West Redmond Real Estate Buzz

The Ben Rush Auction was another success!  Thanks go out to Kymberly Meade and her dedicated group of auction committee members. They put together a fun auction with great items available from all over town and all over the nation.  This year, the auction had a Big Top over some of the auction items and a professional auctioneer, Larry Snyder,  Jr. 

 The auction raised $27,000 for Ben Rush school programs.  Congratulations to you all!

Friday night is your chance to support The Lake Washington Schools and Ben Rush Elementary.  This year’s auction plans to be huge with some great auction items to bid on.  All the proceeds go to support educational programs at Ben Rush.

The auction is Friday, March 14th from 7-10 PM on the Ben Rush campus at 6101 152nd Ave NE, Redmond, Washington.

Check out the auction catalog. 

 Do you need your car washed? 

 Are you hankering for homemade desserts or a homemade Chinese meal?

 Need a haircut or beauty supplies?

 Looking for hockey lessons, martial arts lessons or a chance to go kayaking or join a gym?

 Theater, dancing, dining out?

There is something for everyone and you can help support education.

This year’s Ben Rush Elementary  auction goal is $40,000!  The PTA’s goal is to raise money for art, science, and math enrichment programs.  Below is a list of things the PTA would like to help fund:

• field trips
• Young Author’s Program
• emergency preparedness supplies
• assistance for children in need
• grants to classroom teachers
• after school classes
• family activities

Here’s the latest announcement from Kymberly Meade, who is in charge of the auction:

“The Ben Rush PTA, Fourth Annual Auction is well underway — and it is a good thing with the date rapidly approaching.  The date of the auction is March 14th, 7PM on the grounds of Ben Rush Elementary school at 6101 152nd Ave NE in Redmond.

Our goal this year is to raise $40,000!  This goal is $10,000 higher than our earnings last year.  The reason it is so much higher is that the PTA has decided that it is best if we hold this large event every other year after this year.  With the large number of volunteer hours it takes to put on an event of this size, as well as the strain that asking for $40,000 worth of donations from the businesses in our community, we feel it is important to hold the auction every other year.  So, that large goal is what we will need to operate for two years (possibly with a few smaller fundraisers to make sure we make it).”

Donate money, auction items, your time, you name it.  Help the PTA help the kids at Ben Rush!

Stop by Ben Rush Elementary today to meet your child’s new teacher. Come by the school between 2-3 PM today for your introduction.

Ben Rush Elementary
6101 152nd Ave NE
425-881-6047

Head over to Audubon Elementary at 12 Noon today.
3045 180th Ave NE
425-881-9578

Congratulations to Ben Rush Elementary and a special thanks to the PTA for raising $30,000 for school programs. A special thanks to Kymberly Meade and her committee for organizing such a great auction. There were some wonderful items for people to bid on, all for a great cause.

Go Ben Rush!

Friday night, the 23rd of March, from 7-9:30 is your chance to contribute to Ben Rush Elementary School programs. Sponsored by the Ben Rush PTA, there is a great list of items to bid on from live and silent auctions. The funds will go to program enrichment for Ben Rush students.

Have a little fun and support a great cause! Our kids are our future!

For those of you who may not know, Ben Rush is located in the Spiritbrook neighborhood on 152nd Ave NE in Redmond. You can get to Ben Rush by going north from NE 51st on 156th Ave NE. Just past Westside Park is a stop sign. Turn left at the stop sign and cross over highway 520. Ben Rush will be straight ahead as you turn onto 152nd Ave NE.

Have fun!

Check out the catolog on line. There are some fun things available.
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ugwc/catalog.htm

If you were a seller in February, your chances of selling a home in West Redmond/East Bellevue were pretty wonderful.

Sellers had a 58% change of selling a home in February, 2007, definitely a seller’s market. There were 57 sales during the month.

Of all the areas on the Eastside, West Redmond/East Bellevue has some of the lowest number of homes for sale. If you look at my earlier post about the chances of selling a home on the Eastside in February, 2007, you will see at the end of February, there were only 98 homes available for sale in West Redmond/East Bellevue, an astonishingly low number. Kirkland, on the other hand, had 275 homes on the market, quite a big difference.

The areas around Microsoft and West Redmond are really going strong. Inventory is light under the 700k range. Some recent sales(some were mentioned in my previous post): In the Pinehurst neighborhood, a Burnstead built neighborhood of two story homes, a home was listed for $630,000 and sold for $660,000. In the Meadows, a planned unit development, the largest free-standing home in the neighborhood was priced at $525,000 and sold for $554,000. I sold a home on Rose Hill that had five offers and will close at more than full price.

A word of caution: pricing is on the side of sellers, but each home must be analyzed according to its current competition. Some homes will be able to be priced more aggressively and some will not. For example, if there’s only one or two properties competing with a home for the same buyer, it may be easier to be more aggressive with pricing. However, if the competition creeps up from there, pricing for a home should be less aggressive. Competition is most important to analyze right up to the minute the home goes on the market.