make prepayment penalties at the very least a topic of discussion...[more]

Related Resources:

• Get Pre-Qualified
• Home Equity Loans
• FHA Financing Options
• Beware of Taking Loans

Information about the real estate industry is all around us. Between local newspaper real estate sections and the thousands of real estate-related web sites on the Internet, there are more resources for real estate information now than ever before. However, as these sources grow, the time spent by some prospective buyers and sellers with actual people decreases. Never forget that doing some ground-level fact finding can do wonders for you, especially as you endeavor to buy a home.

Face-to-face information will serve you well as you research a particular property. The neighbors, for example, will have great information on the property, including how it was treated by the previous owner, perhaps the owner’s motivations for selling and other information that you can then use to determine whether the home is right for you. In real estate transactions, this extra bit of information can be the difference between ending up with a home you’re in love with or a home you find out later has more problems than the facade first suggested.

Census information and local resources will tell you the basics of a home's locations, but only be talking to those that you might eventually call neighbors will you get the full story on the block, the amount of activity it gets at night and other positives and negatives that will eventually weigh on your real estate decisions.

In the event that a particular Kennewick Washington home turns out to not be the right one for you, that personal information can also help you decide if a particular city is right for you in the first place. By broadening out your questions, you can get a wider view of the community and determine the positives and negatives of even pursuing real estate in that city. It may be the case that there are some key amenities that are too far away and that may discourage you from further pursuit of Kennewick Wa. Those are great bits of information to have before getting too far down the road in looking for a new piece of real estate.

Aside from chatting up the neighbors, you can contact a local chamber of commerce of other similar agency, though be prepared to get nothing but a glowing review of the community. While that may seem to not be as useful, it is still certainly good to know the high points of a community and a chamber of commerce official will be all too happy to share those high points with you.

Some key things to ask about to avoid property pitfalls, is whether they concern a single home or an entire community are the level of crime, the quality of local schools, the fluctuations of local weather and perhaps the big events held in the area. These bits of information may not show up on a local MLS print out on a particular piece of real estate, but they do matter during the new home search and should be sought out.

Of course, it is a good idea to go back and verify the information you’ve gotten, if possible. If the neighbor is a good friend of the seller of the home you’re investigating, they may exaggerate the benefits of the home to help their friend complete the sale. Local residents may also over-sell their community with praise that might not entirely be accurate. Go back and research the claims you get if possible and sometimes with those claims as a starting point, you’ll come across information more easily.

Just as in many other aspects of life, the proliferation of information sources has put personal attention at least somewhat on the back burner. As you go about the important life decision of buying real estate, make use of all routes possible, personal contact included, to get a full, complete picture of what you’re buying in to. A few conversations now can save you from a handful of headaches later.

So you have got your new Pasco home picked out and you are ready to embark upon the long process of securing a home loan and ultimately taking ownership of your dream home. Armed with that excitement, you take to the Internet in hopes of uncovering a hidden interest rate nugget, that low rate that other people have overlooked and that you have found through persistence and effort. Well, as you embark on that trip, there are some things to keep in mind during the pursuit for the lowest interest rate possible.

There are probably thousands of web sites offering Washington financial data that can be pertinent to your search, so it is important to quickly cut through them all and pick one that seems to be at least somewhat reputable and has easy-to-access information. You’ll probably want to focus your search on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage to get a barometer of the interest rate climate initially.

There are many sites out there that will go into detail on interest rate fluctuation but finding one with graphs that can show you the trend of that rate over time will provide you with a great piece of ammunition when trying to determine what the short term real estate market might do and what kind of interest rate would, in the end, be a good one for the time frame you’re looking at...[more]

Related Resources:
• Home Improvement Loans
• Pre-Qualified, Pre-Approved
• Fortifying Financial Nature
• Prepayment Penalties Erodes

The simple fact is that the Multiple Listing Service, otherwise known as the MLS, is one of the most effective home selling tools at the fingertips of real estate agents and for sale by owner sellers alike. As far as a resource compiling the homes for sale in a particular area, no service has yet matched the utilization and breadth of the MLS service, making it a staple of marketing efforts for all those looking to buy or sell a home.

The prominent standing can sometimes come in between a seller and his or her desire to go through the selling process alone without a real estate agent. Certainly, the MLS is a great marketing tool for real estate agent, but it has become accessible to for sale by owner sellers as well. That accessibility means that the decision then becomes for sellers whether to pony up the flat fee most providers require to list a home or go without. The evidence, through the sheer numbers, overwhelmingly supports listing with the MLS...[more]

Related Resources:
• Real Estate Agent Search
• Multiple Listing Service
• Internet Your Agent
• Art of Negotiating

Unrelated resources, but useful information:
• Friend, Home, Mortgage
• What and Where
• Five Home Improvements
• Simple Mineral Selling

As EBay and any slew of online auction houses have taught most of America, prices skyrocket when two people bid against each other. Indeed, this has been one of the core tenets of selling probably since the beginning of time and the real estate industry has made significant work of that trait in trying to squeeze as much as possible out of a home.

