- "Seattle Housing Authority proposal for Yesler Terrace raises concern" http://t.co/M5kO3xRB via @SeattleTimes #
- "Reset housing recovery just around the corner" http://t.co/eNPArHMP via @jontalton @seattletimes #
- Agree: RT @jontalton: Re the new skyscraper approved for #Seattle #039;s Pioneer Square. Wildly out of place starchitecture. http://t.co/MiPnl2RF #
- At NAR's "Rally to Protect the American Dream" 15k Realtors decry 20% down requirements & other good ideas http://t.co/HS5Zv57G #
- RT @urbnlivn: Want to blog for Urbnlivn? We're looking for another writer! http://t.co/1ZAj1sja #
- "Light rail driving up rents in the Rainier Valley" http://t.co/CzmL0DBy via @KING5Seattle #
- "Zillow economist: Crisis of confidence among home buyers coming to an end" http://t.co/E0ymBTZA via @PSBJ #
- "Followup: West Seattle’s ex-Fire Station 37 sold for $613,000" http://t.co/XcKRc5DI via @westseattleblog #
Powered by Twitter Tools
Rate this post:
00
Rents going up near light rail stations should not be a surprise. It would be even more so in the Beacon Hill area where it runs underground, so the noise of it passing by is not an issue.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
Your obsession with 20% down is not well placed. In contrast, this Harney piece, which you didn’t link, raises a greater concern.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/realestate/2018215432_harney20.html
It deals with FHA financing of condos. Condos are a huge risk for lenders because entire buildings can become a problem. Of the changes mentioned in the article, about the only one that makes sense to loosen is the percent of commercial space. 50% owner occupancy is already probably too low, and why would you want to make a loan on a condo where already 15% of the owners are delinquent?
Rate this comment:
0 
0
How about this bogus study? They’re comparing the appraised value to what was obtained at foreclosure?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/realestate/2018208994_realappraisals20.html
We’ve been in a declining market, so you would expect the foreclosure price to be less when it cannot typically occur within nine months of the date of the mortgage. Also, foreclosures often only bring in 70-80% of FMV. Finally, the condition of the property is often much lower by the time it gets to foreclosure.
What is the point of that study?
Rate this comment:
0 
0
“‘Homeownership is the cornerstone of the freedom of our country,’ longtime NAR ally Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., told a cheering crowd of Realtors attired in water-blue NAR midyear T-shirts. This sentiment was echoed again and again by the speakers from the podium.”
Wow! All my schools failed to teach me that critical lesson of democratic freedom. Meanwhile, my grandparents, parents, and I all rented, as I continue to do today–and we all had a strong sense of personal freedom.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
This KOMO story isn’t making a lot of sense.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Home-foreclosures-skyrocketing-in-Ocean-Shores-152168905.html
Apparently some company convinced a lot of out of state folk to buy properties in Ocean Shores for too high of price. That’s believable. Then the properties go into foreclosure. That’s believable. But the claim is this somehow keeps the city from collecting taxes on the properties. Temporarily that’s believable, but the article makes it sound like the properties are ” property off the tax roll . . ..” That’s not believable. The taxes would have first priority and survive a foreclosure. I’m not sure what they’re trying to claim. Maybe the property is being foreclosed for taxes and the government is then buying them? That’s the only way I could see the government losing out on taxes. Maybe they’re talking about some other assessment?
Rate this comment:
0 
0
PSBJ article with the Zillow economist seems to be basing its entire assumption on the economy continuing to improve and the buyers who’ve been buying not getting burned. If/when the Euro falls apart later this summer and the “growth” economy we have now fizzles back out, is there any reason to not expect that the buyers who bought this spring are going to be loosing sleep and the prospective buyers who haven’t managed to win a bidding war are going to have a big sigh of relief? It’s not like there are that many buyers out there, there just are zero homes, so it likely won’t take that much of a shock to put the housing market back to where it was 6 month ago with next to no inventory and no buyers. If that happens it would then seem all the more likely that the housing market will be stuck in a long-term purgatory as potential buyers refuse to be fooled a third time around.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: S. Marty Pantz @ 4 –
Renters are a part of home ownership, it’s just some one else’s home.
My fear is that residential Real Estate will fall into a trap of hedge fund investing that will create out of area land lords who only care about the returns without caring about the quality of the property or renters.
People owning homes is a good thing, and good for the economy if they are priced fairly and available to anyone who wants to take on the responsibility, and has the means to pay the property off.
The problem that I see is that bank lending has created this price structure that is higher than the value of the property.
I think we will get back to a time when more, and more properties are owned free, and clear, and seller financing will contribute to the returns a seller gets. Prices can settle down to where I think they are more reasonable, and more people can afford to own.
I’m having a hard time with this idea that the world will fall apart without banking, or insurance interference.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
By Mike @ 6:
I would agree with that, except the part about those having bought losing sleep and the status of the market 6 months ago. An economic shock, like your example of the Euro, could change things today like it did in 2007 and 2008.
