Thanks DJO– I suppose you’re right. I’ve been thinking the same thing. Looking into Lake City and Lake Forest Park . .

Have you ever noticed the far left [Glenn Beck is Moderate Right] always calls anything that differs from their agenda KKK, haters, douche bag, etc…..I have.

I wasn’t talking about Beck’s politics anyway.

P.S.: I’m old fashion liberal for clear environmental population reduction….what are you, progressive liberal for 10 billion on planet earth?

Banks are easier to work with then some people think.

Its sad for me to advise this but as the banks begin to modify the loans back to their initial status in 2012-3 the property owner will again have the choice to assess if the property is still worth keeping.

The entire game has changed. The rules are out the window. Be smart. Assess your portfolio, target the dogs, and protect the GEMS. Homowners who own 1 property (owner occupied) get yourself ready for Dec 2. Your once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity is near so prepare yourself with education and knowing exactly what your property is worth. **

If you are upside down 50k or more in your home start your education process TODAY. You then will be ready for December 2.

has anyone had experience commuting from North Tacoma to the UW?

How much do you value your time? I think you’d be better off going north or east, rather than trying to commute through about 5 traffic jams a day.

Prices will continue to trendline down while stabilization in Reno, Sacramento, Vegas, and AZ will occur first since they have come down 50% off their highs. Investors are you upside down in your rentals? I hope to GOD you have been sobbing to the Banks and having them restructure the Loans to suit your needs. They DO NOT WANT THESE HOMES BACK. They will drop the rates on 1 year increments as long as you still qualify to make the new loan payment. Be smart people. The opportunities you have as homeowners will NOT occur again in your lifetime. You came into the investing game because you thought you knew what you were doing…..The rules have changed and you NOW hold the DECK. Remember you always want to be the dealer. Be smart!! I can’t say this enough.

Look back to 2001, add 10% and that will be a decent gauge to the value of your property going forward. Find your GEMS, take your time, and for godsake investors stop rushing to find something. I truly believe the bottom will be prolonged for a few years not a single month.

Bank on Dec 2 to slow down the sheer masses of Foreclosures coming. Homeowners(who qualify) will be given the BREAK of a lifetime on their owner-occupied homes. Take it.

Something anecdotal but very telling for anyone to ever work in the “tech/internet” industry: Google has started to cut down on free food and drink for employees. This is the writing on the wall for layoffs and firings. Happened a lot in the tech industry during the dot com bust.

Microsoft has an unannounced hiring freeze and Amazon is about to enter it’s work Christmas season ever. Just a prediction. Seattle area economy is about to come back to reality. It has been in “tech” bubble for a long time. Tech, in reality, is not that big a percentage of the economy, even before off shoring.

Have another sip of that Kool-Aid, Blue.

I think home prices are just going to be up in 2009.

I think Puget Sound flippers were small time compared to FL, for example, where some flippers “owned” 10-15 units in their “portfolios”. In a single month one of these clowns could walk into a bank and drop all the keys at once, while still maintaining his primary residence.

Based on this; I would say that about 50-70% of foreclosures in FL are “real” homeowners, where in Seattle is probably 80%+.

Absolutely no data to support this. Just anecdotal evidence, and being “familiar” with both markets.

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One factor may be the number of small builders Seattle has. There is a project close to me where all six units of a building went to foreclosure and sold. Right next door the same design is being built by what looks like the same builder. Of course the current project is cutting every corner it can.

In the past Steve as you may recall lenders have cooped projects to get them finished so they can sell at a reduced cost. I counted four projects by the University all by the same builder, unfinished to one degree or the other.

You are right we don’t see hundreds or thousands of homes in a housing tract come onto foreclosure all at one time as they do in California and Arizona, but the numbers will add up just the same as they always have. It will just take more time.

OK it’s Saturday and instead of my usual pitch to contribute generously to this web site for all it provides to our community here in Seattle I’d like to point out what a perfect example Steve is of what’s happened to Real Estate.

Without this site I would have never paid attention to Real Estate blogs or the nonsense that goes on there. Except for the radfun snake oil sales man going to Congress to promote his swindle using my tax dollars I would have never paid any attention to online brokerages without this site.

This site has shown the idiocy of the Real Estate sales business model. As consumers you may be unaware of a Mike Ferry, or Brian Buffini, David Cox, or I hate to say it, a Tommy Hopkins. Tommy was one of the good guys in my opinion. He promotes the tricks of the trade in a constructive manner of hard work and dedication to a craft. Unfortunately it has devolved into a sign em up pitch of working the numbers.

If you reach enough people by lead generation you have a higher probability of making the sale.

You will never find a Real Estate professional on the internet. You will never get insight or information. It’s done by doing and once done you move on to live a life.

So the people you meet here on the internet are generating leads. Be careful of what you think you know by being here. There are a lot of foreclosures and many more that should be. If you’ve been swindled, please contact Congress. If you own a home you paid way too much for fight back. If you have a loan not suited to you or your family contact Congress.

I’m amazed that even today mortgage people advertise or are looking for business. These people are creating paper sold as securities backed by a depreciating asset. We all pay the consequence.

Fight back.

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/EvoteBarChart1.php

While you’re at it, who’s gowning to win the election? Thanks!

The only reason we are not (yet) at the foreclosure rates in AZ, NV or FL is because right now we are *only* 10% down from the peak. Call me again when we reach 20% below and the ARMs start resetting in 2009/2010.

Seattle has just started up the foreclosure mountain. We will reach the bottom in the RE market in the sound once we reach the summit.

Thanks again for all your hard work cruching the numbers. I really enjoy looking at your graphs.

The stats once again prove that despite the increase in local foreclosure activity we will not come close to the foreclosure rates seen in California, Nevada, Florida and other housing bust areas.

We have always been far below the national average in foreclosures during past housing downturns and it looks like the trend will continue this time as well.

Keep up the good work!

You can see that they’re definitely a lot closer than they were 2000-2007, when closed sales volume was over 1000% of foreclosure volume. But even with the dip in sales and spike in foreclosures, closed sales volume is still 300% of foreclosure volume.

I was listening to Glenn Beck this morning and his Seattle neighborhood has whole blocks of “for sale” homes with distressed owners.

He said this Halloween the more wealthy home owners brought candy bags to the disadvantaged “for sale” home owners to save them the cost of buying candy and keep the neighborhood trick or treaters’ bags full.

Its getting grim in our city, but thank God for our kind hearts in America.