This weekend my wife and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary, so no normal posts.
How about instead you tell me what you think Seattle Bubble is missing. What would you like to see here, but don’t? More posts? Cool interactive maps? More “balance”? Whatever you’re craving, let’s hear it.
I’m always trying to improve this site as a resource for anyone interested in the local real estate market, and would love to hear from you how I can do that better. Thanks!
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52 responses so far ↓
1
Ruisenor
// Oct 12, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I think we should have a recurring post featuring homes sold/listed at a loss in King County (similar to what you will find on the Irvine Housing Blog). These homes will become pretty common over the next year. You can find a few of these in Snoqualmie Ridge at the moment.
2
Alan
// Oct 12, 2007 at 4:09 pm
More cow bell.
3
TJ_98370
// Oct 12, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Too funny Alan!
4
David McManus
// Oct 12, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Heh, congrats on 5 years, Tim. My wife and I were celebrating our 5th this past weekend as well.
-David
5
deejayoh
// Oct 12, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Add one of the feeds from here to the left nav
http://www.altosresearch.com/altos/website/AltosChartsAndStats.direct
6
EconE
// Oct 12, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Being that we have poked fun at so many people in the industry…how about a post where people (bubbleheads) can comment regarding who they respect within the industry and how that respect had been earned in their opinion. They don’t even have to be local…you know…like the guy that runs the BlownMortgage blog…and S-Crow. I think that respect & props should be given where due.
I’d be in favor of a nice post to slam some of the others as it’s quite amazing what you can find when you start googling people…but I really don’t want any hired goons showing up at my doorstep.
7
EconE
// Oct 12, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Oh…and congrats on your 5th anniversary. “They” say that a wood product should be given on that anniversary. Maybe you should give your wife a baseball bat so she can beat you away from your computer!
8
casey1167
// Oct 12, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I would agree with “Ruisenor,” I can see it now, “according to the Seattlebubble.com in the last month XX houses were sold at a loss in the greater Seattle area” That would be neat. (I think “neat” is a real estate term…) Come to think of it, that is one thing I have never seen in the news, the total number of houses sold at a loss in a give area.
9
NotaBull
// Oct 12, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Tim,
I suggest a Wall of Shame type of page, where we can post comments from reporters, realtors, over time:
Audrey Wassisface:
Jun 2007 - Return to normal appreciation, blah blah blah
Sep 2007 - Sellers should be realistic, etc, blah blah
Feb 2008 - I’m ruined. RUINED!!!!!
That sort of thing… It would be good to show people why you can’t believe “experts”.
We can start with national figures, and then bring in the local ones as time moves on.
10
Sniglet
// Oct 12, 2007 at 5:24 pm
This is a great site. However, if you want ideas for improvements, here they are:
1. Instead of just showing the current number of active listings, show a chart with bit of trending perspective.
2. Have the comment section for each post actually point to a thread on a message board. This will drive more traffic to the message board, as well as create a SINGLE place for all discussions.
11
Ubersalad
// Oct 12, 2007 at 5:50 pm
It’ll also be great if we can have a bot that can respond to RE questions.
For example, if I ask the bot “will Seattle implode?” The bot will respond “Certainly.”
I think this would bring the site to a whole new level.
12
The Dude
// Oct 12, 2007 at 6:02 pm
I have been reading this blog for about 5 months now, ever since I graduated college and got a job (right about the time of the mortgage melt down was hitting the press). I have found it quite encouraging that others have the same opinion about how ridiculous the housing prices are in Seattle. I thought I was on the fast track to becoming a home owner (which I thought was a good investment!). I got a computer science degree, landed a high tech job and have a triple penny pinching mentality, so I thought I would be able to buy a house or duplex within 2 or 3 years of graduating (note that the only real estate prices I was use to were Eastern Washington prices). But when I started researching real estate I was blown away. The only thing that has kept me interested in real estate is this blog. So I applaud you!
One thing that I think adds value to these discussions is having guests post in my opinion.
I have a question that I would like to ask (I know its been discussed but I am not satisfied):
As housing prices go down and rents go up it will become at some point profitable to buy rentals, which will then stop the declining housing market which then will reverse the mentality of buying into a declining market. So the question is – how far will the market have to come down for this to happen? Is it going to be significant?
Feel free to rip that logic to shreds =)
13
AndySeattle
// Oct 12, 2007 at 6:34 pm
I second the idea of noting/reviewing those who are worthwhile in the industry. This correction won’t last forever and in two to five years when we start buying houses again it would be nice to have a resource of recommended services.
14
Ben
// Oct 12, 2007 at 7:13 pm
More LOLcats:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/10/12/oh-noez-mah-mortgage-dun-readjusted/
Seriously, I like the idea of showing real examples of houses selling at a loss too.