There are two different situations when getting two people to bid against each other might help a real estate home’s value. One entails fielding similar offers and making counteroffers to both (though this can be sticky if both accept) or simply telling both sellers that there are two offers out there and whoever steps up with a better offer will secure the home.

The other situation involves intimating to one potential buyer that another contract is expected to come in, even though it never does. Getting a potential buyer to think that there is a lot of activity on a home is a time-honored tactic by some Realtors, but as this strong arm tactic is used more and more, buyer’s agents are becoming less prone to re-bid and may even think about withdrawing the offer all together...[more]

Related Resources:
• Simple Words to Sell
• Setting the Perfect Price
• Selling Preparations
• Open House Selling

The City of Kennewick Recreation Dept hosts its very own Fishing Kids Program every Spring.  The object of the activity is to develop a program that provides opportunities for urban youth to go fishing. There has been an abundance of positive feedback from the kids, their parents, and volunteers involved in the program.

Mostly the kids complain about not fishing long enough!    Each of the events is created to host from 500 to 1, 200 kids. There is a $5.00 entry fee, and each youth receives a Fishing Kids T-Shirt and Zebco rod and reel.

All youth taking part need to pre-register, although walk-ups will be accepted if there is room. The youth are put into groups of 100-250 and are able to fish for 30-60 minutes (depending on the site). At all times experienced anglers are on hand to instruct and to help both the children and their parents.

The groups of kids involved in the Kennewick Fishing Program alternate between fishing and casting competitions, as well as educational sessions that are hosted by the local fishing groups. There are also information tables available that are run by agencies such as the Fish & Wildlife Aquatic Education Department, the Coast Guard, and other agencies that are in some way related to outdoor activities.  For more information and registration, please visit here.

For more City of Kennewick Recreation activities, please visit their website.
 

From Matt Cutts daily blog.  I quote, then link to the article.

""Okay, it’s been a while since my last infrastructure status report, so I’ll briefly cover the things that I know are going on. The executive summary is that things are relatively quiet.

The quarterly-ish PageRank export is underway. As always, don’t expect traffic or rankings to dramatically change, because these PageRank values are already incorporated into our scoring. The same quarterly-ish data push that updates PageRank in the toolbar also updates the data for related:, link: and info: (remember that operator?). You can read more about PageRank from this previous post if you swing that way. Also remember that the link: operator only shows a subsample of the links to a page that we know of. I’ve mentioned before that some data centers (I believe 64.233.183.xx and 72.14.203.xx) continue to show PageRank values from a slightly older infrastructure. Not a big deal, but I wanted to mention it for the hard-core data center watchers so that they don’t get confused.

There were some situations where site: would show supplemental results ahead of regular results. I believe we’ve changed that so that regular results will usually show ahead of supplemental results for site: queries...[more]""

Joe and Colleen Lane are Southeast Washington State Realtors® specializing in Real Estate Tri Cities WA buyer/seller services for Kennewick Real Estate, Richland Real Estate, Pasco Real Estate, and surrounding areas.  Search the MLS for residential houses, multifamily homes, commercial buildings, vacant land, and condos.  Professional service providing real estate information for all areas of Benton/Franklin counties.  Check out our Free Real Estate Articles.  Call Joe or Colleen Lane toll free 1-800-526-3588.

Real Estate Investors Must Keep Their Balance Early On ~ There is a great amount of value in learning by experience in most walks of life. For infants that are unsure how to walk, those first few steps are all the impetus they need to learn how to walk. There is no handy guide that an infant reads before learning to walk and no amount of coaching can prepare an infant well enough that they are ready to walk at a moment’s notice.

Just as an infant has to learn how to walk, many Wa real estate investors believe that early on in their careers it is advisable to learn by doing and jump head first into an investment possibility without doing the proper background on the job or the industry to succeed. These initial blunders can discourage some investors, leading them away from the real estate industry as a potential investment industry...[more]

Related Resources:

• Pasco Real Estate Investing
• Your Investment Team
• Investment Framework
• Investment Expert

There comes a time over the course of any renter’s time in a particular piece of real estate where it seems that the payments are providing a great stream of income for a landlord but little for you. Indeed, as incomes begin to creep up and the ability to handle at least a portion of a mortgage becomes a possibility, more and more renters are beginning to feel that way and enlist a friend to make their home ownership dreams happen.

There is a time in life where particular income levels can outgrow renting but perhaps be too small to take on a full mortgage. As a way to either bridge that gap or land a home above a single person’s income level, friends are beginning to team up in greater numbers to operate as co-owners on a home. As with any real estate transaction, these deals require a bit of care and, more importantly, asking some tough questions of yourself and your prospective co-owner...[more]

Related Resources:
• Right Mortgage Insurance
• Mortgage Loan Types
• Lower Mortgage Rates
• Three Loans, Three Reasons
• Non-Traditional Mortgages