http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/east_king/red/news/19569619.html

Propaganda parading as objective front page news in “Redmond Reporter”

AS

Your post was brilliant up until the partisan political rant, but otherwise you are a voice of reason.

I heard on this Bubble Olympia had grown 5 fold, so assumed the same for the Seattle area, sorry for the confusion.

But give me a break, our same freeway systems in 1990 were totally clogged in the Seattle area with say 32% less people [although counting everyone that is undocumented with no social security card of their own becomes impossible], and Mayor Nickels wants to double our population in a couple decades. I still think being a Seattle alarmist on environmentalism with the Orcas near extinction and our Puget Sound dead areas from over-growth is way too late anyway.

I have heard from a couple mortgage brokers that they think there are many, many arms that are resetting locally this month. We will know soon enough, as there are few protections to save a second home from foreclosure and the whole process goes much faster. Tacoma seems to be experiencing this currently.

I think Portland is going to get hammered. I have been to Phoenix and Portland recently and Vancouver / Camas looks exactly like the suburbs around phoenix with long straight roads with too many stoplights and brand new houses as far as the eye can see. Portland may have had a plan for growth, but everyone I know who works in Portland lives in Vancouver.

About a year ago I would only see them out of town. Then, on the edges. Now they are everywhere. Once they hit your neighborhood you know prices are dropping.

Once you see the signs waving it is a sign that it’s a bad time to buy.

Price a house – any house – right and IT WILL SELL.

Now I see why they call you “economist”
:D

Actually, Burien is the new Ballard. Just not as insanely overpriced.

Oh sure someone will want to buy them IF THE PRICE IS RIGHT.

Price a house – any house – right and IT WILL SELL.

Bernanke is done cutting rates. The European Union is contemplating a rate hike, which will put further pressure on Bernanke to hike interest rates to stave off the already cripling inflation. Banks are hurting for cash and are already feeing people to death, they have stricter and costly credit score-based interest rates, and will need to raise interest rates to keep afloat. Our 40-year low in interest rates will be a story we tell our grand kids.

When will be the best time to jump in based on price alone? Who knows. I look forward to the day when this blog declares “NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY!” and everyone buys a home and drives the prices up.

Betting that you will be able to “Refinance at a lower rate in the future” is exactly what caused the “ARM-People” to sign on so blindly and foolishly. Now that there is even more of a premium associated with your credit score, you best hope that you are one of those statistical outliers of a renter that happens to have a 720+ credit score. The fact of the matter is most renters do not… especially the newly foreclosed on and now renting individuals. This in turn will put more renters in the market and upward pressure on rents price.

Most Americans do not and likely will never save 20% to put down on a house. I keep seeing that assumption plugged in to many of the theoretical scenarios on this blog. For realistic situations, I think you should plug in 3% -5% down payment to any of your pricing scenarios. Then run the interest rate up to 18.1% like it was back in the 80’s. When you do that, things look completely different.

My advice, research and know exactly where you stand. If buying a home is right for you, and you find a home you can afford, and you plan on staying there or renting it out when you are done, then buy one. There are a lot of stressed sellers out there, some are biting on low-ball offers why not go fishing for one? Another tip is to look for homes that are in the lower end in quality in comparison to the other homes in the neighborhood. You can put in some “Sweat Equity” and you still have tremendous upside. Lastly, look for neighborhoods in transition and think long-term.

If you think you can buy a house and flip it in six months at a huge profit YOU ARE NUTS!

There are always great deals in any market. Being fixated on price alone without considering the dozens of other factors is short-cited. Higher fees, higher interest rates, and tighter lending standards can have a drastic impact on the “affordability of a home” regardless of the price.

SEATTLE INTEREST BUBBLE HERE WE COME!!!

I think its just cognitive dissonance. A lot of used house salespeople got into the game in the last 5 or so years when the market was hot and they likely really do believe the hype. You can see it in action over at RCG, older agents seem to have adopted to the new market dynamics whereas the younger ones are in a futile fight against them.

They also know that the vast majority of second home buyers and move up buyers depend on equity to make that purchase. I’d even say that a number of first time buyers are dependent on equity – their parents equity – to make that purchase.

Where I’m at, certain areas have already seen prices plunge 40%+, and the reality is that the people buying these properties aren’t first time buyers. They’re investors that continue to leverage equity.

Lots of knife-catching going on as the market falls. Still, it IS overwhelmingly equity driven. The Relitters know this. Expect to see the same in Seattle. The correction is still in its infancy and I don’t expect a bottom until the first few waves of knife catchers have lost their ability to double down.

The Real Estate industry is going to contract by at least whatever portion of the industry served flippers, small investors and people on the “property ladder” my guess is that at least 20% of the transaction volume is gone, never to return.

Heck, way back in a prior life when I was a sales chump, I always looked forward to when my company got desperate and allowed me to chop widget prices. The increased volume always overcompensated for my lower commissions and I had my best months ever.

