Seattle Bubble

What’s the point about worrying about global warming when we’re getting all this hot air from Elizabeth Rhodes?

Please enjoy this year end feel good article about our robust housing market here in Rain City.

One of this year’s biggest residential real-estate topics was the anticipated slowdown in sales and appreciation.

Would the Puget Sound market tank?

Would prices deflate?

Neither of those things occurred locally, although other parts of the country have seen moderate-to-severe downturns this year.

What happened here was a gentler transition in housing activity, from its record 2005 levels to a slower pace by this year’s end.

What will 2007 bring? Here’s what Seattle real-estate experts are saying.

First, let me introduce the “experts”.

Elizabeth Rhodes (The Seattle Times and her job depend on a steady stream of advertising dollars from local Real Estate)

Matthew Gardner (Gardner Johnson, a Seattle land-use economics firm; “regularly retained by the region’s most prominent developers”)

Bill Riss (CEO of Coldwell Banker)

Frank Nothaft (Chief Economist, Freddie Mac)

Mike Scott (Dupre+Scott Apartment Advisors)

Suzanne Britsch (Senior Analyst, New Home Trends)

“This bubble lunacy is still prevalent, but not in Seattle, and I’ll keep saying that,” said Gardner, of the land-use economics firm Gardner Johnson.

The closer homes are to the major job hubs of Seattle and Bellevue, “the higher appreciation you’ll get,” Gardner said. “That’s because there’s intrinsically a value to our time.”

What did we have in 2006?

“A more balanced market,” said Bill Riss, CEO of Coldwell Banker Bain. That’s giving buyers “a little more time to think, plan and write good offers.”

Riss wouldn’t be surprised if spring sales roar to life, causing another feeding frenzy, albeit not at record levels of past years.

A rise in inflation could drive rates up, but that’s not a concern now, Frank Nothaft, chief economist for mortgage-money provider Freddie Mac, recently told the Washington Association of Mortgage Brokers.

“Inflation will be tame, and interest rates will not change much in the next six months,” Nothaft said. “They may drop after that. We don’t see mortgage rates even getting up to 7 percent [by the end of 2007].”

He also anticipates the number of nontraditional loans, such as negative amortization and interest-only, will drop as borrowers choose other mortgage products instead.

Sure, no problem affording that $699,000 charmer with your conventional loan: $140K down payment and $4,800 monthly payment!

The same strong regional economics sustaining the local home-sales market are also fueling apartment demand, said analyst Mike Scott, of Seattle’s Dupre + Scott Apartment Advisors.

Logically, strong demand should ramp up apartment construction, but it hasn’t worked out that way, Scott said.

A year ago, he forecast 3,600 new units would be built in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties this year. Instead, just under 3,100 opened.

In 2007 Scott anticipates even fewer: just 2,600 new apartments.

…apartment rents to jump about 8 percent next year, Scott predicted. Vacancies will fall from their current 4.7 percent to roughly 3.5 percent, he said.

Buy now or be priced out forever! I don’t know about you, but even if he’s correct I would gladly pay an additional 8% in rent rather than 50% more in mortgage costs while facing the inevitable repossession, bankruptcy and anxiety disorder.

My prediction: Rents will remain flat through 2007 and drop in 2008 as additional housing becomes available. Desperate FB’s will have no choice but to rent out properties that do not sell. Condos and condo conversions will face a serious slowdown in sales and many will convert into apartments.

The national news has been full of stories about homebuilders cutting production and prices as the real-estate market cools. In November, for example, building permits nationwide fell to a nine-year low, according to a government report.

“But that’s the national news, not the local news,” said Suzanne Britsch, senior analyst for New Home Trends, a construction-analysis and consulting firm in Mill Creek. “We still have job growth and a shortage of lots here, so we have just not had a problem with standing inventory.”

We’re different. Special. A breed apart.

In King County, the average price of a new house will be $750,000, she predicted. A big chunk of that expense is the land. The rock-bottom price for a lot in a new King County subdivision is now $250,000.

In Snohomish County, new single-family homes will start at $400,000. And they’ll likely be on 3,500-square-foot lots, rather than 6,000 square feet, the norm there until recently.

OMG that is so affordable! Isn’t it nice to have all these objective opinions?