The people who are most concerned about that should be those owning houses in King County that for one reason or another are hard to sell. This is a great market for them and it could disappear quickly.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
By David Losh @ 7:
I used to worry about the same thing 5 years ago. Then I saw how some people have no aptitude or ability to maintain real estate, and are better off renting. Some people simply should not own houses for their, their neighbor’s the property’s interest. I’ve seen very few landlords who fail to take care of their own property the way some owners did (but yes it does happen–I’ve seen some rather bad rental properties).
Rate this comment:
0 
0
$613,000 seems like a lot to pay for a building you’d have to (a) get clearance from the historic preservation whatever in order to modify, and (b) you’d have to get re-zoned if you wanted to turn it into a restaurant.
I joked with a friend that at $250K it’d be fun to buy the firehouse and turn it into a pub or pizza parlor. So much for that idea…
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 8 – We no longer have to worry about Greece or the Euro. Cramer announced today on Meet the Press that he sees the whole thing blowing up i a couple of weeks. So obviously we’re safe! ;-)
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: Mike @ 6 – I am in the market right now and I can tell you it already seems to be cooling a bit from even a few weeks ago. Maybe a lot of the “bid anything” buyers are out of the market, or maybe enough people were scared away by ridiculous reoccurrence of bidding wars on every property, but it does not seem to be accelerating anymore. Strange market this is, every week it is different.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: corncob @ 12 – I haven’t seen that slowdown. I showed a buyer two properties on Wednesday, we made an offer on one that night. The next day both went Pending Inspection, and one was a bank owned that went that quickly (and no, it hadn’t been pending before and flipped back to active). The one we bid on had another offer, but they took ours even though it was a lower price.
For about a week I’ve been drawing up offers before the client even sees the property if after previewing it I think it’s something they’d like.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 13 – Maybe its just what I am looking at (5-700k eastside)
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: corncob @ 14 – We’re in the market as buyers right now, and for whatever it’s worth our agent says there seems to be a difference at the $500K market (this is in Seattle proper). Below that anything that’s halfway desirable seems to go incredibly quickly; above that other factors come into play (location, quality of construction/remodel, layout, amenities, whatever). Also I assume there’s another big increase in buyers once you get below $417K or whatever the magic number is for whatever kind of loan that is.
… with the exception of houses on busy roads, which right now sellers seem to be physically incapable of unloading.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: Nicholas Beaudrot @ 15 – RE: corncob @ 12 –
I would ask both of you why you are in the market today. If you know there are bidding offers, why not wait until the summer months when more buyers are occupied doing other things?
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: David Losh @ 16 -
(1) There are reasons to buy a house other than to get the best possible price. We plan on living there long enough that catching the falling knife at the exact bottom isn’t that important.
(2) We are willing to accept certain drawbacks in our house that seem be warding off other buyers (being near a busy street, less-than-ideal layouts, something that will probably need renovation before we eventually resell, etc.).
(3) Our price range extends above $500K meaning at that level we face fewer buyers
(4) Even in the current “hot” market 40% of sales don’t experience multiple offers.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 11 –
I knew it would happen sooner or later- Kary is now talking to himself.
Should Kary eventually disagree with himself who will be right? It’s questions like this that keep me up at night.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
The unintended consequences of light rail- rising rents. Why do I suspect people of color, single mothers, women, and children will be hardest hit? How does Seattle (sic) live with itself knowing that it has spent untold wealth on a system that no one uses and in the process further damages those it most vocally champions or supports? Another liberal fail. (But the all important intentions were good).
Rate this comment:
0 
0
By corncob @ 14:
Well, the REO I mentioned was below that point, as most of them are. ;-)
Rate this comment:
0 
0
By David Losh @ 16:
To get a significant drop off you’d need to wait longer, and even that might not be certain. In 2009 the highest volume month was October (King County SFR).
Some people though do have other factors that affect their decisions, besides trying to time the market. I’ve seen people who have leases expiring in say November want to move in June if possible, just because they don’t like where they’re currently living.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
By Scotsman @ 18:
It was an update on something I saw after I posted #8 that pertained to what was discussed in #8.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: Nicholas Beaudrot @ 17 –
More properties will come on the market as the school year closes out. You’re seeing more properties coming on the market now.
I’m asking specifically, if you see a problem in the market place, that is by my estimation only about three months in the making, say since February, why not step back, just for a while to see if things go back to being more normal.
Do you really think prices are going up, or that all the good properties will be gone?
Rate this comment:
0 
0
By David Losh @ 23:
In the past 24 hours, 3 days and 7 days, system-wide, more SFR properties are going off the market than on. For King County SFR it’s been pretty flat the past 30 days.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
By David Losh @ 23:
The reason to do that would be if you’re bothered by needing to act quickly. Needing to look perhaps as often as daily to actually visit new listings. That is a lot of work, and if you have an agent that doesn’t preview, that would be even more work. But if that doesn’t bother you, there’d be little reason to not look if you want to buy a place.
There is the whole multiple offer situation, but there it’s important to remember that highest isn’t necessarily the best.
Rate this comment:
0 
0