Lake Washington waterfront real estate requires a different level of due diligence from a typical residential purchase. The house, land, shoreline, dock, exposure, legal rights, and permit history all need their own evaluation. A waterfront listing can look straightforward while raising questions that may not come up anywhere else. How deep is the water at […]

Local Look 9/6/26: A Cooler Market for Fall Hi. I’m Jeff Tucker, principal economist at Windermere Real Estate, and this is a Local Look at the August 2026 data from the Northwest MLS. Summer is drawing to a chilly end here in Seattle, and the latest stats suggest the local housing market was already feeling […]

What Is an HOA? A Guide to Homeowners Associations and HOA Fees   Becoming a homeowner comes with many responsibilities, but if the home you’re purchasing is part of a homeowners association (HOA), you’ll also need to account for additional guidelines and fees. HOAs are common in condominium and townhome communities as well as some single-family […]

This Mercer Island neighborhood guide is designed to help you understand how different parts of the island compare. Mercer Island is small enough that you can drive from one end to the other fairly quickly, but buying a home here is much more address-specific than the map suggests. Most conversations about Mercer Island neighborhoods start […]