Gig Harbor Undressed

What a difference a week makes

Last Saturday I posted this picture of our snow day in Gig Harbor. 

Here is a shot from the same vantage point taken today.  Pretty amazing the difference only one week can make in the weather!  This is a great demonstration of what Gig Harbor’s weather is like.  So many people think that it rains non-stop here, is gray and gloomy all the time, but it’s just not true.  The weather in Gig Harbor is all over the board, but you’re sure to get some sun almost every day!

Gig Harbor boats Christmas light parade

Several Gig Harbor boats paraded around the Harbor displaying their Christmas lights tonight.  With skies clear and temps in the low 30’s, downtown Gig Harbor and the Gig Harbor waterfront couldn’t have looked any better.  It was a beautiful night to gaze at the Christmas lights.  As I watched several parties viewing the lights from their private waterfront decks and docks, I couldn’t help but think of the numerous waterfront homes for sale in Gig Harbor.  Front row viewing for some amazing spectacles.

Anyway, I don’t know if my camera isn’t up to par, or if the guy using the camera isn’t up to par, but my light parade photos didn’t turn out so good.  I’d love it if any of you got some better pictures that you are willing to share.  You can email them to me at mthomson@kw.com

Is there a difference between buying a house and buying a home?

 I’m feeling profound this morning.  I may not come across sounding profound, but know that I am feeling deep.  I like to read other blogs, and the Tacoma News Tribune’s real estate blogis one of my favorites.  Devona Wells does a good job.  She writes about things that people are interested in, and gets discussions flowing.  That’s what I think a good blogger should do. 

One of her more recent posts focuses on the timing of buying a home.  She questions the NAR and Realtors seemingly constant push to buy now.  There have been several replies, coming from two camps.  Realtors reading the blog say of course now is the time to buy; prices are coming down, interest rates are low, why not buy?  Consumers reading the blog say of course Realtors will say buy now.  They’re self serving salesmen (one even calls us “stinky eggs”) who just want to make a buck.  Why buy now when prices will go even lower?  You can read the blog here, it’s a good one.

So my question is, “Is there a difference between buying a house and buying a home?”  Not everybody views a house as a really expensive wooden box that should make you rich some day.  Some people walk into a house and see their family having Christmas dinner there, they imagine having sleepovers and hosting graduation parties, they imagine having friends over for dinner or bringing home their first child.  To some people, a house is really a home, not just an investment.

That’s who I think NAR is trying to target with their new “buy now” ad campaign.  Our media tends to focus on the negative.  Many buyers have been scared into believing that if they buy a home now, they’ll lose it in a year when the foreclosure monster comes and eats up every home in America. 

My wife and I recently bought a home.  We looked at the homes for sale in Gig Harbor, saw a home we liked in a nice neighborhood, and we thought it’d be the perfect place to bring our child home to and raise a family.  It was a good deal, our mortgage is a good one with good rates, we’re really happy.  Can I sell the house for as much today as I bought it for 4 months ago?  According to the statistics, no.  But why would I want to sell it now?  We bought the home with the idea we’d be here for 7-10 years.  I can’t see the future, but I’m pretty sure our home will be worth more in 7-10 years than it is now.  We could have waited.  We could have said prices are falling, let’s wait until the market hits bottom, then buy.  But we don’t know when that will be.  We would have missed out on this house and we would have had to bring our newborn child home to a house we didn’t like as much.  We didn’t lose anything by buying when we did.  Our home will still turn out to be a great investment when we do end up selling.  For now, though, it is just our home.  A place where we’re comfortable, where we are making memories with our first child, where we’re happy to be.

If a house is just an investment to you, and you want to try and time the market and buy at just the right time, good luck.  If you are looking to buy a home in Gig Harbor and you are ready to start making a life for yourself here, call me, I think it’s a great time to buy.

What kind of bird is this?

I don’t know much about birds, but I thought this one looked cool.  This guy (or gal) was just hanging out at the entrance to Gig Harbor.  I’m hoping one of my readers will know what kind of bird this is.  Kind of looks like a turkey to me, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s not.

