Seattle Bubble

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• 1 jcricket // Jul 24, 2006 at 3:13 pm

  Time to christen the thread:

  Here’s a link to the Year-to-date Summary of the housing market in Boulder.

  A quote: “As you can see from the chart below, some areas are feeling the impact of higher foreclosures, slower sales, and high inventory levels. Other areas are barely affected.”

  Will be interesting to see what things are like even if median prices stagnate or decrease. As we’ve seen, price reductions don’t automatically mean you can get the house you want for less than the year before. The same will be true of “county-wide median price decreases”.

• 2 Anonymous // Jul 24, 2006 at 3:38 pm

  Here’s a link to sign a petition calling for adherence to ethics and rules in the appraisal industry. Please take a few moments to sign.

  Click
  Here

  It’s by a group of frustrated appraisers.

• 3 Anonymous // Jul 24, 2006 at 4:25 pm

  Here’s a great blog from Sacramento that outlines flippers selling at a loss.

  Looks like they’re back to early ‘05 and in some cases ‘04 prices there.

  Click

  Here

• 4 jcricket // Jul 25, 2006 at 7:42 am

  Sales of Existing Homes Fall in June.

  Couple of interesting quotes:

  …[Sales] of previously owned homes and condominiums dropped 1.3 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.62 million units.

  The median price of a home sold last month was $231,000. That was up 0.9 percent from June 2005 and represented the smallest year-over-year price gain since May 1995.

  And this:

  He said that housing continued to be a “tale of two markets” with previously hot areas experiencing declines and more modestly priced areas showing a boom.

  Lereah said that while New York City, Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis had seen sales declines, cities such as Syracuse and Pittsburgh were experiencing rising sales.

  By state, Maryland and Virginia were experiencing weakness while Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee were enjoying sales increases, Lereah said.

  As many others have pointed out, there isn’t just one housing market, so even if currently inflated areas like Seattle experience a decline, it doesn’t mean the whole country will. So both bears and bulls can end up right (and wrong).

• 5 Christina // Jul 26, 2006 at 3:53 am

  I’ve read bleats, er, comments that Californians have been keeping the Seattle-area housing market hot. If they’re equity rich, wouldn’t they have the $$$ already for closing costs? From whence do these negative amortization loans originate?

  If the retiring of the first wave of baby boomers is such a big trend factor why are people trading up to larger and newer houses?

  Why are states that have the lowest % of nonprime loans those ranking highest for foreclosure?

  I thought Seattle folk were loaded because most of them are childfree. To be sure, even among my acquaintances and friends with chilluns, my family is the only one with one car and two drivers. Aren’t households with one SUV or minivan per driver flush with cash or at least still flush with the proceeds of stock options executed over a half-decade ago? It’s got to be that, because wages have more or less remained stagnant, and haven’t even managed to gain consumption power since the 1970s.

  And lastly, what do people who choose new construction in planned subdivisions 18-27 miles out of Seattle know about real estate value that those who stay within city limits in smaller houses in areas currently or soon to be gentrified/revitalized do not know?

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