I went to two open houses in Gig Harbor on Sunday looking to talk to buyers. There were none.

I stopped by one 25 minutes before close. The agent told me, “You’re the second person today, and the first was an agent from my office.”

So how well spent are those four hours?

With a slowing market and more competition, there seem to be more open houses these days. Is it because they work, or because sellers want to see something being done to sell their home?

So who still does them and why? Has Internet access to listings made them less productive? Who’s given up on open houses? Any sellers out there conducting their own open houses?

I had this post written when I ran across a discussion at Zillow in my a.m. blog reading on just this topic. So if you're interested in some more perspective (primarily from agents and sellers), go here.

Foreclosure filings increased in the first half of 2007 but not as much in Washington state as elsewhere, according to the latest figures from California real estate research firm RealtyTrac.

The state ranked 21st, with 10,998 foreclosure filings (default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions) -- up just 10 percent from January through June 2007 compared to the same six months in 2006, according to RealtyTrac.

Nationwide, foreclosures were up 56 percent. States faring the worse were California, Texas, Ohio and Florida.

A $10,000 grant from First Mutual Bank will fund counseling for low-income home buyers through the Washington Homeownership Center, according to a news release.

Buyers can access the counseling by calling 866-600-6466 and a counselor will conduct an ownership readiness assessment. Counseling will cover such topics as down-payment assistance programs, budgeting and credit counseling.

The grant will cover 640 hours of counseling.

For more info on the center and its programs, go here.

Forbes has evaluated 40 of the nation’s largest metro areas and determined that Seattle is the best place to flip a house. (The magazine released only the top 10; Tacoma didn’t place. Portland was No. 10.)

The magazine said it used data from Moody’s Economy.com and calculated a market’s rate of sales against inventory. It also examined construction numbers and price appreciation, among other stats.

Here's what the story had to say:

Seattle performs well by all these measures. There is a steady stream of buyers scooping up property in the area. What's more, new-home starts there are expected to go down by about 7% through 2008; that's like sounding a dinner bell to short sellers. With already-strong price appreciation, a decrease in new-home construction helps jack up prices. A relatively low investor share of 10% is a neutral factor.

How about in Pierce County? I know there was a good deal of flipping (defined by the magazine as buying and selling a home in two years or fewer) here not so long ago. But what about now?

Work continues at The Ansonia, where John Gibson, a partner in the project and the next-door Dorothy, expects the 26 condominiums to go on sale around October. Already, he said, about 10 are reserved.

I asked him if he thought, with all the other condos being built in Tacoma, there are too many for sale or on the way.

“Yeah, I feel like there are a few too many,” he said.

Still, he thinks The Ansonia will do well with its water views and big decks. The bulk of the units will be priced between about $500,000 and $1.1 million, he said.

“There’s always room at the top for one very good project,” he said.

At The Dorothy, eight units remain for sale, where buyer bonuses range from $5,000 to $10,000 on the studios and one bedrooms.

“Everyone realizes the market’s slowing,” he said. “We feel comfortable; we have eight. Some people have 60 or 80.”

Wells Fargo has become the latest bank to stop offering a popular adjustable rate mortgage, known as the 2/28, according to the Associated Press. The San Francisco-based bank joins Countrywide Financial Corp. and Seattle’s Washington Mutual in ditching the 2/28. (The loans worked like this: offer a low teaser rate the first two years that adjusts in year three and beyond twice annually.)

The blogosphere is predicting other lenders soon will follow. So does this make teaser-rate ARMs a thing of the past? Anyone out there still looking to land one or, more likely, trying to get out of one?

Another discount real estate brokerage has come to the South Sound, this one operating out of a South Tacoma office. It’s called $500 Realty and charges – you guessed it -- $500 to sell your home.

What do you get for $500?
Listed on the MLS, photos you take posted online, a key box and a sign on the front lawn.

$500 Realty started taking listings a few weeks ago, said Ray Pepper, broker and one of three partners. (Each of the partners put in $50,000 to fund the startup, he said.)

Pepper talks effusively about what he considers the new and only way real estate will live on. He won’t make many agent friends, though, with these kinds of views, which he shared when I met with him this afternoon: “The listing agent is useless in real estate.”

And this: “Real estate was very lucrative, but it’s over.”

If you’re buying, $500 Realty refunds 75 percent of the commission. (Seattle-based Redfin, which uses a similar model, refunds two-thirds.)

Pepper said he’s hired seven comission-only agents to cover Tacoma, Puyallup, Renton, Kent, Bellevue and Issaquah. Next year, he expects to open locations in Des Moines, Kent and Reno, Nev.

Pepper was still mulling ad copy this afternoon for TV commercials to air on CNBC and MSNBC. “It has to be something in your face,” he said. Look for those sometime around Aug. 20.

