There’s been lots of talk from a wide variety of experts about the demise of the housing market in 2016 and comparing it to the real estate crash of 1986. But, there’s one important difference that everyone seems to have forgotten. In 1986 mortgage interest rates were 10.19 Continue Reading

It’s a big number—half a million dollars! Yet, in 2015, one hundred and forty-nine home buyers took the leap and bought homes in Anchorage between $450,000 and $500,000. So what did they get for half a million? Homes in this price point almost always have four bedrooms, 2.5 Continue Reading

Every time I take a break from real estate and head to the island of Kauai and Poipu Beach, I end up thinking about buying a second home at the end of the road of Paradise, or at least one of those almost historic ranch homes in the little town of Waimea. That, however, Continue Reading

All across the nation (and Alaska being no exception), buyers are demanding extras, upgrades, and changes to stock housing plans that have been the mainstay of builders profitability for the past twenty years. In the financial uncertainty of homebuilding, repeating a plan Continue Reading

Several years ago, I sold my luxury home on Campbell Lake and moved downtown into a new duplex. I live upstairs with my husband and two poodles. On the first floor is a 1,200 square foot apartment that over the years we have rented out to an airline pilot, a slope worker, a Continue Reading

The big take-away from the International Builders Show held last week in Las Vegas, with over 100,000 attendees (over 120 from Alaska,) is the Art of Personalization. Baby boomers crave personalization. Gen Xers expect, and want, personalization, and millennials, or the Continue Reading

Go on Pinterest and Houzz and you’ll find plenty of exotic ideas for new home designs, both interior and exterior. But how many of them work in a dreary, rainy, and dark Alaska? Here are some ideas to consider when building a new home, none of which will break your budget. Continue Reading

  The best thing about any predictions is that they’re soon forgotten and by the end of the year no one says ‘Well, she was right about that or that one was way off the mark’. So keep these predictions around, whether in the old-fashioned cut-out-print way, or bookmark Continue Reading

Although the final permit numbers for new housing units are not in, there is very little new construction activity in December, and so a downward trend in housing starts has definitely emerged for 2015. With that caveat in mind, this past year brought an 11.23% decline in Continue Reading

The implementation of the new Title 21 scheduled for January 1, 2016, couldn’t come at a worse time for builders and developers. Originally conceived during the housing boom of the mid 2000’s, it was meant to create a more aesthetically pleasing new age community. Ten years Continue Reading