Seattle Houseboats Happenings: Lake Union Ramblings
A few random Lake Union thoughts – Would love to hear some of your thoughts, too….
Seattle Floating Homes Association Website – One word: Gorgeous. The updated Floating Homes Association website is fresh and beautiful.. I am jealous I didn’t make it myself. Love it. Kudos! You can see it here: www.seattlefloatinghomes.org Jann, I know you had a hand in that and it’s amazing! You can see all the newsletters, updates, tour info, etc. I particularly am fond of the Seattle houseboats history page.
Reality TV and Seattle houseboats. It’s been overdone already. Have you watched those shows on HGTV and other channels? We get phone calls almost every other week from producers hoping to film the next reality TV show featuring Seattle houseboats and us. They ask us to be on these shows, but we say NO. We STRONGLY believe that protecting the Seattle houseboat community’s privacy is far more important than cheap fame for ourselves. We appreciate all that the Seattle floating home community has given to us and we would never ever cross what we feel is a strong trust boundary.
FSBO Seattle floating homes – 
Word on the docks is lots of private sales going on. Last night it was the talk of the Seattle Floating Homes Association meeting. We verified it with Krista Todd at Sound Community and I verified it with Phil Miller who is a local legend and closes most of the floating homes in escrow. Of course being real estate agents, we are partial to the idea of listing your home in the NWMLS (with Cooper Jacobs Real Estate preferably), but putting that aside, why aren’t you listing your floating home with a Realtor (please also make sure they are actual dues paying Realtors who abide by a code of ethics)? The Realtor’s commissions aren’t that high in comparison with how much more money the open real estate market would bring you in the form of a higher sales price. I know news travels fast on the docks when someone is ready to sell, but even that can’t compare to the global exposure the MLS and the internet offer. I would love to hear some feedback on this. Many FSBO buyers have the false misconception that if they go around the listing agent then they will be able to get the home for a discount to the tune of that full listing broker and selling broker commission. That simply isn’t true. While the seller may be willing to give you somewhat of a discount, in most cases they will more likely want to pocket the savings of not listing it themselves. Any discount you could have gotten would easily be beaten by a skilled real estate agent in a negotiation.
That’s it for now – as always, thank you for your business. We love serving this community and look forward to doing it for a long time. please email us or call us if you need anything at all Courtney Cooper 206-850-8841 Courtney@CooperJacobs.com We are Seattle Houseboats Realtors.