A Bloomberg story today examines the abundance of for-sale condominiums in Miami, where sales are plummeting while condo building continues to boom. Just for some perspective, the story says there were 22,924 condos for sale in Miami-Dade County in April. Pierce County had just 804 condos for sale in the same month and 7,305 total homes listed, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

In the middle of the biggest glut of condominiums in more than 30 years, Miami developers keep on building.

The oversupply will force prices down as much as 30 percent, the worst decline since the 1970s, and help push Florida’s economy into recession as early as October, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at West Chester, Pennsylvania-based Moody’s Economy.com, who owns a home in Vero Beach, Florida.

“Florida is the epicenter for all the problems that exist in the housing industry,” said Lewis Goodkin, president of Goodkin Consulting Corp. and a property adviser in Miami for the past 30 years, who also foresees a recession. “The problems we have now are unprecedented and a lot of people will get burnt.”

=> Read more!

Another real estate Web site looking to grab your attention – and the hours you spend seeking real estate info – has arrived. Called Terabitz, it’s out of Palo Alto, Calif., and works like this: Enter an address and then choose from more than 30 icons you can drag onto separate boxes that tell you (and maps) where you can find the nearest gas stations, hospitals, cafes and how much similar nearby houses are selling for.

I ran two properties through the system and it can be fun to mix home price info from Zillow with the closest banks and fast food restaurants. But not all the info I wanted was there. I tried to look for sex offenders and got “no results found” twice.

I’d be interested in knowing about your experience, should you choose to give it a whirl. How does it rate compared to Zillow and the other real estate sites vying for your time?

After my post last night about Redfin’s new $12 million in financing, I got an e-mail from Windermere agent Andrew Welch.

Here’s an excerpt:

I recently was asked to show a house that is listed by an agent in my office. It was a Sunday evening but I have to make a living. I showed the home and after an hour with the couple they let me know they are going to be using Redfin because of the “60 Minutes” story. I wasted the evening working with them when I could have been spending time with my newborn baby girl. Does this seem like a great business model to you?

I also would like to point out that while they have yet to turn a profit, Windermere has been giving back to the community for 20 years. All of our offices are locally owned and operated with a focus on making where we live better. I also do not see Redfin spending one day every year with every agent doing a community service day.

We are a hard working group of sales people who work seven days a week. We give back to the community and truly care about our clients. I have credited many clients back commissions to pay for any number of things. I just don’t go around advertising it.

I’m curious about the experience other real estate agents have had related to Redfin or other discount brokerages. Are they changing the way you do business? Are they taking away clients? Giving customers info they otherwise wouldn't have? Have you noticed any difference one way or the other?

Seattle’s Redfin planned to announce tonight that it landed its latest and largest and what CEO Glenn Kelman hopes is the company’s last round of funding -- $12 million. The money will help fund expansion into subsequent markets. Redfin, an online real estate brokerage, needs to be in 10 markets before it breaks even, he said. So far, the company operates in six.

When I talked to Kelman tonight about the funding, I asked him if he thought the obstacles Redfin has faced have been better or worse than he expected.

“Worse,” he said. The company stopped accepting listings (and has since started taking them again) last month because its brokers were overwhelmed with work after the company appeared on “60 Minutes.” Redfin also was fined $50,000 by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service after the company posted reviews of properties on one of its blogs.

“Nobody ever said it would be easy,” he said. “If you really want to change an industry, you can’t expect that industry to go along quietly with it.”

The Associated Press reported this afternoon that by the end of the year a Fed Reserve pilot program will examine lending firms that account for the majority of subprime loans.

Numerous subprime lenders have in recent months gone bankrupt or have been sold. Foreclosures were up 87 percent last month from year-ago levels, real estate information company RealtyTrac said last week.

Only about a quarter of subprime loans in 2005, the most recent year available, were made by federally regulated banks, according to the Fed. Instead, they were made by state-licensed lenders and subsidiaries of federally regulated banks that operate with limited federal regulation, the AP reported.

From what I'm hearing subprime loans are difficult to come by these days so I'm not sure how effective the program will be. But perhaps if the regulations go after the same companies that previously made high-risk loans, such lenders will proceed more cautiously down the road.

Seven condominiums at 505 Broadway, a 61-unit project under construction, are scheduled to go on sale this morning -- adding to a growing collection of high-rise condos in downtown Tacoma. These are the first to be listed for the project, on top of 13 reserved with $1,000 refundable deposits, said project partner Trevin Anderson.

The showroom opened late last month and includes life-size models of a sample foyer, kitchen, bathroom (with toilet closet) and living room.

The third of four floors of concrete is being poured on the actual building, which is scheduled to open June 1, 2008, Anderson said. (The building also has room for a restaurant and office space.)

Units will range in size from 1,296 square feet to 3,270 square feet with prices starting around $470,000 and going all the way up to $1.5 million, he said.

A day after my story on reverse mortgages ran Sunday, the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association released stats on the enormous money waiting to be tapped by seniors looking to take advantage of the alternative mortgage product.

