Leavenworth Real Estate Blog

This past weekend was our  annual Bavarian Icefest celebration. If you missed it then you missed some good fun. There were events and competitions such as the snow sculpting competition, sled dog pulling exhibitions, the smooshing race and the tug of war, to name a few. The tug of war has been won by the Uhli’s Pub team for too many years now. I’m thinking about putting together a Prudential Mike West Real Estate contingent to take them on next year. The Uhli’s Pub team is pretty big and no doubt fueled by stout ale so they will be hard to unseat. However, I am thinking of bringing in some ringers for the 2009 contest and settle their hash, so to speak. I may be recruiting soon.  Perhaps if you are ridiculously large and as powerful as Paul Bunyan’s blue ox, drop me a line, we might have a position for you. Besides the competitions and exhibits at the Icefest there are evening fireworks which I’m happy to say that Prudential Mike West Real Estate sponsors each year. They are launched over the Wenatchee River just across from the Leavenworth River Front Park and are always quite spectacular. Each burst illuminates the snow covered mountains in the background and reflects off the water making them even more beautiful. What a nice event it all is and a welcome respite to January’s wintry grip. Surprisingly, even as the weather is cooling down, the real estate market here is warming up. We have been pretty busy, as of late, with customers who have decided to take advantage of low interest rates and a great variety of Leavenworth properties and homes. Now that the Fed has lowered the interest rate by a record setting three quarters of a percent, I look for lots more activity. Our inventory is fairly well stocked with some truly amazing homes and undeveloped parcels. We also have a great selection of new Condominiums which are situated in different settings, each offering their own unique and spectacular views, some of mountains, some of rivers, and even some which offer the best of both worlds with mountain and river views. This would also be a good time to just come to Leavenworth for a visit. The huge Christmas crush is over, the crowds are greatly diminished but the amazing Christmas lights still adorn the shops and the entire park. It can be chilly though so make sure you bring a hat, some warm boots and decent winter gloves. Who knows, you might be able to convince one of the kids sledding in the park to share his sled for a couple of runs.  Â

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Leavenworth celebrates Ice Fest with wonderful fireworks over the snow covered town.

Prudential Mike West Real Estate sponsors this event every year and a long time

client (Mr. Mike Hendricks) took these pictures from his B & B on East Leavenworth Rd.

Thanks to River Haus in the Pines for sharing these pictures! Rather amazing.

We had to use You Tube to get the picture up, next time we’ll have it right on the BLOG. Go to the below link to see a great picture!

Well, we’ll get the pictures in as soon as some technical stuff is addressed. Keep looking for them.

Click on Pictures to blow them up, They are pretty nice!

Stephanie Cuthill

Prudential Mike West Real Estate

509.548.5802 Tel

509.548.6325 Fax

scuthill@prudentialmikewest.com

www.prudentialmikewest.com

It’s a great time to buy your dream vacation home!If the empty nest syndrome is near, or if you can count the years until retirement on one hand, then it’s the perfect time to consider a 2^nd home in Leavenworth. With only a short, beautiful 2 hour drive from Seattle, Leavenworth offers endless summer and winter activities along with the postcard Bavarian alps scenery.According to the Wall Street Journal on-line, baby boomers with discretionary dollars to spend have fueled an increase in the number of vacation-home sales in recent years. In fact, the National Association of Realtors reported that a record 1.07 million vacation homes were sold in 2006, a 4.7% increase over 2005. According to the Realtors survey:-         79%, said that they bought a 2^nd  home to use for vacation or as a family retreat-         34% said a reason for buying was to diversify their investments. -         28% percent said they planned on using the home as a primary residence in the future-         25% said the tax benefits were a reason to buy. -         21% bought because they had extra money to spend-         18% of buyers planned on renting out their homes nightly to help pay their mortgageYour 2^nd home will be as popular with the children and grand children as it is with you. It’s a great way to bribe your kids to want to hang out with you! “No one is going to have fun basking in the light of their municipal bond,”  Â

Here is a link to the article we got the figures from. The percenatages don’t add up, so the study(ies) must have been taken from a larger group of Q and A that respondents answered and weren’t notated in the article, something like that…   http://www.realestatejournal.com/secondhomes/20070615-hoak.html?refresh=on   Stephanie CuthillPrudential Mike West Real Estate509.548.5802 Tel509.548.6325 Faxscuthill@prudentialmikewest.comwww.prudentialmikewest.com Â

Another beautiful day in Leavenworth, another day marketing Leavenworth real estate. I have been doing this job for about twenty seven years.  Before that I didn’t think I would stay at any job for more than two years, much to my wife’s displeasure. I had managed to stick with the U.S. Coast Guard for four years, then the UW for another four but beyond that nothing seemed to hold my interest. Somewhere around the end of my college career I invested in some real estate in Merry Canyon which lies north of Leavenworth. That investment was an instant success and I was hooked. Real estate, especially Leavenworth real estate, seemed like a most exciting adventure.  I started this company about twenty five years ago. It has been quite a ride, coming from the recession of the early eighties and through all the innovative and scary banking debacles to get finally to this point. Along the way I have learned a lot about real estate brokerage and a lot about people.  Prudential Mike West Real Estate is now and has always been the biggest and busiest and most trusted real estate brokerage in this area. If you want quality real estate in the Leavenworth area, we have it.  All of my agents and associate brokers were hand chosen by me, not so much for their sales skills, they are all well educated professionals,  but more for their character and integrity. In dealing with anyone from Prudential Mike West Real Estate you will be in the place that Allstate Insurance made so familiar, you will be in good hands.Â

