I'm going to try something new on Open House that I hope to make a regular Monday feature: Examining the language real estate agents use when trying to sell a house. It will be called Real Speak.

I plan to pick one or two phrases, put them out there, expound a bit and then see what you think. I’d love to get some feedback from real estate agents. And sellers. And buyers.

Let’s start with this one:

In randomly selecting 10 ads around the South Sound, I found variations of “bring offers” two times. One was for a supposedly immaculate house with new Pergo flooring. Doesn’t calling for offers automatically dilute the ability to get the best offer? Doesn’t asking for offers scream to buyers you don’t have a hope of getting the price advertised? And why would sellers be interested in putting their property in such a position?

P.S. A huge round of applause to biz reporter superstar John Gillie, who came up with the superb name for this new feature.

Seattle-based Redfin has changed its logo after it said competitor Move.com threatened to sue. Apparently, the aspect in question was the outline of a house in a circle both Move.com and Redfin used. Now Redfin’s logo is a tree that appears to grow houses.

The Internet house broker, one of many attempts online and off to shake up the traditional real estate model, also has moved into Boston as it adds more cities to its lineup.

Old logo:

The competition:

New logo:

News of another grocery store planned for downtown Tacoma, as reported in Dan Voelpel’s column today, isn’t necessarily in downtown. At least according to The News Tribune’s style guide. Or the Tacoma Downtown Merchants Group. But it is if you consult the city’s generous and recently reconfigured boundaries, which include Port property across the Foss Waterway.

These wide-ranging interpretations of downtown boundaries got us talking about where exactly downtown starts and ends. Real estate folks have a special interest in what a neighborhood is called, since the location of a property is among a listing's most basic info.

The newspaper’s definition would put some supposedly downtown condo projects, such as City Steps and McCarver Village, in the Hilltop. Along with the grocery store at South 25th Street and Yakima Avenue planned by Metropolitan Real Estate Development.

I've heard others call the area downtown, South Downtown, New Tacoma and Hillside.

What do you think? Your feedback could be used to redraw the paper’s definition of downtown.

Here's a look at the city's take on downtown boundaries:

And a look at the TNT's take on the boundaries:

National home prices suffered their steepest decline in 15 years in February – 1.5 percent over the same period a year ago, according to a housing index released Tuesday by Standard & Poor’s and reported by the Associated Press. It’s the worst showing since a 1.6 percent decline in October 1993.

Of course, this speaks to the nationwide picture. Cities like San Francisco and Boston continue to fare poorly. But Seattle, Portland and Tacoma are holding up, even as they continue to be the exception. Pierce County’s median home price increased in March by 5.8 percent over the same month a year ago to $274,950, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

The Associated Press is reporting that Zillow’s fortunes in Arizona could be looking up. The Arizona House voted Monday in favor of a bill that would overturn an order requiring Seattle-based Zillow to pull its Arizona properties. The Arizona Board of Appraisal last week told the company in two cease-and-desist letters that it needs an appraisers license to post its “Zestimates.”

As of Tuesday morning, Zillow still listed Arizona properties for sale.

One of the things I noticed when I recently bought a condo is how readily people ask: How much did it cost? It strikes me as a somewhat personal question, though I usually answer it. And the price is public record, and it’s a question I obviously want people to answer if I’m doing a story. Not to mention the info is increasingly available without having to visit the assessor’s office.

But I wonder if anyone out there finds the question a little much. Does it rank somewhere near asking how much someone makes for a living – a question I think a lot of people don’t want to answer. What about dress size? Or what you paid for your car?

Pierce County came in No. 1 for foreclosures in Washington state last month, according to the latest stats from real estate research company RealtyTrac. The county also was apparently the only in the state to be above the national foreclosure average.

Waiting on more info from the company, which is based in Irvine, Calif., on how the numbers are computed to post the stats.

A Seattle company is looking for Tacoma business leaders, developers and government types to fly off to Sweden and Denmark to tour waterfronts, tall buildings (including grain silos converted to apartments), energy plants and get inspired.

Patricia Chase, president of International Sustainable Solutions, said Malmo, Sweden – a city formerly dependent on ship building – serves as an ideal model for Tacoma. The city’s harbor, which transformed from one with economic and social problems to one with new housing, office and retail thriving on renewable energy, could be of particular influence.

“It’s now the most expensive area in Malmo to live and it was a polluted ship yard,” she said.

The one-week trip in June costs about $3,400. Chase hopes to take along up to 25 Tacomans.

Want more details? Attend a noon meeting Monday at 535 E. Dock St., Suite 204. Or go here.

Another company, this one out of San Francisco, has waded into real estate on the Web. It’s called YourStreet and invites readers to post opinions about their neighborhood in the interest of tracking where one might buy a home. It launched this month.

A blurb from the site:

Based on the premise that all real estate is local, YourStreet creates a platform for individuals to share market information on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.

