2022 in Review
JASON FOSS
I sincerely appreciate all of you who I had an opportunity to work with last year (and for those of you I didn’t work with last year, yes, I still appreciate you too). I am pleased to share with you the following highlights from 2022, as well as a quick look ahead to what might be in store for us this year.
As many of you know, at the end of last year I left Compass, my brokerage for the past 4 years. Together with my former NWG Real Estate colleagues, I am now a partner in a new boutique brokerage called Real Residential. Our mission is to redefine the duty of care for our clients and partners.
• We believe that every person deserves honesty. We promise that honesty will be at the core of every communication we have with our clients.
• We promise to elevate our client over any self-interest.
• We promise to advise and educate.
• We promise to treat our clients’ home as though it were our own.
• We promise to remain in our clients’ lives for anything they need that enhances their joy and convenience in their home.
• We promise that any request from our client will be answered honestly and timely.
• We promise to treat our fellow broker colleagues inside and outside of Real with care and consideration.
• We promise to be REAL.
My colleague Nick Glant and I sold out this special three-home community in downtown Kirkland last year, with the final home selling at full price.
Congratulations to our developer whose passion for building high-quality, thoughtfully designed homes was rewarded despite market headwinds.
Despite a slower second half of the year, I was happy to have the chance to assist 16 different great buyers and sellers at Bellevue Towers last year. This was the same number of sales at Bellevue Towers as in 2021, so we’ll see if I can pull off a hat trick in 2023.
I am excited to welcome Bear Hansen to the team as my new executive client manager. A recent graduate of the Foster School of Business at University of Washington, Bear is a great teammate who will help make your work with me more bearable.
So what does 2023 hold for us? About the only thing we know for sure is that we don’t know much for sure. We only have to go back a couple of years to the start of the pandemic to be reminded that events can play out differently than many of the experts (and even more of the non-experts) predict.
I am cautiously optimistic that this year, while slow from the standpoint sales volume, will not see significant additional price declines thanks to relatively strong employment, low inventory and low levels of distressed sales. But there is certainly a risk that the Federal Reserve may under-tighten (allowing inflation to re-ignite) or over-tighten (tipping the economy into a more than mild recession) in which case pricing may be more impacted than expected.
But no matter what happens, I do know that you can come to me for honest real estate advice when you need it (actually, you can come to me for honest advice for any kind, but on the whole my track record with real estate advice is much better than bee-keeping, home rocketry, or marital counseling).
Good luck in 2023!