Any ideas?

Mt. Rainier on a cold day

I was visiting some downtown shops in Gig Harbor this morning, and Mount Rainier kind of jumped through the clouds at me.  This photo is taken from the very end point on Harborview Dr, just past the Tides Tavern.

So what is a cold day in Gig Harbor?  Am I providing accurate information about Gig Harbor, or is my Gig Harbor info skewed?  A few days ago I wrote about temps dropping into the 30’s.  Then it snowed.  A day after the snow came, temps shot up to the high 50’s and we got torrents of rain (much of Washington has severe floods, but Gig Harbor is fine).  Today, “cold” means low 40’s.  The picture just kind of looks cold, though, doesn’t it? 

Junior Achievement World and PSD

I had a chance to travel to Auburn this afternoon with Terry Bouck and some other members of the Gig Harbor Chamber of Commerce to witness the “Celebrate Junior Achievement Holiday Luncheon.”  Wow!  I had no idea what JA World was all about, but came home completely impressed and sold on the value of this great program.   Junior Achievement of Washington is designed to teach our 5th and 8th grade students several of the life skills that they will need to give them the brightest futures they can have. 

The JA World was divided into two wings; the 8th graders were in the JA Finance Park while the 5th graders were busy running JA BizTown.  These students were given 4-6 weeks of classroom prep, all culminating in this one day event at Auburn’s JA World where the kids run the show.  They have jobs, pay checks, kids, bills to pay, cars to buy, decisions to make, debt to manage…it’s really an incredible environment.  I’d encourage you to visit their website to learn more details.

PSD Superintendent Terry Bouck told me that his goal was to have every single 5th grader and every single 8th grader in our district be able to participate in this program.  Obviously, this costs money, largely in the area of transportation.  It also requires a good deal of volunteers, both parents and community business people.  After listening to Peninsula High School senior Allison Bill sing the National Anthem, and hearing the stories of 2 youngsters involved in the program currently (including a 15 year old in Tacoma’s Juvenile Detention Center, who has an amazing perspective on her life and her future), and the story of a JA alum who has done amazing things with his life, I was more than happy to support this program.  I’m sold on helping Superintendent Bouck achieve his goal of bringing this program fully into all of the PSD’s 5th and 8th grades. 

November sales slip in Gig Harbor

I tend to be an optimist when it comes to our housing market, and although the numbers below don’t look great initially, I’m going to stay optimistic.  Looking at Gig Harbor, the Key Peninsula, and Port Orchard, home sales for the month of November have taken a dip.  I read three things from these numbers.  1)One month of statistics doesn’t indicate a trend,  2)If you are looking to sell, make sure you are priced in the lower 20% of your competition so you can sell quickly, and 3)Now would be a good time to move up or buy an investment property if you were leaning that direction.

Port Orchard

*DOM is the days a home was on the market

Here’s an interesting statistic that goes along with this.  Go back up to Gig Harbor’s November sales for ‘07.  You see 23 sales at a median price of $430,000.  Currently, there are 545 homes on the market in Gig Harbor, with a median asking price of $624,900.  Of those 545 homes, only 17 are priced in the median sales range of $415,000-$445,000.  It goes to show that statistics can be helpful, but they can also be dangerously misleading.  It isn’t difficult, with numbers like these, to present them in such a way that I can either scare you into thinking the sky’s falling, or amaze you that our median price is over 1/2 million dollars.  My point, don’t take the media’s doom saying as truth, take the time to call on a professional to really analyze the numbers with you and give you the statistics that YOU want to know about…what is relevant to YOUR situation.  I’m a numbers geek, so I’d love to crunch numbers with you!

Gig Harbor Snow Day? Yep!

We got our snow today.  It wasn’t much, but it doesn’t take much around here to get us excited.  It started snowing around 11:45am, and came down steady for about 3 hours.  Sure is pretty here.