Finally, a sale. I've been tracking the house at 20132 SE 258th Place in Covington since it went on the market (for the second time in a year) May 29. And I'm happy to report that the sale price was recorded as $5,000 more than the list price. We don't know whether that price meant the seller paid closing costs or made any other concessions, though.

How long does it take to sell the average house in your area? What are they selling for? What are sellers doing to distinguish their homes from the many others on the market? What other questions do you have about home buying, selling or the market in general?

SAN FRANCISCO -- Brian Borero of 1000Watt Consulting.com, shared some Web sites he considers important to the world of real estate because they are doing cool stuff companies here could do.

The Senate passed the housing-assistance bill Saturday, and here's a quick look at the highlights, some outlined by Sen. Patty Murray in an e-mail to John L. Scott CEO Lennox Scott, who worked with Murray and the National Association of Realtors on the bill:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Buyers are out there, and brokers and agents need to go after them, Realogy CEO Alex Perriello told the crowd during the last session at Real Estate Connect.

SAN FRANCISCO -- No one's crystal ball was very clear at the last Real Estate Connect panel discussion, titled "What's Next: When Will the Market Turn?" Each of the four panelists had a different answer for the question: "When do we hit the bottom?"

SAN FRANCISCO -- There's a lot going on here at Real Estate Connect, and I can't possibly write about it all. But many bloggers are here, and participants are using Twitter and other social networking sites to talk about it. But a good place to start if you want to know more about the conference is Inman News. It has blog posts, video, speaker profiles, product launches, news and lots more here.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Interesting tangent this afternoon at a Real Estate Connect session titled "Changing Roles: Brokers & MLS vs. Listings Aggregators." The session was basically about whether these two sides could co-exist peacefully.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Here at Inman News' 12th annual Real Estate Connect conference, participants and panelists are talking about when the housing crisis might end. Opinions vary, as you might expect, but the bulls are few and far between.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Put three dynamic experts in real-estate data and foreclosures -- in this case Bradford Geisen, founder, president and CEO of Foreclosure.com; Lauren Guzak, director of strategic relations at DataQuick, and Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac -- and start talking about foreclosure numbers. Watch the sparks fly.

Starting Wednesday, I'll be blogging about the Real Estate Connect conference, where "technologists, real-estate professionals and industry leaders convene ... to explore some of the most pressing issues the industry is facing" -- at least that's what Inman News says about the event it has put together for 12 years.

When HSH Associates, a New Jersey mortgage-research company sent this week's numbers, the rate and points for the 1-year adjustable-rate loan caught my eye.

One of the standard suggestions housing counselors give to distressed homeowners is to consider renting rooms to others. A recent New York Times story says that amid increasing delinquencies and foreclosures, more homeowners nationwide are considering taking in boarders to try to hold on to their homes.

With mortgage lenders imploding, banks struggling and the housing market in a downright funk because of an oversupply of homes and tighter lending standards, mortgages can be hard to get.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and IndyMac Bank dominated business news this weekend, starting Friday, when federal regulators seized the failing California thrift that based its business on funding no- or low-doc loans to borrowers with poor credit.

On the cover of last Sunday's Real Estate section, we ran excerpts from comments to a blog item I posted in May about whether a 6 percent commission is the best way to pay agents. Wow, did I get hate mail. And apparently I have a death wish because I'd like to revisit the topic.

An article in the business section of Tuesday's New York Times profiled the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter and it's creator, Aaron Krowne, 28, a computer scientist, mathematician and former researcher at Emory University in Atlanta who started the site in 2007.

Justin Wilcox dropped the price of his Bothell home $10,000 yesterday, for a total reduction of $50,000. I'm not sure what his bottom dollar is in this reverse auction (he's not telling), but that's the fifth drop since the house went on the market May 26. We'll see how it goes.

I've said that I have a passion for real estate. I enjoy reading about it, checking out homes, watching the market ups and downs. Now ZipRealty has launched a real-estate pricing game, Price Me Now. In the interest of research, I had to play.

Yesterday, a three-judge state Court of Appeals panel ruled that part of King County's "critical-areas ordinance," which limits the amount of trees and vegetation that rural property owners can cut down on their land.

If the Seattle SuperSonics basketball players sell their Puget Sound homes and buy in Oklahoma City, they can get some pretty sweet real estate for their money.

Now that everybody has (I hope) cleaned up the fireworks messes we alll made, let's get back to business.

As many in the city mourn the loss of the Sonics, some people, frankly, couldn't care less. While the debate rages on about whether the city got what it deserves, I'm thinking about real estate -- specifically, what will happen to the pricey homes owned by Sonics players and coaches.

One of the homes I'm tracking from listing to close has a pending offer: 20132 SE 258th Place, Covington, is sold pending inspection, which is expected to happen quickly, said the listing agent, Heather McCurdy of Prudential NW Real Estate.

Last night, Seattle City Council passed an ordinance giving tax breaks to developers who build housing the city considers affordable. It sparked much debate about the definition of "affordable," which the city says means should cost no more than 30 percent of residents' incomes.