15
David McManus
// Oct 12, 2007 at 7:17 pm
“I second the idea of noting/reviewing those who are worthwhile in the industry. This correction won’t last forever and in two to five years when we start buying houses again it would be nice to have a resource of recommended services.”
Won’t you risk ending up having a lot of the worthless ones posting anonymously and recommending themselves?
16
MisterBubble
// Oct 12, 2007 at 7:26 pm
I miss my icon. Also, please make it easier to login for posting by putting a login option on the same page as the comment submission.
That, and a feature column by Ballard Bob.
17
on topic
// Oct 12, 2007 at 8:02 pm
considering the amount of effort that has been put into comparing owning vs renting, an online calculator would make sense
18
Lake Hills Renter
// Oct 12, 2007 at 8:23 pm
I like the idea of posting who we respect. That’s at least worth of a post and a link on the sidebar. My top two: S-Crow and Jillayne.
19
Brian
// Oct 12, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I really like the statistics and charts you show, including comparisons to other markets. I’d love to see you get some more charts going that attempt to predict the size of the fall. I think this can be achieved through looking at recent appreciation, over maybe 5-6 years, (the higher they rise, the farther they’ll fall), and perhaps some GDP #s for the health of the state’s economy to weed out Detriot, etc if necessary.
20
S-Crow
// Oct 12, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Talking about the market is certainly crucial because it’s impact on decisions is so important, but I think that many would get quite a bit out of talking about other things real estate related. I’ve never really delved into a lot of stuff because this is not my blog and I wanted to stay on topic regarding the market, but there is so much information to share transactionally.
21
Filthy Renter
// Oct 12, 2007 at 11:54 pm
How about more stats? I see that inventory is automatically gathered on the left.. how about foreclosures, median prices, all sorts of numbers exist that would be interesting to look at.. I see that information in the pages if I look, but updated so I could see them daily/weekly/monthly right on the front page would be great. If you want to drive traffic, gather lots of the stats in one highly visible place. Become a clearinghouse of information, or at least a portion of it. It would need not take up tons of space like your inventory section demonstrates.
This would be more work but would be cool:
Show a small graph with the trend over the past month or past 6 months. This graphs would also be updated at the same time as the numbers are gathered.
22
takenroad
// Oct 13, 2007 at 6:40 am
Hi Tim,
Part of the ridiculous expense of buying real estate, is the cost of the transaction. I’ve seen posts about alternative real estate services like redfin, zIp realty, zillow, etc. More emphasis here would be good. How are they really working out for customers? Anecdotal evidence. Data.
As Redfin notes, the buyer is the only one who brings a checkbook to closing, so the idea that all the commissions are paid by the seller is fiction. Buyers and sellers are both interested in making this market more efficient.
23
S-Crow
// Oct 13, 2007 at 8:10 am
takenroad,
yes, you have several really good topics.
24
Ira Sacharoff
// Oct 13, 2007 at 8:32 am
Re: Redfin- I had clients who used Redfin to make an offer on a house..They were dissatisfied at the Refin agent’s lack of communication and switched to me after the deal didn’t happen, because not only do I try to compete with Refin pricewise, I also return phone calls. I experienced the same thing when dealing with Redfin as the listing agent for clients making an offer on a house.. Maybe they’re so busy they don’t have time to return calls.
I have miixed feelings about Redfin. I like the idea of some entity coming in and shaking up the industry…there have been a lot of ” smiling devil” type of agents, who, for a full commission, will be mainly looking out for themselves…At the same time Redfin has perhaps unfairly exploited this industry. At first, they didn’t have “showing agents”. You’d call up the listing agent and pretend you were going to use them as a dual agent, then when it came time to make the offer you’d have Redfin do it.
As a non Redfin agent, I’m happy to deal with them, or any other agent or non agent, but I think other agents are more reluctant to show Refin properties. And I wish they were better at returning phone calls.
25
softwarengineer
// Oct 13, 2007 at 10:17 am
WE NEED SOME BLOGGING RULES UP FRONT
Remember the saying, don’t sweat the small stuff, its all small stuff. Well, some blogging criticisms of other bloggers on this site are over things like:
criticizing bloggers with different computer applications (like whether they embed URLs or not)
criticizing bloggers who prefer capital letters for emphases
criticizing bloggers on ambiguous/unimportant technical abilities they lack, just because they’re technical [good gosh, who knows everything technical anyway and why would we want to?]
Most of the time Tim, this doesn’t happen on your site. But the trolls out there try to belittle folks on unimportant non-issues.
