Seattle Bubble

News & discussion about real estate & the housing bubble in the Seattle area.

Seattle Bubble - News & discussion about real estate & the housing bubble in the Seattle area.

Entries from December 31st, 2008

Case-Shiller Tiers: Tiers Drop From Peak in Lockstep

By The Tim on December 31st, 2008 at 11:56 AM · 63 Comments

Let’s check out the three price tiers for the Seattle area, as measured by Case-Shiller. Remember, Case-Shiller’s “Seattle” data is based on single-family home repeat sales in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.

First up is the straight graph of the index from January 2000 through October 2008.

Case-Shiller Tiered Index - Seattle

Prices fell at virtually the same rate in October as they did in September for all three tiers. This brings the low and middle tiers back to February 2006, and the high tier back to April 2006. The middle tier took the biggest percentage hit in October for the third month in a row, falling 1.7% in a single month.

Here’s a chart of the year-over-year change in the index from August 2002 through October 2008.

Case-Shiller HPI - YOY Change in Seattle Tiers

The low tier again had the biggest year-over-year hit. And again both the low and the middle tiers fell over 10% YOY in October, while the high tier just barely came in under 10%. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of October – Low: -11.2%, Med: -10.5%, Hi: -9.4%.

Lastly, here’s a decline-from-peak graph like the one posted yesterday, but looking only at the Seattle tiers.

Case-Shiller: Decline from Peak - Seattle Tiers

The decline continues to track remarkably closely across the three tiers, despite the fact that the low tier saw a larger run-up during the bubble.

Here’s one more bit of data that’s somewhat interesting. For the tiered index, Case-Shiller provides dollar amounts that define each tier. Here’s the way they break down the tiers, according to their methodology pdf:

For the purpose of constructing the three tier indices, price breakpoints between low-tier and middle-tier properties and price breakpoints between middle-tier and upper-tier properties are computed using all sales for each period, so that there are the same number of sales, after accounting for exclusions, in each of the three tiers.

Last October’s tiered breakdown was as follows:

Low: <$363419
Mid: $363419 – $523613
Hi: >$523613

Here is this October’s breakdown:

Low: <$299720
Mid: $299720 – $433549
Hi: >$433549

While the tiered index values have only fallen 9-11%, the tier breakpoints have dropped around 17% in the last year. If I’m interpreting this data correctly, that means that the mix of homes selling has shifted down noticably toward the less expensive homes in the past year. If I were guessing, I’d say that is probably due to the difficulties in getting jumbo loan financing for homes priced above $567,500.

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 12.30.2008)

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Case-Shiller: Seattle Hits 10% YOY Price Drops

By The Tim on December 30th, 2008 at 7:06 AM · 42 Comments

It’s time once again for our monthly update to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to October data,

Down 1.4% September to October.
Down 10.2% YOY.
Down 11.4% from the July 2007 peak

Last year prices fell 0.94% from September to October and year-over-year prices were up 3.3%.

Here’s the usual graph, with L.A. & San Diego offset from Seattle & Portland by 17 months. Portland continues to outperform Seattle on a YOY basis, dropping 10.1% YOY in October and extending its streak to 11 months.

Case-Shiller HPI: West Coast

Note: This graph is not intended to be predictive. It is for entertainment purposes only.

Here’s the graph of all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities:

Case-Shiller HPI: All Cities

In October, seven of the twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities experienced smaller year-over-year drops than Seattle (one fewer than in September). Dallas at -3.0%, Charlotte at -4.4%, Denver at -5.2%, Boston at -6.0%, Cleveland at -6.2, New York at -7.5%, and Portland at -10.1%. Phoenix took the largest year-over-year drop again, with prices falling nearly 33% in a single year.

Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve cities whose peak index was greater than 175, and tracks how far they have fallen so far from their peak. The horizontal axis shows the total number of months since each individual city peaked.

Case-Shiller HPI: Decline From Peak

In the fifteen months since the price peak in Seattle prices have declined approximately 11.4%. This places the post-peak performance of Seattle home prices right between that of Tampa, FL and Phoenix, AZ, however the overall trend seems to be more on track with the pattern in Washington, DC.

Here’s the “rewind” chart. The horizontal range is selected to go back just far enough to find the last time that Seattle’s HPI was as low as it is now. This gives us a clean visual of just how far back prices have retreated in terms of months.

Case-Shiller HPI: Seattle Price Reversion

Seattle’s Case-Shiller value for October 2008 of 170.45 was just above its March 2006 value of 169.46. Prices have now “rewound” two years and seven months.

Check back tomorrow for a post on the Case-Shiller data for Seattle’s price tiers.

