There is no hiding from a market correction of this magnitude. The fact that he sold his house is great for him but notice the price tag. When a recession hits do mercedez sales tank? How about lear jets? The rich are rich and will continue to spend money and swap their expensive houses with each other. All the while providing real estate lackies with ammunition in the form of increasing “MEDIAN” price. Excluding the high end houses from the data would I suspect produce an even bleaker picture than is framed currently.

I am going to sit on my cash and wait for a return to sanity.
In Olympia we have already seen the beginning of the price plummet, evidenced by the number of listings which have been reduced in the past 3 months. When prices return to normal levels with historic appriciation I will buy, until then I will happily pay my 1150 in rent and pocket the diffrence. I mean come on 1150 in rent vs a 2000+ mortgage? That alone should light the burner in someones brain.

Wealth is work based through income earned, not land based. There is no such thing as a magic bullet ;-)

My house or property is worth a million dollars is not a retirement plan either :-(

Gee, what was my earthquake deductable again!

I do believe him because he is a very modest man and lives well below his income.

My mentor is an Executive at Safeco Ins and is moving back to the mid-west next month for a new job. I have been to his house (probably sold for $750k – $1MM) which sold in half an hour from when they put it in the MLS…barely got the sign put in the yard before it sold one day before the open house.

Gosh, you should get your mentor to help the other 12,000 schmucks who have their houses on the market in King County, because they’re probably not feeling as sanguine as you

Take a good hard look at the comp’s used to price your house and see how much they differ; then adjust your price accordingly.

If your place needs paint, paint it. Hire a professional stager, then have a pro take pics. Check out the pics at
http://www.urbnlivn.com/category/selling-504-the-taj to see the difference a pro makes.

Is the market slowing, YES, but it isnt as bad and wont be as other boom towns price drops. We are currently at 3.5 months inventory, nearly half of the USA avg…

Not to get you all depressed, but in a soft market, you can go forever and a day before you get an offer.

I sold a house in suburban Dallas where I had 147 showings and one offer. This took 5.5 months.

That is not a typo. One hundred forty seven showings, and one offer.

We already had 4 showings but no offers yet (probably because of the 4th of July holiday?). Do you think we can still get full asking price for our home? We priced it within the range our realtor told us that it should sell for.

I’m going back to bed…I’ll get back to solving the housing crisis later this afternoon. Should have her all fixed by tommorrow. Tomorrow I tell ya! Just watch…by Tuesday we’ll have inventory back to record lows with multiple offers for every seller!

What are you going to do David?

I’m going to ask again, so what? What are you going to do about it? What concrete course of action is going to change this system that you all obviously embrace? You seem to be educated, hard working people who happen to be right that there is something wrong here, but what are you going to do?

Actually I addressed that very question on the Priced Out Forever “Action” page.

The answer is similar to refractedthought’s comment above.

Well, and educate people so they don’t make poor decisions. That’s all. The system will correct itself.

Actually, none of those numbers make sense. They don’t match the PDF and they don’t match your spreadsheet. Y2Y appreciation for KC condos was 12%. First six months is a measly 4.03% ($280/$270k).

..Find the number that looks the best and spin…

Check out the non-sensical headline from E Rhodes in the Times

Condos hot while overall area housing market cools

FYI, the “condos are still hot” slant is straight out of the NWMLS press release:

KIRKLAND, Wash. (July 5, 2007) – With inventory at an all-time high in the Northwest Multiple Listing Service system, buyers are becoming more selective and sellers are receiving fewer multiple offers, according to MLS officials. Condominiums remain a bright spot, they noted.
…
Condo Activity Remains Strong
A closer look at the inventory shows part of the increase is due to a growing number of condominiums. In King County, for example, condos account for about 35 percent of the active listings. Of the condo inventory system-wide, about one-third of them are classified as new construction.

The volume of condominium sales and prices are both outperforming last year. Through six months this year, condo sales are up 6.1 percent compared to 2006, with prices jumping 15.6 percent. In King County, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the transactions, the year-to-date median selling price of a condominium is $285,000, a 17.8 percent increase from the year-ago YTD figure of $242,000.

Is there still anyone out there that believes Ms. Rhodes is an actual “reporter” and not just a mouthpiece of the local real estate industry?

Basically, it’s like Ghost Busters. Except replace Bill Murray with The Tim.

Condos hot while overall area housing market cools

Huh?? Condo median price was down 3.5% last month. The second month in row… Put another way, condo prices in Seattle have now peaked for the the cycle.

but wait…

Bucking the slowing appreciation trend the most were condominiums in Snohomish County, which saw a 19.6 percent increase in median sales price last month compared to a year earlier, June statistics released today by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service showed.

Ah, I see – focus on the market with 800 condo listings (which is doing ok), not the one with 2800 (which is sucking)

that’s some top notch reporting there, for sure.

Let’s see… 8.1% Y2Y increase. And the M2M appreciation for March/April was 8.0%. That makes the rest of the year – um, flat?

M2M should go negative by July or August, and once we get past those two big months next year…. guess what

But of course, there’s always that great apprecation in Condos – 12.1% Y2Y. Too bad they’re down M2M 3.4% this month and 1.7% last month. Negative performance 6 out of the last 12 months. Next year I predict 10 or 11 out of 12.