Emphasize this rule to bloggers:
“Try to be as nice as possible [sometimes the article we're attacking on the blog isn't nice at all, then we can attack the article, but be as civil as possible to bloggers with different opinions than our own] at all times”
Conversely though, if a blogger is attacked in an uncivil way by another blogger, its OK to defend yourself [believe me, these buffoons/trolls don't want our intelligence launched against them that way, its slam dunk, they'll lose and never come back, hopefully]. The exception.
26
Normandy
// Oct 13, 2007 at 10:43 am
I think it would be a good idea to ask the people who are daily reading this blog to supply their personal stories in regard to the real estate market here.
There are many interesting stories out there and it would add a human variable to whats happening in Seattle — a more personal account of the people and or families who are living through the current conditions….
27
Orion
// Oct 13, 2007 at 10:53 am
I agree with Mr. Bubble about bringing back icons/avatars for regular commenters. It made it easier to tell who was who and more interesting as well. Remember Meshugy’s blue baby in sunglasses? Classic!
Also, whatever happened with your logo design? Your web page header could use some jazzing up.
28
SteveH
// Oct 13, 2007 at 11:02 am
It would be useful to be able to interpret listing numbers a bit better; for instance, I have been watching listings decline for the past two weeks, but don’t know if it is because of increased sales, or declining or pulled listing or whatever. And softwarengineer, I’ll be petty, how about getting rid of the all caps, it’s pretty annoying.
29
christiangustafson
// Oct 13, 2007 at 11:55 am
I’d like to see regular updates on:
- who are the current bagholders for those pricy serial flips on Naomi Place,
- the cheesemaker and his $400K crapcan in Shoreline,
- that marketing Boomer who bought the $600K condo in Eastlake with an IO loan,
- stats on the condo and condo-tel DISASTER we have brewing downtown,
- any other Schadenfreude-worthy spectacles to entertain us readers.
It’s all good! Congrats! Marriage and family first, homeownership only when it makes financial sense once again (and it will).
30
bigdollardog
// Oct 13, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Here is a rule: some blog comments for stocks, have to end with going long or short, to give full disclosure.
the same could be used here so if you are a owner looking to sell, and say, “I think RE market is going up, bla bla bla, (then admit at the end “going long on RE”) BUT at the same time IF YOU ARE SITTING IN YOUR APARTMENT WAITING FOR THE RE MARKET TO DROP TO BUY LOW, you should ad a disclosure at the end- of a negative comment (going short on RE) to give full disclosure!
Just half serious here but somtin to tink about
31
EconE
// Oct 13, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Maybe in addition to the kudos thread…we need a “"dog" slap” thread for the latest trolls that have come on board. You know…like TheDexter that loves having his name around in so many places that it helps his search engine ratings or something like that.
Too bad that the guy changed his name to Gene Dexter and didn’t stick with his original name. Nothing like finding out that he chose the name of a gay porn star!
32
Pegasus
// Oct 13, 2007 at 8:51 pm
You need to provide some links to counselors for the rapidly arriving real estate collapse in Washington. Links to Real Estate Agents Anonymous, Loan Officers and Appraisers Anonymous and finally Home Owners Anonymous.
They will be feeling hopeless and depressed soon and it would be the right thing to do even though they have been rude and unreasonable.
33
rose-colored-coolaid
// Oct 13, 2007 at 9:58 pm
A really simple thing that would help is if responses could be organized in a tree format rather than just in chronological order.
I.E.
A
– D
– G
B
– C
– — E
– F
If you go to http://www.slashdot.com, you can see a forum that allows for this type of posting. It would help organize the blog much better, especially when we get 100 comments on a single post.
34
Kime
// Oct 14, 2007 at 8:18 am
Actually, I like the chronological order because then I can easily find new posts later, but each person must be clear about what they are responding to, often by putting in a quote.
35
Kime
// Oct 14, 2007 at 8:28 am
“I have a question that I would like to ask (I know its been discussed but I am not satisfied):
As housing prices go down and rents go up it will become at some point profitable to buy rentals, which will then stop the declining housing market which then will reverse the mentality of buying into a declining market. So the question is – how far will the market have to come down for this to happen? Is it going to be significant?”
I know that rentals bottomed about 10 years after housing in 1942 or so, but I don’t think there was such a huge building boom at that time, only in Florida, and that topped several years before the stock market. With all the overbuilding, and because it is likely that quite a few people will move in with family for a while to get back on their feet (this is what my sister-in-law and her husband did after they got burned in the RE bust of Sacramento in the early 90’s) I think that rentals will not be going up significantly very soon and housing will have to drop significantly, probably at least 30% but in my opinion we could see 50% because the economy will go into such a recession or depression. Do I need to state my reasons for believing that we will probably have a depression (a long and deep recession)? This has been discussed here before.
