Gerhard Ade covers Real Estate around Seattle and more.

I am an overnight success 19 years in the making.

If I knew then what I know now I would have chosen Bellevue as the only place to do conduct my real estate business. Back then, in 2002, Bellevue was in many ways the city it is today – a growing place with many different neighborhoods and a lively downtown.

But as a newcomer to the Seattle area and new in the business of real estate, I did what many novices do. I tried everything and anything to get started. I did not limit myself geographically. Not surprisingly, my first two listings were for friends from church. Other clients arrived via the web, where I was very much at home since 1995. I did business wherever my clients sold or bought, from Renton to Camano Island, from Issaquah to Port Angeles.

My second listing was located in the Summerset area of Bellevue. That was in the year 2003. Another followed in 2008 and another in 2013. In 2014, I helped two clients with the purchase of homes in the Meydenbauer neighborhood, one of which I subsequently sold. In 2016, I sold and purchased a home on the same street just to the north of downtown Bellevue. Back in the Meydenbauer neighborhood, and two years later I helped one of my clients to buy his neighbor’s property.

By that time he had built a magnificent home on the site of his first purchase. Now, he was about to do the same right next door. While we applied for permits and created the design and drew up the plans for the new home, we rented the home out. The “we” were his architect, his builder, and his real estate agent.

Our most important decision was to move the access to the property from one street to the other. Location is the most important factor in real estate. The ability to change the location was priceless. We even got to choose the address.

989 100th Avenue SE, Bellevue WA 98004

About six months ago, on December 13, 2020, I resolved to get back into shape. I joined a program called Noom. It’s not a diet, but rather a method to think and act about eating, sleeping, and exercising. 

Today, I can say that I’m almost there. I started at 230 pounds with a goal to lose 50. This morning, the scale showed that I’ve just two pounds to go.

When I got married nearly 45 years ago, I watched with wonderment how much goes into planning a wedding. Inexperienced in matrimonial matters and new to these United States, I had no idea as to what to expect.

One of the many tasks was to find a professional wedding photographer. The one we had chosen was detained by a sudden heart attack. Hospitalized, an assistant would take the pictures. I don’t remember if time was running short but we should have looked into an alternative. We didn’t. The assistant took the all-important formal photos. These are the ones that are decades later found faded in family photo albums – bride with bridesmaid, the couple with college friends, the groom and the best man, the new in-laws, you get the idea.