Mike

Wow, what a glorious day it is here in Leavenworth!! The sun is out and gleaming on the two inches of fresh powder that fell last night. Against the glistening white peaks the sky seems to be an impossible color of deep blue. These are the days that make all the snow shoveling worth while. The Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce says the official count is three hundred days of sunshine here a year. I’m not sure what constitutes a day of sunshine. Is it just a peek at the sun? Does it have to thaw your windshield before it retires for the day? Maybe it just has to dazzle the winter weary soul and warm the cockles of the heart. I think I’ll go with that. Whatever the case, it’s always welcome. The cross country skiing should be awesome this day. Actually, just strolling down the street to Starbucks and greeting smiling faces along the way should be pretty fine too. I need to save a little energy though, for the racquetball challenge my son Cameron issued me. It’s not for a couple of hours so I have time to prepare. We play up at Club West, a racquetball and fitness facility I started which is now owned and managed by my brother Jake. Cameron’s thirty years my junior but I can hold my own with him on the court. Old age and treachery plays a part there. Jake is another matter however. He plays far too much racquetball for my good and laughs a lot while I run a lot. All in all this is one of those days that make you glad you’re still kickin around. You should come on over. You could take a look at some of the gorgeous condos that just got finished here. Some of them are up Titus Road right next to my house. I just looked at one of the newly finished ones today, great mountain view, nice attention to detail, lots of floor plans to choose from. We also have some marvelous riverfront condos which are also brand new. I’ve spent time there doing an open house and I must say gazing down into the deep green pools of the Wenatchee river is amazingly peaceful and somewhat mesmerizing. The owner of those has just announced that he will carry the contracts on some of them with very favorable and flexible terms. That’s a rarity in today’s real estate world. Ok, I must get back to work for a bit. Hope all is well with you.

 Mike West- Broker/Owner

Diamonds and gravel. That seems like an odd pairing to even be discussing. How would those two items end up in the same sentence? The relevance to me is that it seems like the best way to explain value. If diamonds were as plentiful as gravel they would have the same or a similar value as gravel. You would be able to pick up a handful of diamonds on the ground. And so it is with real estate, especially in a market where there are very limited properties. Leavenworth is that kind of market. If you look at a forest service map where private land is white and forest service land is green, Leavenworth is a little island in a huge green ocean. In fact the US Forest service makes up over ninety percent of land ownership in Chelan County. That’s why it is sometimes hard to find that perfect get-a-way cabin on the lake or cozy house on the river or just a mountain retreat here in Leavenworth. We here at Prudential Mike West Real Estate deal in those diamonds. We consistently offer the greatest variety in listings and are the most trusted and respected real estate company in the area. I have been in the real estate brokerage business right here in Leavenworth since 1980. I was born here, my mother was born here, my kids were born here and now my grandchildren have been born here. The changes I’ve seen here over the last fifty years are quite something indeed.  Its quite the place this Leavenworth. It gets in your blood and makes you want to stay.Â

Mike West

Wow,

Our first blog to leavenworthleavenworth!

We are happy here at Prudential Mike West Real Estate to finally have a forum to impart our own observations and musings on the Leavenworth Real Estate market. Where to begin…well, for starters, we’d like to let everybody know Prudential Mike West Real Estate is the largest and most succesful group of listing and buying agents in the Leavenworth-greater Leavenworth area. We are a group of folks from various backgrounds: from former business people to a retired Real Estate attorney. There are 100′s of years of combined experience at this Brokership and we love to help our clients any way we can.Â

More about Prudential later…Let’s talk about the market.

First, this is the number one state with the least depreciation (in the country). The Seattle Times reported, about four months ago, that the average home price in Seattle had dropped $50 from the previous year (hardly newsworthy).  More importantly, Chelan County has been at the top or close to the top, in terms of appreciation for the last year, for the entire country!. What does this all mean? People want to live in this State and continue to come from other States to enjoy our greater employement opportunities (Boeing, Software industries, just to name a couple) and the fantastic quality of life (no hurricanes, no tornadoes, relatively speaking, no earthuakes, no horrible bitter cold, no unrelenting heat; in fact we are pretty much an extension of the climate area of Northern California (at least the East side of the mountains, where Leavenworth is).  Combine this popularity with the fact that Chelan County is 88% owned by Federal or State authorities and the remaining 12% held privately; this includes farm land which actually leaves very little for improvements What does this all mean? Scarcity, quality of living and the adjacency to the Seattle area are making the Chelan County area the prime candidate to be out of the minor slump we are experiencing and a continued perception by buyers as a world class place to live; either as a primary or second residence. This particular cycle is boding well for buyers. For the first time in four years we are seeing some remarkable sale prices and some very pleased buyers. If you are thinking of buying, now, through the first week of March, should provide the most lucrative opportunities. That’s enough for now. Thanks for reading!

Regards

Sam Ernst