I think the simple answer is that many of these clowns are heavily vested in real estate on a personal level and risk to lose their shirts if even a moderate downturn materializes, (and based on these numbers, we are getting close to that)

Well darn, that turned out to be a rather short selling season… one whole month… April.

Look at interest rates during April. There were some good deals on mortgages driving this “high” (cough, cough) sales volume.

Now that the Fed has signaled no more rate cuts, average rates have crept up above 6% again.

In the Sales Pending table in the NWMLS article, the upward monthly YOY volume trend was broken in Nov, 2005. From then till now, monthly YOY volume has been negative every month except Feb, 2007. Does anybody out there know enough about this hypothesis to comment on when it would predict a halt to the current price drop trend?

If I understand it correctly, it’s predicting falling prices at least through mid-2009.

There are 2 or 3x the number of houses on the market as there were 2 years ago, and those were selling faster than they are today. Even the dubious ones

Many of the houses that are sitting on the market have some sort of issue

On my street two houses have sold recently for what I considered very high prices, while two other houses sit on the market for considerably less money. One of the “stuck” houses has a dubious remodel on a busy corner, and the other has not seen anything new since the 70’s. Both of the houses that sold were tastefully redone without any glaring problems.

People who are buying right now are not investors, and only seem interested in quality properties that are complete.

http://www.waltlockley.com/manhattandome/domeappendix.htm

It might be very popular in a few years since I hear the land support glaciers are getting ready to melt.

That is too much! Tim, are you sure a Naked Loon fake headline didn’t bleed over to this site by accident?

I know, I was thinking along the same lines… “Dang NWMLS, muscling in on my local parody news territory.” :^)

They just don’t want you to know it.”

What I find interesting is that there is STILL a 1-1.5% PREMIUM for jumbo loans. That CAN’T be good for the upper end of the market, and it must also slow the trade-uppers (yes, there still are some), who are stuck then as well.

That is too much! Tim, are you sure a Naked Loon fake headline didn’t bleed over to this site by accident?

Look at the blood oozing from the walls into the spacious lawns of Issaquah. Down nearly 24% YOY.

And West Bellevue. Up nearly 19% to a whopping 1,350,000 median, but only sold 23 houses vs the 60 sold last May! The uber-rich are still buying and paying too much, but it appears they are lonely at the escrow office.

True, but housingtracker.net has been showing the high end increasing in most expensive areas. So it may also be the effect of the new limit on conforming loans.

OK, that’s a lie, I don’t feel at all sorry for them, especially the ones who had to remind us constantly how much money they were making the last few years.

“Open-house traffic is picking up, and buyers are coming off the sidelines to make buying decisions,”

“We still haven’t had summer hit us yet as the weather remains cool, wet and cloudy,” he said. “I expect both temperatures and the market to heat up as summer approaches.”

Ooh. bad weather, but foot traffic is picking up. So the weather is not keeping out of open houses, it’s just keeping them from opening their wallets? OK, I get it. Then when the weather is good, they’ll go to the beach – but buy houses. right.

Seriously?

Oh, and Mr Beeson is from Windermere TACOMA. You know, home of Median home price continues to decline in Pierce County

They’re just trying to mitigate the disaster as much as possible. Every seller duped into buying helps.

There will be a time when prices bottom and people start buying again. I’m sure they’d prefer that to be at a 400k median than 250k median. 3% commission and all.

With pending sales so far down the noise in the MOM numbers for Seattle is going to get louder and louder. Don’t be surprised to see quite a few more dramatic shifts both directions in the months ahead.

Any help here, board?

Wow. Seems like gas prices are making people want to stay close in.

House prices fall again in May; Seattle condo prices up
-Rhodes

They just don’t want you to know it.

“[Seattle's population has grown 5 fold since 1990]”

I don’t have a clue where you get numbers like that. I’ve lived on the east side since 1957 and have seen many changes in this area, but a 5 fold increase in the population sure isn’t one of them. Here are some stats from wikipedia for Seattle and King County population:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle
1960 557,087
1970 530,831
1980 493,846
1990 516,259
2000 563,374

As you can see, Seattle population dropped for several decades and did not reach it’s regain its 1960 level until the late 1990’s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_County%2C_Washington
1920 389,273
1930 463,517
1940 504,980
1950 732,992
1960 935,014
1970 1,156,633
1980 1,269,749
1990 1,507,319
2000 1,737,034

2006 1,805,461 est population from the UW – google it if you don’t believe me.

Kings Countys population took 86 years to increase by 5 fold.

That’s the second time in the past couple of days that you have made this ridiculous assertion. Get a grip on reality! LOL

No, actually the seattle area population has grown at about 1/20th to 1/16th of “five fold” since 1990. (depending on your definition of the area)

Seattle Metro (king, snoho, pierce)
1990: 2,559164
2007 3,203,314
25.17% growth

Seattle combined metro area (adds thurston, kitsap, skagit)
1990: 2,989,688
2007: 3,919,624
31.11% growth

1990 census #’s
July 1 2007 census estimates

maybe we should get the newspapers to print stories about how gas prices will fall, the environmentally will self-repair in the next decade, and world peace will be established.