Happy New Year ;)

(Elizabeth Rhodes, Seattle Times, 12.30.2006)

San Francisco has always been a favorite place of mine to visit. I even lived there during a brief time in 1999 when the vacancy rate was less than half a percent!

One thing that always struck me about San Francisco was the homeless. Not simply the sheer volume of homeless but the lengths at which they’d go to siphon a dollar out of you. It wasn’t enough to have a gimmick, but your gimmick had to be different or more creative than those of any other panhandlers in the downtown area.

There were singers, poets, rappers, jugglers, one-man marching bands, balancing and other forms of sidewalk gymnastics as well as some of the most creative signage anywhere (maybe the dot-comers could have hired these guys as marketing executives).

This story from the Seattle PI illustrates to what length some local realtors have gone to attract new clients.

Puck is upfront about his job.

“Let’s face it, I’m a marketing ploy,” the 5-year-old English bulldog writes on his page of Realtor Phoenix Rudner’s Web site, seattlehousehound.com.

The Seattle-King County Association of Realtors has about 8,800 active members — up more than 80 percent from 1999. The state Department of Licensing reports there are 13,747 licensed real estate salespeople in King County.

Many agents carve out a niche by focusing on a location, home type or a group of buyers and sellers. Others wear costumes, serve pie or distribute handy gifts.

“There are so many dog owners who need someone who understands their needs,” he explained.

What the dog is really saying: “Ruff!” (What the next five to ten years of homeownership may be like as equity fades and people struggle to make their ballooning toxic loan mortgage payments)

RE/Max Northwest Realtor Ross Adams aims for a more exclusive group of buyers on his Web site, realestateforcops.com, which touts itself as the No. 1 Web site for law enforcement-friendly real estate services.

There’s a picture of Adams, a reserve police officer, in his blue uniform, wearing his badge.

“In my years working as an officer, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know the men and women of law enforcement,” the site says. “In addition to the great experiences I’ve shared, I’ve also grown to understand and appreciate the needs of the people in this profession.”

Is it even possible for someone in law enforcement (or nearly everyone else for that matter) to purchase a home these days in this environment? How many police cars do you see parked outside Ballard 3/2’s these days?

Realtor Melanie Meyer of Century 21 North Homes Realty puts a different slant on the cop angle at her site: specialagentrealtor.com.

Meyer, a former sheriff’s deputy in Charleston County, S.C., also has pictures of herself in uniform. But rather than aim for any particular group of clients, she proclaims on her site that she’s “solving the real estate mystery” for the general public.

Meyer gave up her law-enforcement career and moved to Seattle in 2003 to marry a man she met playing “Dark Age of Camelot” online. She started working in real estate two years ago.

Meyer’s business card shows her wearing a fedora and trench coat and carrying a magnifying glass.

Her Web site also notes that she has a pit bull named Megan and is a freelance writer for “Today’s Astrologer” magazine.

I see a trend developing here. I wonder if King County is struggling to keep deputies that have been lured away by the “lucrative” Seattle real estate market.

Meyer claims to be Seattle’s “first and only Special Agent Realtor.” It seems she didn’t have the scoop on Serena Heslop.

Photos illustrating various sections of her Web site show her in a trench coat, fedora and dark sunglasses; a safari hat (holding binoculars); a hard hat, fake mustache and overalls; and a wetsuit.

Heslop said she’s been a “Special Agent Realtor” for four or five years but just got her Web site up a few months ago. It’s a way to liven up the dry, boring world of real estate advertising and give prospective clients an idea of who they’d be dealing with, she said.

News of a competing special agent Realtor didn’t seem to rattle Heslop or Meyer.

“I’m sure I’ll run into her someday,” Meyer said. “I hope she’s as silly as I am.”

“I’m gonna scratch her eyes out,” Heslop joked.

One thing is for sure - in the coming months and years it’s going to take a real sleuth to find more Greater Fools willing to buy at these prices. Maybe these three are on to something.

When Mary Schile switched to real estate two years ago, the former House of Blues contracts negotiator called herself the “Rock-and-Roll Realtor.”

Schile, of RE/MAX Mutual Realty, now claims the title of “Pie and Coffee Realtor,” as illustrated by the apple and cherry pies she served at a Phinney Ridge open house Sunday, and the espresso cart.

“I love pie,” she said

Mmmmm. Pie.

Does it work?

