Resources

We met with many clients and industry colleagues at the ICSC shopping center convention in Las Vegas last week. Here are a few of our takeaways:

The Washington State Real Estate Excise Tax is a tax that is assessed on the sale of real estate in the state. It is generally paid by the seller, although in some cases it may be split between the buyer and seller. The tax is based on the sale price of the property, with different tax rates applicable to different price ranges. For the first time in four years, the Washington State Real Estate Excise Tax is being adjusted. In January 2020, the state dramatically increased the excise tax rate for the sale of real estate. This increase was aimed at high value transactions, with the excise tax rate nearly doubling for some sellers. Since then, the excise tax rates have remained consistent, but the state legislature has now decided to increase the dollar sales thresholds of the various tax rates by $25,000. This means that the range of sale prices subject to each tax rate has increased, and in some cases, the overall tax burden for sellers will be slightly lower. For example, the lowest tax rate of 1.10% now applies to property sales up to $525,000, up from $500,000 previously. Interestingly, this new change will result in a …

Our team recently sold the Shops at Burlington, a 185,230-square-foot outlet center. Almost everyone we talked to was familiar with the property. It is hard to miss a 19-acre property along Interstate 5. Most everyone had a story of a time they had visited the outlet mall over the course of its 30-year existence.

Atul Gawande, a surgeon and best-selling author, argues in his book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, that checklists are essential for reducing errors and increasing efficiency. He cites the airline industry’s reliance on flight-related checklists – and its remarkable safety record – as evidence of the power of checklists to make processes work.

It’s 2022 and we have a brand spanking new website. It is hard to believe, but our last major redesign was 8 years ago which feels like decades ago at today’s pace of change. We started from scratch and focused on the following features: