Pierce County, from the tideflats to the foothills.

I help people buy and sell homes across the county: the old streets of Tacoma’s North End, the Puyallup Valley, the harbor towns across the Narrows and the neighborhoods up on the plateau. My office is on Fryar Avenue in Sumner, within an easy drive of all of it.

Write to me Read the city almanac

Austin Hellickson Managing Broker, LPT Realty Tacoma · Puyallup · Gig Harbor · Lakewood · University Place · Bonney Lake · Sumner · Orting · Graham

The Puyallup River braiding across wide gravel bars between bare cottonwoods and dark evergreen hills, with Mount Rainier pink at dawn upstream and mist on the water — The Cascade foothillsGravel bars at low water, the mountain upstream

The countyAn introduction

One county, a great many different mornings.

A morning in Proctor might start with a walk to the bakery and the paper. In Graham it might start with feeding horses before work. In Gig Harbor it is coffee on a deck over the water, and in Orting it is the mountain, filling the end of the street on the days the clouds lift.

Most of my work is helping people decide which of those mornings they want, and then finding that house, or selling the one they have, with as few surprises as I can manage.

That means knowing the things that never make it into a listing. Which parcels sit in a mapped flood zone along the Puyallup and White rivers. Where the SR 410 hill backs up on a school morning. Which older Tacoma houses may still have a heating-oil tank in the yard. How a builder’s contract on the plateau differs from the standard Northwest MLS forms.

I would rather you hear about those in our first conversation than from an inspector three weeks into escrow.

The year in Pierce County, season by season

Houses sell here in every month of the year. These are the seasonal patterns I plan around, and every year bends them a little.

Spring

March to May

Buying

More homes come on as the daffodils come up in the valley, and more buyers come out with them. Finish your pre-approval before the first warm weekend, and decide in advance how you will respond if a house draws several offers.

Selling

The yard does some of the work for you. Plan the painting and repairs in late winter so your painter and photographer are booked before the rush, and if you have a cherry tree, photograph the house the week it blooms.

Dark-shingled craftsman house with stone-based porch columns and a flowering cherry tree in spring, with snow-covered Mount Rainier in the distance — The foothills, in blossom

Summer

June to August

Buying

Families with school-age kids want to be moved in before classes start, and a lot of summer contracts get written backward from that date. Long evenings are the best time to test a commute, and to see a neighborhood the way you would actually live in it.

Selling

Vacations interrupt everything, yours and the buyers’. Settle how you will review and sign offers while you are away. Keep the lawn watered; a brown yard in August photographs poorly next to the green one across the street.

Waterfront homes among tall evergreens above a marina in Gig Harbor, with a sailboat and motor yachts reflected in calm morning water — South Puget Sound, a still morning

Autumn

September to November

Buying

The Washington State Fair runs in Puyallup through most of September, and the traffic on Meridian lets you know. After that the pace often eases. Buyers who keep looking into the fall can find sellers more open to talking about repairs and terms.

Selling

The rain returns. Clean the gutters and have someone look in the crawlspace. Get the leaves off the roof and the walks before the photographer comes. Buyers touring in November are looking for signs of water, so give them none to find.

Quiet residential street of older homes in Puyallup: a green Victorian with a wraparound porch beside craftsman bungalows under yellow autumn maples — An older neighborhood, in October

Winter

December to February

Buying

Fewer homes, and fewer people competing for them. Sellers in winter usually have a reason to be selling, which can make for a straightforward negotiation. Winter is also when you see how a house handles water.

Selling

Daylight is short. Schedule photographs for midday and turn on every lamp. If there is a fireplace, light it. A warm, bright house on a grey afternoon stands out among a thin field of listings.

Living room with a lit stone fireplace, a leather armchair, and a tall window framing snow-covered Mount Rainier on a winter afternoon — A winter afternoon, the mountain in the window

On buying

Buyer representation · A written buyer agreement, as Washington requires · Offers on Northwest MLS forms

Before we look at a single house, we settle the map. Where you work and how often you go in, which school district you want, how much yard you are willing to mow.

In this county those answers can move a search from Gig Harbor to Bonney Lake, and it is far cheaper to sort that out on the phone than across a month of Saturdays.

Then the showings, and an offer written on the Northwest MLS forms. Inspections are chosen for the house in front of you: a sewer scope for an old Tacoma side sewer, a septic and well review out in Graham. If new construction on the plateau is on your list, call me before you walk into a sales office, because many builders want your broker registered at that first visit.

Turn to the buying chapter

On selling

Seller representation · Priced from like-kind sales nearby · Listed on the Northwest MLS

I walk the house with you first, room by room, and say plainly what a buyer in your part of the county will notice.

Some of it costs a weekend. Some of it is not worth doing at all, and I will say that too.

The price comes from recent sales of the same kind of home close by. A Graham acreage is measured against other acreage, a University Place rambler against other ramblers. Once the house is listed, I go through each offer and the inspection response with you, and tell you what I would sign and why.

Turn to the selling chapter

The twin Tacoma Narrows suspension bridges at sunset, seen from a rocky, driftwood-strewn beach below — Puget SoundEvening light on the water, west of the city

An almanac of the county

Nine places I work in most often, each with an entry on where it sits, how people get around, and what I would check before buying there.

Start with a phone call.

Tell me what you are thinking about, even if it is a year away. I will tell you what I would do in your position, and what I would wait on.

206.940.0942

EmailAustin.Hellickson@homexa.com

Office1230 Fryar Ave, Sumner

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