Dominic Canterbury, owner of the Seattle marketing and public relations firm D/C Strategic, said niche real estate marketing can work, if done right.

“Most agents are awful with their marketing,” he said. “That’s why they’ve sort of become the used car salesmen of our time.”

(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle PI, 12-26-2006)

Here’s a series of questions from a reader that was posted in a recent thread. (The questions were originally posted under the name “Sash,” but due to a strange bug in the transition to the new Blogger the comments now show as “anonymous”.)

Folks, you seem to have a lot of data on the housing prospects in 2007 and forward. I would like to request your advice for/against considering buying a new home (new construction) in the Redmond area.

Over the past year I have seen prices climb to astronomical levels in properties being built on 116th St in Redmond (Education Hill area). In your expert opinion are those prices going to “stay” the same in the years to come?

I see that the real estate marked is ’slowing’. Prices for 30 year old homes are now showing signs of reduced price. But in my opinion even after price reduction, some these homes are so over priced. What’s your take here?

Last but not least what would you price a new construction of 2500 sqft in the Education Hill area at today?

First off, I want to make it clear that I am not particularly an “expert.” I’m just a guy that has been following the market closely, digging up some data, and making some graphs. I know more (possibly a lot more?) about the local real estate scene than your average stranger on the street, but I don’t call myself an expert.

Although I don’t have much personal knowledge about the specific neighborhoods Sash is asking about, I will address the questions in a more general sense. First and foremost, if you don’t feel comfortable buying a house, then just don’t. Purchasing a house is the single largest financial decision most people will ever make, and it’s not something you should enter into lightly or out of emotion (especially fear of being “priced out forever”).

As far as prices staying the same on new construction, I will just point out that what has been happening around the country is that builders are offering greater and greater “incentives” on new construction such as cash back, paying closing costs, subsidized super-low-interest loans, free upgrades, etc. So even if the purchase price is technically the same, you’re getting more for your money. That being said, even the purchase prices have been dropping (in real dollars) across the country. And although most media reports claim that the Seattle-area housing market is still super-strong, builders are beginning to feel the squeeze here. I wouldn’t be surprised to see increasing incentives and a softening of prices here soon.

My general advice is that if you don’t have to buy a house right now (and who really “needs” to?) I recommend holding off, and saving/investing the difference between what you would be paying on a mortgage and what you are presently paying on rent.

If you feel that you must buy now, you’ll be fine if you plan on staying put at least five years, stick to 20% down, get a fixed-rate loan, and keep your total monthly housing costs at or below 30% of your income. If you leave out any of those, you’re essentially gambling that continued appreciation will bail you out of any potential financial crunch in the near future. Personally, that’s not a bet that I’m ever willing to take, but especially not right now.

So what’s your advice for Sash? Does anyone out there have any specific thoughts about the Redmond area?

Associated Grocers is selling a 55-acre plot of land in south Seattle, and apparently the commercial real estate world is all riled up. It’s the biggest slice of Seattle land to come on the market in “recent years,” and it’s coming on the market because the owners want to “cash in on the significant appreciation.”

It may be hard to overstate the significance local real estate professionals put on a 55-acre South Seattle industrial site that hit the market Friday.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the city of Seattle,” said John Sullivan, a vice president in the Seattle office of CB Richard Ellis.

“It’s larger than anything else that’s sold in recent years,” said John Vernon, Seattle-based broker with Colliers International.

Associated Grocers Inc. announced Friday that it was selling its site to cash in on the significant appreciation since the company set up its wholesale food distribution operations there in 1952.
…
Sullivan and Vernon expected the site to fetch more than $90 million.

This is probably a good move on Associated Grocers’ part. I imagine there’s nothing going on there that can’t be done just as efficiently in a cheaper location, and I’m sure they can come up with plenty of good ways to invest a cool $90 million that provide a better return than sitting on big piece of land that might well lose value in the coming years.

(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 12.19.2006)

I’m sure that those of you who have been reading Seattle Bubble since at least April recall the AP study that heralded Seattle as the “most educated” city in the USA (or “smartest,” depending on whether the article author made the false assumption that more education == smarter). According to the April study:

Forty-seven percent of Seattle’s adults hold bachelor’s degrees, the strongest proportion of college-educated residents in any big city.

