Talon Northwest Neighborhoods

Rene' Fabre: 100% social media satisfaction...100% compliant!

In the entire Puget Sound area, there are very few individuals in title insurance that "get" the nuances and value of social media for real estate professionals. Rene' Fabre has been compliantly helping real estate brokers and lenders truly understand social media's benefit since 2003.

You'll discover Rene's passion for social media throughout dozens of on-line conversations or by attending local events that focus on this media. Yet, it's not as easy as you might think for Rene' to share his deep knowledge on this subject with our fellow real estate pros. There are clear cut rules we must strictly abide by when it comes to providing items of value to potential originators (our clients) of title & escrow biz.

The competitive nature of the title insurance industry mixed with our state's strict enforcement of insurance regulations can bring out the "tattle-tale" in many of our competitors. 

Rene' follows all the state regs to a "T" as shown with a letter from our state's Insurance Commissioner absolving our company from yet another competitor's allegations. I guess we'll just continue to be flattered that we're being noticed by our peers!

 

A few days back we posted an article about how interest rates were the lowest level on records dating back to 1971.  The article mentions that the lower interest rate point previous to that was in the 1950's.

During our research on what else you could buy in the 1950's (a single family home for $10K for example), we ran across some old archived pictures from around the Puget Sound.  Us title geeks love this stuff, so we thought we'd share some of the more interesting ones we found.

Bellevue Wharf circa 1908

The East Channel bridge connecting Enatai to the North side of Mercer Island was completed in 1923.  This picture may be the beginning of that project, although it's hard to know for certain from this picture.

 

The Kingdome construction circa 1975

We're not still paying for this thing, are we?

 

South Park Bridge circa 1932

Hand Colored Map circa 1907

This map was used to estimate taxable timber resources

Seattle's Hooverville circa 1933

This particular "Hooverville" was located off of Holgate and 6th Ave S

Our Puget Sound area is full of rich history.  It's fun to look back once in a while and see where we all came from.  Hope you enjoyed them.

Thanks everyone,

Chris

Same Great People, Same Great Service... Different Logo.

Advantages of Listing Web-Sites for Home Sellers

With all the blinking real estate ads, IDX's, and annoying pop-ups polluting the on-line experience, it's tougher than ever for home buyers to concentrate on any one home. Savvy home sellers are now seeing the value in having a single website created for marketing the features of their home...and only their home.

Working with as many real estate professionals as we do, we often hear it requires a team effort of both the seller and listing broker to gain maximum exposure in today's challenging market. Single listing websites afford sellers and brokers an opportunity to share a link to the property (without a barrage of competing listings & search tools) with all friends and followers through social media and email.

The Talon Group has a vested interest in helping our clients gain an upper hand in marketing their homes. Therefore, we developed a single listing website solution that incorporates superior features for presenting and sharing a seller's home on-line.

• One year registration of URL customized to fit the home's specific marketing scheme.
• Video slide shows using both YouTube and Viddler for maximum web search presence.
• Optimized for sharing on Facebook and creating a Fan Page. 
• "Share buttons" for Google+ and twitter also integrated on listing site.
• Walk Around Jack - popular feature of Google's street view for blog posts.
• Walk Score plugin - another great feature for presenting the neighborhood to perspective buyers.
• Mortgage calculator and interest rate tables that highlight today's high affordability.
• Ability to advertise Open House dates.
• Lead generating "calls to action" placed on site to engage with potential buyers.
• Syndication of custom website listing to major real estate sites.
• Custom sign-rider displaying the URL and QR code for traffic walking by your home.
• Correct use of "key words" or metatags to drive the home's site up in the search engines.

If it's not enough these days to simply display your home in the market at "eye level" hoping that a potential buyer notices, try walking your home around the virtual market place by sharing your home's custom website! Click here to view an example of Talon's new listing website

 

Tideland definitions for Seattle area waterfront properties

You may have heard of several different terms describing Puget Sound tidelands in the Seattle area. This video from Talon's own Chief Title Officer, Tim Daniels, is dedicated to defining how these periodically submerged lands are labeled on a deed's legal description. We'll also touch on the different ways high and low tides are measured when determining boundary lines.

Gotta love the Talon eagle flying by in the background!