Folks can also vote on how hot or not they think a local market is. Seattle had 29 votes by noon on Sunday, making it a “Moderate Seller’s Market.” There was no info listed for Tacoma, though other communities “nearby” Seattle, such as Redmond, Port Orchard and Bremerton, were up.

The Associated Press reported this weekend that the Arizona Board of Appraisal has ordered Seattle’s Zillow to stop doing business in the state. Two cease-and-desist letters were sent to the company, saying it needs an appraiser license to post “Zestimates” for Arizona properties, according to the AP.

Zillow’s Zestimates, which offer estimated values of houses across the country, have long been a source of controversy for accuracy issues. Zillow officials say if the Zestimate is off, it’s likely due to bad info from the county, which the company relies on to build the estimated value.

But I know local appraisers think the company wades into territory that should be inhabited only by those licensed to determine a home’s value. Any thoughts on the approach taken by Arizona officials?

Zillow’s spokeswoman Amy Bohutinsky told the AP: “We have responded to the letters from the Arizona Board of Appraisal and hope to engage in a productive dialogue with them.”

As of Monday morning, Zillow still listed homes -- and their Zestimates -- in Phoenix, Tucson and Scottsdale.

A wrong stat in recent info provided by real estate research firm RealtyTrac made Olympia foreclosures seem far worse than they actually are.

In January, Olympia ranked No. 99 out of 229 metro areas in the U.S. But a list posted at Yahoo’s new Foreclosure Center (and subsequently posted here) that uses RealtyTrac figures put the ranking at No. 9.

The bad stat? Number of households. Somehow, RealtyTrac used 27,261 households to compute the rate when the metro area actually has 86,652, said Daren Blomquist, marketing communications manager for the Irvine, Calif., company.

“And so that skewed the foreclosure rate to the top 10, and it should not have been,” he said.

The inaccurate listing was still up on the Foreclosure Center when this was posted, but Blomquist said RealtyTrac has contacted Yahoo to get it fixed. New foreclosures rates for March are expected next week.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the National Association of Realtors now says housing prices will fall 0.7 percent nationwide this year from 2006 (after saying in February that prices would go up by 1.9 percent this year). That doesn’t mean they’ll dip in the Northwest.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Home prices generally have been falling in parts of Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, the Rust Belt states and Massachusetts. But they have continued to rise in some cities, including Houston, Portland, Seattle and New York, where job growth has been relatively strong and supplies of unsold homes generally lean.

The association's shift is blamed largely on tightening lending standards as subprime lenders close and Wall Street investors choose to buy less risky mortgages.

Here’s a bit more from the story:

Before the subprime mortgage problems blew up recently, said Lawrence Yun, an economist for the Realtors, the group expected the housing market to begin recovering by the middle of this year. Now, he says, recovery is unlikely before late this year.
In 2006, the median price rose 1.1 percent from a year earlier to $222,000, even though the monthly median prices reported in the second half of 2006 were down modestly from year-earlier months.

Pierce County’s median home price in March was $274,950.

It’s a common question when housing markets slow: Is it a better financial decision to rent or buy? No one can really knows because no on really knows what will happen down the road, with the market or your own situation. But there are plenty of opinions.

The New York Times explores the topic today with a story suggesting that renting might well be the way to go for today’s potential buyer. Click on the graphic on the left-hand side and you can personalize the rent vs. buy chart that will pinpoint the financial benefit each year for 30 years. It takes into account what you’d pay to rent, house purchase price, mortgage interest rate and down payment.

It might be difficult to find a better personification of residential real estate investment gone wrong than 24-year-old Casey Serin. He bought up a bunch of houses with no money of his own, expected to flip them and now is fighting off foreclosure.

You can find his story at iamfacingforeclosure.com.

Here’s a sample, after Serin paid down one debt:

It felt great to pay that money back! Now it’s time to start looking for some sweet deals! Maybe we’ll have a come-back story after all…

Serin shares lots of details about his cash flow issues, creditors, his PayPal account, short sales and how his wife quit college to bail him out. If you check out the site, be prepared for some gutter talk. Each post tends to get more than 100 comments, many of them not so nice. Some, however, apparently feel sorry enough for Serin to donate money so he can pay his bills.

So last week the state’s capital landed on a top 10 list for foreclosures, as ranked by real estate research firm RealtyTrac. And now Forbes puts the city on its top 10 list for business and careers.

Here’s what the magazine, which took into account job growth, number and quality of nearby colleges and other factors, had to say:

A new entry on our list of the 200 largest metros is Olympia, Wash. Washington's capital had been relegated to our ranking of the best small metro areas in years past, but thanks to a 2% annual growth in population (twice the national average), the Olympia metro and its 233,000 people graduated to the big metro list this year. Olympia soared to a ranking of 10th overall thanks to strong job and income growth over the past five years.