However, a new study by Forbes lists America’s ten most educated cities (again mis-titled as the “smartest cities”), and Seattle is nowhere to be found. Here’s the complete list:

#1 Boulder, CO
#2 Bethesda, MD
#3 Ann Arbor, MI
#4 Cambridge, MA
#5 San Francisco, CA
#6 Durham, NC
#7 Fort Collins-Loveland, CO
#8 Washington, DC
#9 Bridgeport, Stamford, and Norwalk, CT
#10 San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara, CA

The methodologies of the two studies sound fairly similar, so I’m left wondering how Seattle went from #1 to below #10.

Using data from Sperling’s BestPlaces, we looked at data from the 200 biggest metropolitan areas in the U.S. and ranked them based on the percentage of the population age 25 and over with at least a bachelor’s degree.

Whatever our percentage of degreed adults truly is, I don’t think that an “educated” populace is some kind of magic bullet that will keep housing prices rising. I only really bothered mentioning this because some people made such a big deal about Seattle’s #1 position in the April study.

Personally, I don’t put much stock in Forbes, but I know a lot of people do, so being left off of their list probably comes as a bit of a blow to the collective ego of our city. Oh well. At least we were the reigning champions for eight months.

(Elisabeth Eaves, Forbes, 12.15.2006)

From the Seattle Times over the weekend:

Almost every dollar Todd Asher earns is spoken for. He has one daughter in college, another in high school and a toddler in diapers.

“We made a decision to have my wife stay at home with our 18-month-old son, so we’re living off my income, paying for tuition, diapers and everything else,” said Asher, of Sammamish. “We’re all about making money go as far as possible.” Asher, 39, has found a way to save a little each month through an interest-only mortgage loan. He diligently puts the savings into his 401(k), an individual retirement account and mutual funds.

“My goal when we purchased our current home was to buy the most house for the least amount of money and then save, save, save,” Asher said.

Does this logic sound a bit off to anyone? What happened to the idea of living below your means?

Some mortgage specialists and financial planners believe unconventional home loans could be good tools to help consumers put away money for their future — if they’re disciplined enough to invest the mortgage savings.

If homebuyers invest the extra $160 to $200 they save each month on an interest-only mortgage, then it “absolutely makes sense,” said Jeff Tisdale, a broker at Skye Mortgage in Bellevue.

Totally, Jeff.

But Paul Merriman, founder and president of Seattle-based Merriman Capital Management, said every dollar a young homeowner invests now from mortgage savings will make a surprising difference when he or she retires.

Consider this scenario: A 30-year-old homebuyer invests $200 a month in a Roth IRA for five years. With a 10 percent compound rate of return (based on the S&P 500), he will have $15,312 in five years. Then, because he faces a higher mortgage payment of principal and interest, he stops contributing to the IRA. Even if he adds nothing more to the investment, the money continues to multiply.

“They will have $267,185 at age 65 and they will be able to take tax-free distributions of $16,031 (6 percent) the first year,” Merriman said. “If they continue to earn 10 percent while taking out 6 percent, they will take out over $500,000 and have $585,435 left at age 85.”

Consider this scenario: Based on the last 35 years of inflation, $267,185 will only be approximately $53,034 in 2042 dollars, which probably won’t even buy you a Hyundai (assuming there are any fossil fuels left in which to operate it)

I think it’s also safe to consider that whatever McMansion they purchased will be worth much, much less than their purchase price in years to come. Money isn’t free and without exception debt -always- must be repaid. How will this paycheck-to-paycheck family ever get out from under this house?

“Most people want everything now, and they come back every two years looking for more money,” he said.

He also has families who “come back a little richer” each time with more money in the bank.

“I can’t keep track of what people do once they walk out my door,” Tisdale said. “I can tell you that the ones who are committed to investing their savings are rare.”

The home ATM has all but dried up. The American public is now in their 19th consecutive month of negative savings. This family and many like it are are literally living on borrowed time. What’s the point of an interest only loan when you can rent a suitable home, closer to work, for much less than “buying”. Why put yourself under such pressure, especially when you aren’t building any equity?

A house has become more of a consumer product than an investment, especially based on current false valuations and the way they are physically built today.

This family is only one job loss, sickness, or interest rate hike away from a CH13 bankruptcy. The American Dream is looking more and more like a nightmare. The suburbs with their large McMansions will be the slums of the future.

(Linda Thomas, Seattle Times, 12.16.2006)