By The Tim on September 29th, 2007 at 4:04 PM · 27 Comments
Over at the Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking blog, they’ve got an ongoing series titled “If Only I Waited,” where they highlight purchases in which a home is sold (or for sale) at a significant discount to recent sales in the same neighborhood.
For the first time, the Seattle area has been featured, with a pair of Everett houses taking the spotlight in Friday’s post. Go check it out!
Thanks to the person that pointed this out in the comments.
Update: The Seattle are is on a roll, with Sunday’s edition of “If Only I Waited…” coming from the other end of town down in Kent. Go us!
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Everett, Kent, price drops
By The Tim on September 27th, 2007 at 3:10 PM · 16 Comments
Remember back in the dark ages, when Seattle Bubble was chained down to Blogger, and therefore didn’t have any way to add cool things like sidebar inventory trackers and built-in polls? Despite these archaic limitations, way back in August of last year, we managed to squeak out a poll. Lots of things have happened since that poll, not the least of which is that the readership of this site has more than doubled. Last year’s poll was fun and interesting, but thanks to Blogger’s lack of features it was just a one-time deal.
Well my friends, welcome to the future. Behold! I give you ongoing polls in the left sidebar!
Ideally I’ll run one poll per week, Sunday through Saturday. If you have any suggestions for future polls, or problems with the functionality of the polls, email me at ‘The_Tim’ ‘at’ ’seattlebubble’ ‘dot’ ‘com’. You can also leave comments on the individual poll posts, which will be posted at the time of the poll.
Happy polling!
Categories: Polls
Tags: Polls
By The Tim on September 27th, 2007 at 12:42 PM · 31 Comments
Please vote in this poll using the sidebar.
What is your current housing status?
- Rent from a landlord (62%, 466 Votes)
- Rent from a bank (i.e. - own a home loan) (26%, 196 Votes)
- Own a home free and clear (6%, 45 Votes)
- Other (6%, 43 Votes)
Total Voters: 750
This poll will be active and displayed on the sidebar through 10.06.2007.
Categories: Polls
Tags: Polls
By S-Crow on September 26th, 2007 at 5:11 PM · 6 Comments
Today I was shopping for a large capital expense item for the office and met with a software vendor and the owner of a hardware dealer up in the Everett area. The software vendor was showing his wares in a presentation and his accent was thick. Obviously the gentleman was from Britain. He asked what line of work I was in. I said, “escrow business.” Anyway, that broke the ice big time and we all must have talked for about 30 minutes straight about the real estate market GLOBALLY. This gentleman from England can’t sell his place, can’t refinance because of lender tightening there as well and…..drum roll please…..guess who his lender is?
Yep, Northern Rock.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: anecdote
By The Tim on September 26th, 2007 at 2:05 PM · 41 Comments
Here’s the latest from Aubrey Cohen over at the P-I: Mortgages harder to get for local borrowers
Lenders who previously approved mortgages to people with bad credit, no down payment and little or no documentation of income now are refusing loans if even one of those three factors is questionable. This is true even in Seattle, where homes have so far continued to appreciate.
“I see a number of individuals even in our existing pipeline that maybe a month or two ago were being choosy,” said Adam Stein, president of American Brokerage in Auburn, and the Washington Association of Mortgage Brokers. “Now they’re realizing that maybe they held out too long.”
Lenders had less incentive to screen out risky borrowers during the go-go real estate market of the past few years because they quickly turned around and resold mortgages on the secondary market. And, while home values were increasing fast, borrowers who could not make payments could still sell for more than they owed.
But that’s changed.
In recent months, home prices have declined in much of the country, borrowers increasingly are defaulting, and investors are fleeing from the home market.
Consider this story a precursor to next month’s news that sales have continued the historic slide that began with last month’s 26% YOY drop in pending sales. Speaking of which, as was pointed out in the forum by AmazedRenter, according to RE/Max (via USA Today), sales in Seattle so far this month are down 47% from last year. Yikes.
But don’t worry sellers, I’m sure prices will just keep on rising. Everybody wants to buy a home in Seattle. If only they could get a loan, that is…
(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 09.25.2007)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Cohen, demand, Financing, lending, Seattle_PI
By The Tim on September 25th, 2007 at 10:15 AM · 46 Comments
The prediction (emphasis added):
When July’s housing stats came out last week, the most confusing piece of data was that despite skyrocketing local inventory and tightening lending across the nation, the median price still jumped up 2.3% from June, bouncing back into double-digit YOY territory at a 10.6% increase since July 2006.
…
I believe that almost all of last month’s increase in the county-wide median can be attributed to this spike in sales on the Eastside.
…
I don’t think this explains away all of the median price increase over the last few months, but I do think it accounts for a good portion of it, especially last month. In theory, if sales distributions are indeed skewing the median, we should see the YOY change in the Case-Shiller Index begin to diverge from the YOY change in the median, since the Case-Shiller method avoids this particular shortcoming. I’ll keep you posted when July Case-Shiller data is released.
- Median Price Not Telling the Whole Truth, August 14
The data (available here):
Case-Shiller Home Price Index up 0.2% June to July, 6.86% YOY.
I don’t mind saying once in a while that it feels good to be right. I’ll try not to let it go to my head.
Here’s the usual graph, with L.A. & San Diego offset from Seattle & Portland by 17 months, to give you an idea of how closely we’re following their lead:
Click to enlarge
There’s really not much else to say about the latest data. It shows pretty much exactly what I’ve been expecting. Let’s just say that we’re currently on track for a very interesting spring.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Case-Shiller, median