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 12.30.2008)

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New Improved Sidebar Inventory Tracker Courtesy Estately.com

By The Tim on December 29th, 2008 at 12:33 PM · 6 Comments

I’m happy to announce that Seattle Bubble now sports a new and improved sidebar inventory tracker, thanks to Galen Ward of Estately.com.

A few months ago our most reliable source for the hourly inventory tracker went offline, leaving us with two far less dependable sources for the inventory data. Since then the sidebar inventory tracker has been updated with data from one of these sources since it’s the best we’ve had available.

However, Estately.com has graciously set up an hourly feed just for Seattle Bubble, so we now have a reliable data source once again. The new data from Estately has been added to the inventory log files (click the numbers in the tracker on the sidebar) as a new fourth column.

This is also a good time to remind you of the nifty features sported by Estately’s real estate search technology. Head over to this post for a good roundup of the features of the top two real estate search sites Redfin and Estately. The two are engaged in a constantly-escalating technological arms race that is resulting in ever more options for the real estate searcher.

Also, don’t forget that you can make an account on Estately and add Seattle Bubble as a “friend” to share comments on properties with other Seattle Bubble readers.

Thanks again to Galen and the Estately team. Keep up the great work.

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Poll: What’s your new year’s housing resolution for 2009?

By The Tim on December 28th, 2008 at 12:05 AM · 17 Comments

Please vote in this poll using the sidebar.

What’s your new year’s housing resolution for 2009?

  • Buy a home in 2009. (23%, 62 Votes)
  • Sell your home in 2009. (4%, 10 Votes)
  • Avoid foreclosure in 2009. (2%, 5 Votes)
  • Continue renting at a 50%+ discount in 2009. (50%, 132 Votes)
  • Continue making comfortable home loan payments in 2009. (21%, 57 Votes)

Total Voters: 266


This poll will be active and displayed on the sidebar through 01.03.2009.

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How To: Research Property & Loan Records

By The Tim on December 26th, 2008 at 1:04 PM · 35 Comments

There are many reasons you might want to do some research into the loan documents and other public records for a certain property.

  1. You’re thinking of buying a house and want to know how much the seller owes when crafting your offer.
  2. You’re looking at a home for rent and want to know if the landlord is at risk of foreclosure.
  3. You’re considering buying a bank-owned home and are curious how much the bank was owed when they took possession.

What follows below is a simple step-by-step guide to help you do this kind of research on your own.

First, you’ll need to find out the legal owner of the property in question. The best way to do this is to head over to your county’s parcel viewer website. I have conveniently linked the parcel viewers for King, Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, Island, Skagit, and Whatcom counties on the Real Estate Resources page. Simply enter the house number and street number of the property and you’ll be able to get the county’s property report.

On the property report page you’ll see either “taxpayer name” or a record of the most recent sale which will tell you the name of the current owner, usually in the form of last name first. This page will also usually tell you how much the property was most recently sold for, although with all the equity extraction that has gone on in the last five years, that number is not as useful as it might seem.

Armed with the legal owner’s name, you’ll now need to head over to the county records search website, which is also conveniently linked for you on the Real Estate Resources page.

To search for loan documents, put in the owner’s name, a date range beginning with the most recent sale of the property and ending on today’s date, and search for document type “Deed of Trust.” The deeds of trust will state which property they are for (pay attention to this, because the owner may have more than one property) and the loan amount. For King County, you won’t be able to view Deeds of Trust online, but will instead need to write down the document number and go to the records office to request them in person.

If the home is bank-owned or already in foreclosure, you can search for the document type “Notice of Trustee Sale” or just “Trustee Sale,” which will show you how much was owed on the property at the time of the notice. These are viewable online for King.

By doing a little bit of digging through the county records, you should be able to paint an accurate picture of the property owner’s loan picture. The only trouble you might run into is if a property was purchased prior to the late ’70s (as far back as most online county records go). In that case if you really want to find out the loan information you’ll probably have to go to the county records office and shuffle through papers. Of course, the main reason for doing a search like this is to find out if the property owner in question treated their home like an ATM, and if there aren’t any records since the ’70s, you’ve got your answer anyway.

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Merry Christmas from Seattle Bubble

By Crystal on December 25th, 2008 at 6:00 AM · 6 Comments

Seattle's Real Estate Mascot: Crystal the Pink PonyA Visit from Hank Paulson

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the land
Not a creature was stirring, not even Suzanne;

Bad mortgages hung by the treasury with care,
In hopes that Hank Paulson soon would be there;

The realtors were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of six percent danc’d in their heads…

No substantive post today. For those that choose to stop by, enjoy this open thread, and this majestic photograph of Crystal, the pretty pink pony, Seattle’s real estate mascot.

Merry Christmas from Seattle Bubble!

→ 6 CommentsCategories: Administrative · Open Thread
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