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Renton School Board votes to delay opening Honey Dew Elementary School for one year

Posted: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 0 comment(s) [ Comment ] - 0 trackback(s) [ Trackback ]

The ability to teach students at current schools and the nearly $2 million in annual operating costs, were cited as reasons for postponement.

June 10, 2009 — Renton School Board members voted at tonight’s meeting to delay the opening of Honey Dew Elementary School for another school year. Board members were presented a plan by the district to continue to house students at existing schools. The presentation also emphasized that the cost to open and manage a new elementary school could be as much as $2 million per year; money the district would have to find in its current operating budget, even as the budget was reduced for next school year by $5.3 million. Board members will again review the use of the school sometime in the coming school year for the 2010-2011 school year.

Honey Dew, located at 800 Union Ave NE, Renton, has not been used as a neighborhood school for the past 10 years as it housed students from other district elementary schools as those schools were rebuilt. Thanks to voter support, all of the district’s 13 elementary schools have been completely rebuilt.

Student enrollment throughout the district remains stable at about 13,700 students. The district welcomes about 100 new students each school year.
Although some neighboring schools are nearing capacity, district numbers show that students who would attend Honey Dew can continue to receive quality instruction at other local elementary schools, located within about a one-and-a-half mile radius of Honey Dew.

Honey Dew Elementary is currently undergoing modernization to meet the needs of a 21st century school. The work is part of a bond measure approved by voters in 2003. The construction project is on time and on budget. Many elements of the existing building will be reused to be environmentally friendly.

Improvements to the fields at Honey Dew also continue. The new fields, which are widely used by neighborhood and community sports teams, will be ready by the summer of 2010, and will include: a new baseball field with dugout and bleachers, 2 softball fields with backstops and 2 soccer fields. The field will also benefit from replacement of the sod and infield dirt mix; raising of the field and improved drainage to keep water from standing on the surface; and, installation of an irrigation system.

The district held true to its promise not to increase tax rates with the approval of the bond and levy measures to renovate Honey Dew, add a classroom wing at Hazen High School, and many other classroom and field improvements throughout the district. The district’s tax rate remains among the lowest in the region.

David J Edwards
Real Estate Agent & REALTOR
The David J Edwards Team
Keller Williams Realty Southeast Sound
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The David J Edwards Team specializes in Residential Real Estate for buyers and sellers.

Will Rising Interest Rates Kill a Recovery in Housing?

Posted: Monday, June 15, 2009 - 0 comment(s) [ Comment ] - 0 trackback(s) [ Trackback ]

Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com's editor at large wrote an interesting article about the rise in long term treasury bond yields and their impact on interest rates. To read the full article visit http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/08/markets/thebuzz/index.htm.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"The Fed lowered its key federal funds rate, an overnight bank lending rate, to near zero in December and has kept it there ever since. And the central bank announced in March it would start buying $300 billion in long-term Treasuries to keep long-term rates low, a phenomenon known as "quantitative easing."

The justification is that many believe the only way for the economy to truly get healthier again is for the housing market to get out of its funk. The direction of long-term yields tends to have an effect on mortgage rates.

Some fear that a nascent pickup in housing sales -- despite a continued slide in prices -- could come crashing to a halt if it suddenly become smore costly for people to finance a home purchase.

And according to Bankrate.com, a Web site that tracks lending rates across the country, the average 30 year fixed rate mortgage is now 5.45% up from 5.23% a week ago and a record low of 4.85% in April."

Nonetheless, it's important to note that even if rates go up a full point, they will still be within the average 5% to 6% we were used to during the runup between 2003 and 2006.

It's my belief that rates won't skyrocket much higher. Rates seem to have rebounded because people believe the economy is getting better. If they keep surging, it could slow down our recovery.

The David J Edwards Team specializes in Residential Real Estate for buyers and sellers.

Purchase Activity Increasing

Posted: Thursday, June 4, 2009 - 0 comment(s) [ Comment ] - 0 trackback(s) [ Trackback ]

Although it's sometimes hard to feel, home purchase activity in the Northwest is trending upward. In the first quarter of 2009 the percentage of home purchases vs. refinances increased from 11% in January to 23% in March. Although still a long way from the 7 to 3 purchase to refinance ratio of a few years ago, it's heading in the right direction.

We don't really want to be where we were a few years ago anyway. The more steady the recovery, the more likely we are to avoid another runup that will borrow buyers from the future. We want the recovery to take the shape of a "V" rather than the shape of a "W" which would result in another drop before we stabalize.

A slowdown could easily be caused by the Federal Government's failure to renew the first time homebuyer tax credit and/or a rise in interest rates for home loans.

Best Regards

The David J Edwards Team specializes in Residential Real Estate for buyers and sellers.

David Edwards

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