Reverse mortgages pay a portion of the equity in your home while allowing you to live there until you die, move or sell. You must be at least 62 years old, an age the first baby boomers will begin reaching next year.

The amount of equity available to Americans 62 years and older, according to an index put together by the association and The Hollister Group? $4.3 trillion.

Some other stats:
• The average home equity in a senior-owned household is estimated to be about $230,000.
• The index projects as much as $37 trillion in home value for seniors by 2030.

The California mansion featured in my favorite movie, “The Godfather,” is for sale and could yield the largest residential transaction ever, according to The Real Estate Bloggers. (In the movie, it’s where Tom Hagen dines with the stubborn movie producer, who finds a severed horse head in his bed the next morning.)

The house is listed at $165 million.

The Real Estate Bloggers said the next biggest transactions include the Spelling mansion for $150 million and an Aspen home for $135 million.

The mansion, apparently, is shaped like the letter “H” and has 29 bedrooms and three pools. So enough room for you and a few friends. Could be just the thing for some of our Northwest executives looking for a Cali getaway.

Bloomberg reported today that a real estate market forecast from Freddie Mac has equal-opportunity bad news.

U.S. home sales in 2007 will drop to their lowest level since the start of the five-year housing boom in 2001 as mortgage rates and foreclosures increase, according to a forecast by Freddie Mac.

Sales of new and previously owned homes probably will total 6.28 million, down 7.1 percent from last year, according to the world’s second-largest mortgage buyer. It would be the lowest since 6.20 million homes were sold in 2001. Residential lending will drop to $2.75 trillion, the lowest since 2002, the McLean, Virginia-based company said in today’s forecast.

And for those looking to buy a home:

Buyers are finding it more difficult to finance purchases because of higher mortgage rates and stricter lending standards, Freddie Mac said. The average U.S. rate for a 30-year fixed rate home loan probably will be 6.7 percent this quarter, according to the forecast. That’s the highest level so far this year, and it’s half a percentage point above the 6.2 percent average in the first three months of the year.

Here's a breakdown of some of the condo stats that didn’t make it into today’s story detailing June home sales numbers.

In Pierce County, the median (half for more, half for less) sales price increased 2.1 percent – better than the overall median, which includes houses, of 0.82 percent. And there were lots more: The county had 943 condos listed last month, 130 percent more than the same month a year ago.

Winners and losers?

• Puyallup more than doubled its sales, from 13 sold in June 2006 to 33 last month. And the price increased from $175,000 to $219,600.
• The Gig Harbor area’s median sales dropped by 17.7 percent, from $340,062 to $280,000. Five condos sold, one down from June 2006.
• Lakewood had 13 units sell last month, compared to seven the same month in 2006. But the median price fell 7.8 percent to $211,950.
• One of the biggest price jumps occurred in Central Tacoma, where the median price increased 40.7 percent to $377,000. Seven units sold, down from 10 the same month a year ago.

It's been at least five years since price appreciation in the Pierce County housing market looked this bleak: Just .82 percent in June compared to the same month a year ago.

The barely there growth in sales prices came in far worse than the county's Puget Sound neighbors, which all saw increases from the previous year of at least 7 percent, according to numbers released this morning by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Pierce County's median sales price in June -- $275,250 -- also was down from what homes were selling for in May.

Other measures showed pending sales dropping 24 percent compared to the previous year and inventory skyrocketing, with 8,426 homes for sale in the county last month.

Look for more in tomorrow's News Tribune.

Seattle-based Redfin, an online real estate brokerage, has added message boards for customers to post questions and answers about the ins and outs of real estate buying and selling. Already, Redfin fields more than 100 such questions daily, spokeswoman Cynthia Pang said in an e-mail about the launch of the boards.

She also said she expects the Northwest Multiple Listing Service won’t be a fan. You might remember the MLS fined Redfin for property reviews that the company stopped in May.

“After the Redfin blog shut-down, it’s almost guaranteed the MLS will come after it,” she wrote.

This time, she said, Redfin will fight any MLS objection.

Also of note: Redfin stopped taking listings of for-sale homes in mid-June because its brokers were overwhelmed with work. The company will be accepting them again Monday. In the meantime, Redfin has been on a hiring spree and expanded the Washington listing team from three to eight.

Pang said Redfin hopes to never stop taking listings again.

"It’s bad for business," she said.

Despite Wednesday's holiday, I'm told the monthly home sales numbers from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service are due out Thursday.

Focusing on incremental numbers too intently can turn anything into a horse race that doesn't mean much, but with the local market teetering on the edge of a (statistically speaking) buyer's market, I think the numbers mean a little more than they otherwise would.

So, any predictions? Figures that came out the first week in June (for May) showed a higher year-over-year appreciation in Pierce County than some expected at 6.9 percent. But sales were way down and inventory was up even higher -- a 57 percent increase.

What kind of appreciation do you expect? And what about the number of homes being listed -- still thousands more than this time last year?