Considering all those good careers, why all the foreclosures? Perhaps Olympians are being hit harder than others in the Northwest by the subprime mess.

Affording a place to live was the topic at a roundtable talk in Seattle today that resulted in the creation of a task force, according to a release from the office of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, who convened the gathering. The idea is to find ways to provide more housing that teachers, seniors, young families and service workers can afford in Pierce, King, Snohomish and Kitsap counties.

The task force will be co-chaired by Rita Ryder, president of the YWCA Seattle, and Bill Longbrake, vice chairman of Washington Mutual.

Pierce County’s median home price in March, released yesterday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, was $274,950.

While the monthly Pierce County home sales numbers provide insight to the general market, getting a more specific look – neighborhood by neighborhood – is always better. Today, we got the more detailed breakdown on median sales prices (comparing March 2007 to the same month a year ago), from Fox Island to Eatonville.

Here’s a quick look at some of the biggest gains and drops:

Browns Point: up 14.5 percent, from $449,950 to $514,975
A collection of rural communities including Graham, Eatonville, Clear Lake and Elbe: up 31.6 percent, from $265,950 to $349,950
Lakewood: down 6.2 percent, from $325,000 to $305,000
DuPont/Steilacom: down 3.6 percent, from $352,700 to $339,975

Searching for a real estate agent? Agentopolis provides listings, though with some limitations.

Beyond just the basic info, the site wants reader-generated ratings for each agent, with room given to post reviews. That could get interesting. I wonder how agents feel about having their profiles out there, available for any person with an Internet connection to give them a thumbs up or down.

But be warned: If you’re trying to find a real estate agent, not all are there. I searched for three agents who I know have been in the biz awhile and none were listed at Agentopolis. I also tried to find an agent in Gig Harbor, Tacoma or Lakewood that deals in luxury properties and came up with nothing.

Numbers just out from the Northwest MLS delivered more of the same contradiction for March: Slowing sales activity alongside increased home prices.

The median price was $274,950, up 5.8 percent over the same month a year ago, though down from February, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Sales, however, continued to fall as the number of listings skyrocketed to 6,554 – up 48.6 percent from March 2006.

Agents, like they have in previous months, say they are counseling patience to sellers unaccustomed to (or unwilling to accept) today's decelerating market. Any sellers out there willing to share their first-hand experience? Feeling frustrated, impatient or, perhaps, pleased with the turnaround on their house?

More on the numbers in tomorrow's TNT.

Ever wanted to know where to find the latest foreclosure news stories? How about charts tracking foreclosures in every state? What about the top 10 cities in the U.S. for foreclosures (Olympia’s No. 9)?

Yahoo Real Estate has remade its Foreclosure Center, after teaming with Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, to include such info and more. You can check it out here.

FYI, as I reported Sunday: RealtyTrac says that through February, Pierce County foreclosures were up 51 percent for the year compared to the previous 12 months.

Here’s a fun take on the ups and downs of the real-estate market: Home prices (adjusted for inflation) plotted since 1890 on an animated rollercoaster. There’s even the slow-fast, clink-clink rollercoaster sound to heighten the experience. View it here.

Another side effect of a slowdown in the housing market: When someone relocating for a new job puts a house on the market, it sits longer than it used to, according to a story in The Christian Science Monitor. More time on the market for such recruits translates to difficulty in transitioning to a new job, more time spent in temporary housing and more money spent by companies that offer to make up what’s lost in a sale.

Here's an excerpt from the story:

Some potential employees are turning down new jobs or transfers they cannot sell their house or would have to take a heavy loss. And companies that offer relocation benefits are spending more for employees' moving expenses.

"It's costing companies an exorbitant amount of money to cover the loss on sale to get an employee moved," says Andrew Drescher, a relocation consultant with Relocation Benefits in Vienna, Va.

Many Fortune 1000 companies typically pay closing costs, he says, as well as giving employees payment for money they lost by selling their house quickly. But small firms often cannot afford that. "It's greatly affecting the ability of smaller companies to recruit top talent out of higher-priced markets," Mr. Drescher says.

A big part of being a worthy risk for mortgage lenders is your credit score. My story on Sunday highlighted how some with blemished credit might find today's mortgage prospects far tougher than they were a year ago.

Today, the Washington Association of Mortgage Brokers released tips on ways you can raise (or at least minimize any potential damage to) your score:

• Keep credit card balances below 30 percent of the limit available.

• Don't consolidate credit card accounts to just one or two, which could distort your credit picture. Having a low balance on several credit cards is better than having a high balance on one or two cards.

• Use your credit cards at least once every five months.

• Review your credit report for accuracy at least 90 days before applying for a mortgage. If you find inaccuracies, contact the credit card company, which should be able to tell you how to go about disputing the misinformation.

Go here to find out more about shaping up your credit report and how to get a free one.