This bubble’s been cranking along, with a small pause when the tech bubble burst, since the mid 90’s.

10 year change would be more appropriate:

Median price for residential, KC:
Mar 1997: $176,950
Mar 2007: $454,950

%Change: 157.11%
Adjusted for inflation: Just about 100%.

A 40-50% haircut would make sense, if the housing market made sense. I’ll stick by 10-30%, depending on what type of property it is. Maybe Condos get the full 50% or more.

Wow.

Right-o. Meshugy’s having kittens about the double-digit appreciation from 2006 to 2007, and you want us to believe that the total appreciation over five years was only 56%.

You guys crack me up.

FYI: Zillow tells me that average five-year appreciation in Seattle is closer to seventy percent. This must be shocking information to a local real estate bear like yourself….

I don’t think there will be as many buyers competing for the half million dollar homes this season.

I also have been trying to find out what happened in Tokyo and also Los Angeles in the late ’80’s early ’90’s.

The Seatle RE market feels ripe for a correction.

Seattle’s 5 year appreciation was ~56% (based on MSN quarterly report), thus markets that went up 120% over the same time period might come down 20% and Seattle only decline by 10%…

Tokyo.

Perhaps you’ve heard of it in one of your MBA courses….

I just love the way you try to pass this information off as if it’s specific to Seattle.

For example, please use markets that have had similar appreciation over the past 5 years or examples on a percentage basis over time. San Diego & Vegas had double the appreciation of Seattle so it might decline more as well…however Dallas didn’t appreciate as much as Seattle so it might not be as volatile.

As long as the economy is still strong (180K new jobs last month & 4.4% Unemployment rate) housing price in this region or as a whole will not crash. They might slightly decline or moderate, yet the economy of the NW is what will determine how severe any downturn may be.

Seattle is “special” …just like we were in a “new economy” in the tech bubble. Sure, and I’ve got a bridge I want to sell ya too!

The bottom line is that appreciation has to stop at some point …it is simply unsustainable because it would eventually price EVERYONE out of the market.

After houses stop appreciating, they will produce negative cash flow for landlords for decades unless rents triple or quadruple.

So when appreciation stops, the investors late to the party will have to sell (or face losses for a very long time).

As they sell, inventories will rise even further and prices will drop further.

I think it’s going to unravel like nothing we’ve seen! I just hope the whole economy doesn’t get sucked into the down-draft. :(

I want the historical sales breakdowns by price (if they exist — there was a breakdown in this month’s report, but I don’t know how long they’ve been reporting this data).

Is there a way that I can contact you, confused?

Keep in mind, the one month change, in and of itself, is not as meaningful as trending.

small populations = greater volatility

It’s true that citywide stats haven’t shown a significant drop in prices (yet). I just think it’s interesting that my ‘hood has shown some softening.

I have access and would be more than happy to send you the info for what you are looking for but cannot send you the link. Is there something in particular that you are looking for?

Not the summaries — I want the full reports, like the one that was posted last week. Is there some secret NWMLS archive that can be obtained via URL mangling?

Anyone? Bueller?

This is nothing new. It’s been happening since the bubble began. It’s no different than somebody asking several hundred thousand more than their newly remodeled house is worth. People are trying to get top dollar for everything, no matter if it’s a rehab, teardown, new home, building lot, farm, ranch, commercial property, etc. It’s up to the buyer to decipher if there is any value. The smart developers won’t pay those prices, although one does wonder considering the madness of the last few years. As with any sale, you’ve got to leave something on the table for the next guy.

What have they gotten out of the bubble? Higher taxes due to a false appreciation.

This could be, and often is, flippers, but sometimes it’s just the owner who “has gotten wise to the game.”

If this practice is as wide-spread as it seems, this probably narrows margins on flips to such a small amount that it will either increase the already absurd size of the McCraftmans getting jammed into these lots in order to secure a profit, or it will (hopefully) stop this sort of infill entirely.

The reality is that there are 100s of thousands of view lots in Seattle. Views have never been a significant premium in the past. Not all of them can have a million dollar house on them. There just aren’t enough people that can afford a million dollar house.

March 2005 had 66% of Sales vs listings ,March 2006 had 65% and March 2007 had a mere 43% of pending sales to listings ratio. though this is not the lowest over the year, that is the largest drop from year to year that I can see in the MLS numbers.

I don’t know exactly what that means, but I do know, it is not good for the housing market.

Good for you Peter. Your patience will pay off. Just a few short years ago, I was looking at homes in West Seattle with my sister. She was thinking of purchasing a vacation home, and likes that area. There were view homes in the area available for much less than $500k, though already overpriced. Nowadays, those same homes we looked at are $800k and up. The runup has been the result of rampant speculation due to the credit bubble, and is completely independant of wages and quite clearly unsustainable. But this thing cant turn on a dime, so it’ll take a few years, but you’ll find your house, and at your price.

I gave up looking, it was a complete waste of time. I don’t care if I’m priced out forever, or whatever, but I am not dropping $500k on a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house on the Eastside. I’m sure there are morons like this falling all over themselves to do it, so I will quite happily step aside and let them get to it.

There are some key phrases in here that indicate we’ve hit a turning point: “normal market” and “serious about selling.” Those terms were thrown around in most of the other big markets last year.