About Us

PRESS is the vision-child of one of the most idealistic real estate people who ever walked the talk. Of course, that means or implies that it is more charitable than profitable (since some idealistic types know more about clouds than foundations). And that was indeed the initial challenge: how to provide a very unique service to the public without obtaining grants or being a government entity with endless regulations, and still exist decades later? So let’s go back a few decades to answer that.

Jim Stacey entered real estate in 1982 after having tried over and over to find a career that absorbed a man who had dozens of interests. Stacey had been to grad school (English) and admitted to law school and nursing school, but quickly grew bored with all of them. He started an outdoors school in Kentucky, teaching survival, canoeing and climbing for eight years, a program that certainly kept his interest, but one that didn’t pay very many bills. And life in a log cabin can be much colder and tougher than anyone imagines. The door to a higher standard of living was marked “Contracting,” so Stacey became a carpenter-builder, at first in Ohio and then in Oregon.

From Oregon he went to Seattle to teach remodeling and all things related to solar construction with the Northwest Owner-Builder Center. But this idealistic organization was not long for this world and so he soon had to resume the job search. He had never seen himself as a salesman but he did love his construction and architecture, so why not give the life of the Realtor a try?

Stacey sold his first house in 22 days. Knowing construction really and truly did give him a big advantage over his colleagues. He entered the “Million Dollar Club” his first year (it sounds more impressive than it is, but it does mean he wasn’t napping). Then, after 14 months he also became the real estate instructor for The Experimental College at the University of Washington (in the spring of 1984). Sales paid the bills. Teaching provided the raison d’etre.

To teach, one needs a text book. There was no such book. Stacey wrote it in 1986: Seattle Homes, which became the regional number one best-seller in its fourth month, staying on the best-seller lists for two years. In 1990 he added Washington Homes and in 1996, re-wrote Seattle Homes.

By 1985, Stacey had opened Jim Stacey Real Estate, becoming the first company in the Northwest to successfully specialize in “buyer-brokering.” This was very much at odds with the industry at this time, but he still managed to be elected president of the north Seattle Realtors, and his agents followed him in that position for three years. So, while the industry was resisting a basic change in its approaches, one of its elected leaders was trying to catalyze that change. Ironically, his success at leading the industry in this change took away from his own company’s specialization. Within nine years, even the companies that had once resisted the changes the most vehemently were now enthusiastically offering the same service. It was time to look for a new and fun challenge. And so that brought about the beginning of PRESS in 1994.

Stacey felt that the one thing that was missing from real estate was the lack of relatively objective advice. Attorneys were expensive and generally knew nothing about construction and very little about financing. Lenders had their own agenda. So where were the consultants? The answer was, they were somewhere trying to stay warm under a quilt of idealism. There had to be a way to provide consumers with expertise and not starve. The obvious answer was to take advantage of the already-in-place system of referral fees.

Agents pay each other referral fees more commonly than in any other business. In fact, this practice is often illegal in many businesses, but it is among the best ways to get other agents to send you business, such as a buyer who lives too far from one office or wants a type of property the referring agent knows little about. Getting a percentage of the commission would make it possible for PRESS to be one step removed from the selling process, and about as removed from the obvious conflicts-of-interest as one can get.

The framework was now in place, and the devil-in-the-details was soon under way. Almost 500 agents with good reputations were invited to submit their resumes and be interviewed. Most resisted, thinking there must be strings they didn’t want to deal with. But soon there was a network of around 30 agents who stood up to scrutiny.

Little by little, the process was fine tuned, and within a few years, as many as 70 clients a year were using the service. Some referrals were done for buyers who were moving to other cities but in time it was obvious that the primary business would consist of local buyers and sellers. Stacey felt very fortunate to have found his calling, which was essentially that of being a tutor to each client. He had created a business that had very few problems, and where almost every client became a friend. The only problem he could not avoid was aging. The time was coming to find a replacement. But where?

Where do you find someone who is more interested in teaching than in making tons of money? Where do you find someone who knows how to read a Good Faith Estimate and also explain why concrete is stronger if one uses less water to make it? Where do you find someone who gives a hoot about lead paint and all of the home environment issues, and who knows about the recalls and the laws and the taxes that affect homeowners? Where? In your very own class!

And so Brett Clifton entered the picture...at first as a student, and within a few years as the new director of PRESS. Brett had been a triathlete and a business consultant when he took Jim’s real estate course in 2000 with the goal of buying investment property. He enrolled with Stacey in PRESS, and this is where Stacey got to see what a truly insightful and ethical man Clifton was. After that first purchase, they kept in touch while Clifton expanded his real estate experiences and portfolio, eventually buying several entire apartment buildings.

Brett Clifton has made it a point to study and act on the various facets of real estate investing, from valuation, finance, contracts, negotiation, acquisition, renovation, management, marketing and sales. He owns and self-manages rental units in single-family and multi-family rental properties in the Greenlake, Wallingford and Magnolia neighborhoods. For Brett, real estate is a life-long passion and deliberate endeavor.

When Stacey became serious about semi-retiring, he looked about for a replacement, fearful that he would never find one and PRESS would die. Clifton knew of his hopes and plans and suggested that they talk. Within a few months, the transition was under way, and by 2005, Clifton was teaching the entire curriculum at the University of Washington, to include courses in condos, investing and home buying and selling. Stacey would stay involved for three years as both a consultant and the editor of the newsletter, The Finial.

Clifton soon added “President of the Board” of the Northwest Real Investors Association (NWRIA) to his resume, a real estate educational company serving a membership of over 400 private investors and growing. And, he has continued his own investing program so that the income from PRESS would never be an issue that would compromise the idealism that had been and remains its foundation.

So, the history of PRESS is essentially that of two men, with able assistance and support from significant others. It has no lofty goals to rule the world, wanting only to be known as the best possible resource in Seattle for the typical real estate consumer, a resource that is respected and appreciated for having found a way to offer education, objectivity and personalized support throughout the home buying and selling process.