I don’t grant your premise. The downtown condo market is no more or less “redhot” than any other housing market in Seattle.

Loose credit is driving those markets, and there’s no reason to believe that it isn’t driving this one.

Are retiring boomers not moving downtown?

Maybe.

No Young professionals live in belltown?

Sure they do.

Something must be driving the market downthere.

No kidding.

That statement sounds pretty true.

Because it’s a truism. Funny how that works….

Take a look at every major city in the USA. The trend has been way up toward downtown living. It’s chic, it’s hip, it’s where the best crack can be found…

[b]crashcadia[/b] the elder said… “Newspapers are brain dead and have been for some time. They have been kept on life support by plugs for the REIC and other consumer driven industries. The plug is about to get pulled.”

that is SO true. you are SO money!

Something must be driving the market downthere. That statement sounds pretty true.

I dunno? I’m sure there are, but ‘pretty true’ is an oximoron so I ain’t buying none of it…

There’s no data to provided to the consumer to determine what’s driving the market, there’s never been a breakout of numbers. Could be specuvestors in some smokey convention center off the Jersey Turnpike fronting the cash for all anyone knows.

What’s driving the markets the end of the road for the housing bubble, the condo ‘boom’ is the swan songs of housing bubbles, the last dying gasp and there’s a plethera of examples around the country to prove it…

The rest of us, who are in the know, will simply get fleeced and will cancel our newspaper subscriptions out of disgust.

Newspapers are brain dead and have been for some time. They have been kept on life support by plugs for the REIC and other consumer driven industries. The plug is about to get pulled.

What has been driving the redhot downtown condo market?

Are retiring boomers not moving downtown?

No Young professionals live in belltown?

Something must be driving the market downthere. That statement sounds pretty true.

No, she publishes no real facts at all except monthly inventory/median.

Instead she’ll say things like, “Empty nesters and young professionals are driving the hot-hot downtown condo market”, which is about as valid as saying, “Xenu’s unleased the thetans from Mt. Ranier to drive up the downtown condo market” if you have no demographic/financing data to back it up, but instead we get speculative musings masquarading as facts.

This is all the same bubble specter we get when shills like Liz Rhodes say “the robust local economy should keep the housing market sizzlin’”, again, a statement with no fact or statistical analysis to back it up. And people wonder why more and more individuals are getting their news from Blogs.

Go Tim, Go!

wake up.

Gawd.

Hey! I’m back from Spain! Interesting how things can suddenly change in just a few weeks. Where’s Meshugy in all this down market madness? Crunching numbers in desperate hope that it aint so?

More on topic: if buyers have a lot more choices, then why would they be compelled to pay above asking for a certain property? Isn’t that counterintuitive?

On another note: RE Investor Eric is pretty desperately trying to unload his QA property…it’s the least expensive house in the area, and it’s a d-u-m-p. You can Zip it.

The newspapers primary customers are home-owners.

02-23-2003“…the public shouldn’t conclude that King County’s real estate is a bubble that’s either burst or is about to. A bubble happens when prices climb so high that home seekers can no longer afford to buy.”

07-07-2005 “Despite conjecture that the local housing market is a high-priced bubble ready to burst, key signs of weakening are nowhere to be seen, according to homes-sales figures released yesterday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
When a bubble bursts, prices decline; the number of homes for sale grows; and it takes longer to sell them.”

04-07-06 “Still, he doesn’t expect buyers to give up because “the ultimate American dream is owning your own place. And people see the longer they wait, the more it costs because properties are continuing to go up in this market,” Conlan said.” (good way to end on a positive note)

02-18-2006 “Median home prices could shoot up 30 to 40 percent over the next two years.”

05-31-1998 “Job growth Slows, but real estate is hot as ever”

04-07-2005 He says the healthy economy and lack of buildable land will keep prices from falling.” (end of article)

and a very blatant marketing article for Condo “2200″ by Lizzie Rhodes.

The appeal of having everything just steps away 04-03-2005.

I wonder how much they paid her for that?

Since she does her job very well she provides the folks on this board a range of comments to debunk. I doubt very seriously if she truly believes the jest of her pieces but she probably likes having $ directly deposited into her bank account every couple of weeks…

she’s the talking head for the Real Estate Industrial Complex here in the Seattle area.

Just do a google search for “elizabeth rhodes” and seattle and you’ll find all the pom-pom articles you could ever want.

Ummm, Actually since the prices DECLINED….doesn’t she know that appreciation didn’t come in below 1 percent? Therefore THERE WAS NO APPRECIATION. Just DEPRECIATION!

“It means we’re moving to a more-normal market where buyers have more choices.”

I bet if we looked that up, lereah was saying it last year.

(We’re going through a period of adjustment. As home sellers recognize a return to more normal rates of price growth, some that have been holding out for higher prices will be more willing to negotiate terms that are acceptable to buyers but still provide them a solid return on their investment.)

(David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the number of homes on the market has been improving nicely. “The cooling from overheated sales conditions in recent months is helping to bring inventory levels up to the point where buyers have more choices than they’ve seen in the last five years,” Lereah said. “Annual price appreciation is still running at double-digit rates, but the cause of those sharp increases is going away. As the market readjusts, price appreciation should return to more normal rates of growth this year.”)

Thanks

If the publisher of the newspaper also owns a diamond retail store is he/she going to allow an article about the upcoming movie “blood diamonds”? Or are we more likely to see a piece about how many months’ worth of salary we should spend on what is essentially gravel?

I was playing Frisbee golf with a new friend earlier this week and asked “how does a place like this make money?” He laughed “Do you always think someone has their hand in your pocket?”

Why, yes actually.

I think one of the major problems with media is that most don’t SEEK out news, it finds them. “push media”. The quick sound bites on CNN, front page news or morning radio news. Most of that “news” is actually just marketing – it’s much more “fake” than the Daily Show could ever be. If people bothered to “pull” (seek out) information they might actually get some truth. Instead this stuff just goes into the collective unconscious and we form an opinion without ever having thought about it. (housing never goes down)

That’s why this blog and others like it are so amazing. We know The Tim has absolutely nothing to gain financially from this endeavor. We know we’re being given the truth.

Thanks Tim! ;)

People have such amazing reading comprehension skills.

I lost the game of “Stratego” to my daughter about an hour ago. So, feeling sorry for myself, I wanted to drown myself in a nice bowl of ice-cream, which also sounded good to my boys. My wife sent me to the store for ice cream and some ‘David’s Sunflower Seeds.’

As I check out at the store, the Seattle PI paper is face up along with my goodies. The headline say’s, “Seattle housing market slows.” The checker glances at it and comments on it, not knowing I’m in the business. She says, “don’t believe it!” I say, “hmmm, really?” Just then the gal next to me say’s, “yeah, I’m in the business (presume agent) & that’s bunk, Boeing just signed two contracts (I have no idead what she is referring to) and 400,000 people are moving to the area! There’s building going on everywhere and I can’t hardly get through Monroe these days.”

At this point, I’m so stunned at what I just heard, all I can do is meekly respond as I leave the counter, “400,000? Gosh, that’s like four cities of Everett.” I dont’ look back , because I’m afraid that I might see myself getting the Bird. I walk out the store thinking “did I just hear what I think I heard?”

Notify Gov. Gregoire! I’m certain she’d love to know that 400,000 people are coming to the area. An economic Hail Mary! Notify Centex and DR Horton to close all communities across the South & West and focus on exercising their land options in Washington’s Pierce, King, Snohomish & Whatcom Counties.

Sorry to be so sarcastic, but I can’t help myself.