Dave Poletti's (davepoletti) Blog

Rental Vacancies Dropping because Home Buyers Wait Out Home Value Instability Landlords in the Puget Sound area have been pleased to see their vacancy rates drop from 7.2% as of last fall to 5% this year. This is according to The Apartment Vacancy Report Executive Summary just released this mont...

Rental Housing Inspections in Seattle - A Move to Protect Renters from Sub-Standard Conditions In a recent decision, Seattle City Light Council approved legislation designed to protect renters from rental housing conditions taht do not live up to waht the city considers minimum standards.  This ...

How to Know if You Have a Carpenter Ant Infestation Carpenter andts are one of the most common ants in the Northwest and posses the ability to destroy one of your most valuable investments: you home or rental homes!  Smaller male carpenter ants will begin crawling about as early as February and ...

Can I Get By Without Painting Right Now? A question asked all the time by landlords facing a vacancy and trying to decide if they can simply get by with minimal or no expense. This is a very volatile rental market with more supply on the market than ever. This means other vacancies (your competi...

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protections Act (H.R. 4173) passed the House and Senate, and was signed by President Obama today. Among other changes, in Section 1484 the bill extended the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA) sunset date by two years to December 31, 2014. ...

"Housing Falters after the Tax Credit Expires" "The response to the ending of tax credits for first-time homebuyers and some trade-up purchases was fast and furious. New home sales plunged immediately following the April 30 deadline to put home purchases under contract. Existing home sales were ...

Property Management Seattle WA The current economy definitely has mixed reviews - interest rates are still low, the stock market is recovering, and many people throughout the country have been working tirelessly to help unemployment, feed the hungry, and aid disaster victims. However, it is a pa...

Study: Homeownership Rate Declines Homeownership rates are down 2 percentage points for their 2006 peak, but could fall another 5 percentage points in the next couple of years, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The study subtracts the number of home owners who are und...

New Landlord Laws Effective Today! SB 6459: INSPECTIONS AND CIVIL SEARCH WARRANTS This law allows cities to obtain a civil search warrant after satisfying a judge that there was probable cause to believe that code(s) violations existed.  The city would not be able to go on a fishing expedition. ...

30-year fixed mortgage rate hits record low!!!!! The 30-year fixed mortgage rate on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace is currently 4.58 percent, down nine basis points from 4.67 percent at this same time last week.  This is the lowest rate recorded since Zillow Mortgage Marketplace launched during Apr...