Jun 14, 2005

CityBank

Chantha Bunphoath has been named acting chief financial officer of Lynnwood-based CityBank. She has 12 years banking experience, the last eight in finance administration at CityBank. She will replace Judy Muench, who will retire June 30. The bank has eight offices serving Snohomish and North King counties, and two mortgage loan offices serving Snohomish, King and Pierce counties.

Jun 09, 2005

Panattoni Development

Dan Whitaker is the new operating officer for Panattoni's Seattle office. Whitaker, a certified public accountant, directs the office's financial matters, including project financing, financial reporting and evaluating projects. He was Segale Properties' managing director of real estate. He has more than 20 years of experience. Panattoni is a privately held development company based in Sacramento, Calif. It has averaged nearly 10 million square feet of development annually for the last five years.

Raskin Partners

Commercial brokerage Raskin & Associates has changed its name to Raskin Partners and moved from Kirkland to 11235 S.E. Sixth St. in Bellevue.

FreeSeattleListings.com

The head of a Redmond startup, FreeSeattleListings.com, thinks his company's new Web site can do what seems impossible: forge a bond between FSBO sellers and licensed real estate agents. CEO Corey Anderson says the services of agents and multiple listing services are not needed as much today because of the Internet. So he launched FreeSeattleListings.com to give basic listings free to people going the "For Sale by Owner," or FSBO, route. The percentage of homeowners using the FSBO method continues to rise, and this has frustrated professional real estate agents, according to Anderson. His strategy is to work with agents, too, and he says more than 225 agents have signed up with FreeSeattleListings.com to represent sellers who later decide to work with an agent. The company is offering a "cash reward guarantee" to users who are unsuccessful selling their home on the Web site, as long as they sell the home with one of the site's partnering real estate agents. Agents who get listing through the company pay a portion of their commission for referrals. The basic FSBO listing is free, but the company offers upgraded packages for a fee.

Avant Real Estate

Luke Kalmiya has joined Avant Real Estate as an agent and investment consultant. Todd Thompson is a new Avant agent, specializing in the residential markets of Thurston, Mason and Lewis counties. Jesse Linder is a new agent, who works the Thurston County and surrounding markets.

Windermere Real Estate

Windermere's Community Service Day is June 17, when agents and staff from more than 250 offices across the West volunteer for neighborhood improvement projects. Brett Hales is a new sales associate at the Ballard office.

NAIOP

Bob Emerson and Heber Kennedy of the ports of Tacoma and Olympia, respectively, will talk about their development plans at NAIOP's 7:30 a.m. June 15 breakfast at Seattle's Bell Harbor International Conference Center, 2211 Alaskan Way. Growth at seaports is spurring development of distribution facilities from Auburn to Olympia. Research indicates Tacoma's port will grow faster than any other in the country. Emerson will talk about how Tacoma's growth will affect the real estate market. It's $35 for members of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties and $45 for others. Register at http://www.naipwa.org or by calling (206) 382-9121.

CREW

CREW Seattle's 4 p.m. June 23 educational program will include a tour of Sabey Corp.'s new 300,000-square-foot James Tower Life Sciences Building on the Swedish Providence Campus, 500 17th Ave., Seattle. The cost is $25 for Commercial Real Estate Women members and $35 for others. Register by June 20 by calling (206) 417-5580.