The lower 48 is full of real estate headlines about how the housing market has finally bottomed out. But, that's old news for Alaskans who recognized that turnaround earlier this year. This past August there were only 986 homes for sale in the Municipality of Anchorage. Continue Reading
Archives for 2012
How to Buy a Home that Doesn’t Exist
With spring inventory down to only 445 single family homes for sale in Anchorage and only 28 new building permits issued for the first two months of 2012, it's an understatement to say that local home buyers are frustrated. This is particularly true since much of the Continue Reading
Market Update
With Anchorage's rental vacancy rate at only 2.3% as reported by the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation's annual statewide rental report, a lot of small real estate investors are picking up condos to use as rentals. The Anchorage rental market has a plethora of Continue Reading
Some Good News for the Anchorage Real Estate Market
If you're an Anchorage home buyer looking to buy a foreclosed property, you better act now. Anchorage defaults decreased over 50% for the first six months of this year compared to 2010. In fact, the 289 recorded defaults on mortgages are the lowest in four years. In Continue Reading
Negotiating is Hard To Do
Unless you're a hermit and living somewhere in the Alaskan woods, every day life is full of negotiations--from who gets the remote (my husband watches FOX news; I watch MSNBC), where to go out to dinner (beef or seafood) or even how to proceed into an intersection when Continue Reading
Why Real Estate is Local – One Street at a time
Not long ago, I was called by a former client to provide him a fair market analysis of his home. I had sold him the home, which was brand new, some twenty years earlier. He and his wife were planning on retiring to the lower 48 in 2011. The home, which was located on an Continue Reading
Why Buying a Brand New Home is Like Buying Groceries or Gas
When you’re standing in the check out line with a cart full of groceries, you understand you’re going to pay the price that gets rung up on the cash register. The same is true when you’re at the gas pump. Unfortunately, there is a tremendous misconception in the real Continue Reading
How Land Use Regulations Affect Property Values
Most of you have heard by now that we are soon to have a new Title 21, the ordinance dealing with the municipality’s land use regulations. All of the chapters except Chapter 14 which deals with definitions have been provisionally adopted by the Anchorage Assembly. Just Continue Reading
Looking for the Average Priced Home?
Then, you’re probably going to be frustrated and disappointed in your search. There are 103 homes currently available for sale in Anchorage and Eagle River between $300,000 and $350,000. Of those 103 homes, 24 were built during or before the 1970’s or approximately Continue Reading
From the Slave Kitchen to the Great Room
Last week I had the opportunity to visit Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello. Jefferson, who is considered one of the primary architects of our Declaration of Independence, also had a love for residential architecture and, as a result, his home at Monticello was always Continue Reading
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Connie Yoshimura is the Owner and Broker of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Alaska Realty. With over 40 years of residential real estate experience, she continues to be a leader in Alaska’s housing market. Most recently, she sold the highest-priced home ever recorded in the Alaska MLS.