36
Lake Hills Renter
// Oct 14, 2007 at 9:17 am
It seems to me that there’s a ceiling on rental prices that doesn’t exist for buying. Since there’s no financing for renting, landlords can only charge what people can actually afford to pay. I think many of us believe that one reason housing prices went so high is because people were able to get financing for buying a house they could not afford to pay back, thus driving prices above what most can afford to pay. Without similar circumstances, I don’t see how that can happen with rents, thus it can only go so high or people won’t be able to afford it.
37
JJ Johnson
// Oct 14, 2007 at 10:29 am
The cold blue color scheme has always put me off. Maybe a slight site redesign? I love the content though. :)
38
Denny Retrograde
// Oct 14, 2007 at 10:30 am
Oh yeah! The rent story will become riveting as this thing continues its trajectory. Thanks to liquidity, credit and property values squeezing tight alongside rampant overbuilding, rents will soon retie value to income in a way that will leave lots of housing seekers and landlords dizzy and disbelieving.
Seattle Bubble can help people navigate the paradigm shift in the next months with the occasional focused post contextualizing local market examples as they begin piling up. [Example: the local heavyweight Pine Street Group just let slip that they intend two tall towers on the edge of Belltown - towers of apartments, not condos. Shift.]
I’ve noticed housing blogs in SoCal filling with comments from sophisticated housing seekers who have bitten the bullet, acknowledged the shift, and are determined to make smart choices in renting. They need to learn how to structure a lease from a frustrated flipper to disallow having their place sold out from under them during the lease term; how to investigate the solvency of a potential landlord; how to write in enforceable upkeep and maintenance provisions to protect against an absentee investor/owner who won’t answer the phone.
Seattle Bubble will provide a real public service as our oversupply of real property becomes an oversupply of (possibly risky) investor-owned rental units.
39
ballardrat
// Oct 14, 2007 at 8:20 pm
It’d be great if there was a way to easily tell where the new comments are for the blog posts. In the forums, you can see when the last comments were made by date. Maybe if comments for the blog posts were directed to the forums it’d help.
40
Chris
// Oct 14, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Another Eleua guest post!!!
41
econ101
// Oct 15, 2007 at 2:34 am
it is missing a bullet hole in the forehead.
42
The Tim
// Oct 15, 2007 at 11:00 am
Wow, econ101. That is both amusing and disturbing at the same time.
43
Ira Sacharoff
// Oct 15, 2007 at 11:24 am
I justed wanted to say how much I enjoy this blog. I’m a real estate agent and I get so tired of hearing some real estate agents and others in the industry screech about how great things are, how prices are still going up, and how now is a great time to buy.
So it feels nice to come here away from the “cheerleaders convention”.
44
Monica
// Oct 15, 2007 at 11:29 am
Hey, Tim- how about a poll for how many current homeowners are waiting for prices to stabilize so they can move within the area (upsize or downsize). No one wants to upsize to some horrenously overpriced house that doubled in appreciation in a few years and is going to drop in value.
I really enjoy your blog. It’s a voice of sanity in a crazy real estate market.
45
Madrona
// Oct 15, 2007 at 11:31 am
omg… am I too late to request changes? Make the comment font *smaller*. Or at least dynamic CSS so the user can change that. I feel the font is too big an just causes a lot of scrolling. Also, make the two side bars removable. I don’t care to see all the past months with posts in them all the time. If that is something I want to access, it should be available, but not part of the main page.
46
David Post
// Oct 15, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Great blog. We need this in Portland. Could you possibly add some Portland data from time to time?
47
on topic
// Oct 15, 2007 at 1:10 pm
context, perhaps.
RE may be local, but psychology and credit are responsible for local reality and are at least national.
generally, though, everyone wants more data more often because we are interested in what happens next.
so, if you could just put together a real-time measure of the local, national, and international emotional states and next month’s housing interest rates and available loan options, that would be great.
oh, and an indicator of how many people are going to default and when
48
B&W NIkes
// Oct 15, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Is there a way to look into a localized and regional Monthly ARM reset schedule from now through several years into the future? I saw something similar to this from a Credit Suisse chart linked from another bubblesite?
49
laxtosnoco
// Oct 15, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Two suggestions:
1.) Rethink the blue color scheme.
2.) Set up a space for us bubbleheads to turn in our badges and guns i.e. notify folks when we set aside all reason and become homebuyers.
50
WestSideBilly
// Oct 17, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Tim, hope you see this…
Is there any way to add a “Last comment on ” to the “Add comment (#)” line? It’d be nice to see recent comments in older posts.
51
The Tim
// Oct 17, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Interesting suggestion. I’ll look into whether there’s a way to do that or not.
52
WestSideBilly
// Oct 18, 2007 at 7:22 am
By the way, that should have read “Last comment on (date @ time)” but it got parsed out.
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