Granted, we’re not talking about a lot of money here (relative to the cost of most Seattle-area homes), but fifteen refinances in less than five years?!? Followed (not surprisingly) by a foreclosure last year. That has to be some kind of a record.

Option 1: A 3,150 square foot “beautiful, well maintained Craftsman” sporting an “open floor plan with designer touches,” located on a 4,584 sq. ft. (0.1 acre) lot in the idyllic 47th parallel north right here in Seattle.

Craftsman not your cup of tea? Take your pick one of 33 Seattle homes in the same general price range, including this 1,815 sq. ft. condo or this 3,200 sq. ft. beast of a house described in the listing as “magnificent,” “expansive,” “elegant,” and “stunning.”

Option 2: Your very own 25-acre private island. Two two-bed, two-bath cottages, one with a hot tub. Located in the 40th parallel south in Chile, considered one of South America’s most stable and prosperous nations (by Wikipedia anyway).

Hmm…

“Tired of setting your money on fire every month?”

“Stop throwing away your money renting!”

Maybe you thought that the dramatic and decisive collapse of the housing bubble would have rid us of this type of nonsense marketing. Well, you thought wrong. The twist this time though, is that the advertiser in question isn’t pushing residential real estate, but 800-1,500 sqft garage bays in a sort of garage condo type building.

Setting Your Money on Fire

[See post to listen to audio]

Tired of setting your money on fire every month, renting storage?
…
Lots of you… have stuff you love or hobbies you love with no good place to put it or do it! GarageTown solves that problem forever, while you make a smart investment in commercial real estate.
…
Stop paying rent!

You Don’t Even Have to do the Math

[See post to listen to audio]

If… you’re renting commercial space, your cash flow is taking an unnecessary beating.
…
Stop throwing away your money renting, and start saving by owning.
…
Check out the five-year financing plans available. You don’t even have to do the math! We did it for you!

I thought you all might get a good afternoon laugh out of those ads.

• 4-bed, 4.5-bath 2-story in Magnolia
• 4,440 sqft
• 5,029 sqft lot
• 2008 property tax bill: $18,286
• “sweeping sound and mountain views”

An example of a $2.5 million property in Wisconsin:

• 2-story stone lodge in Couderay
• 407 acres
• 37-acre private lake
• 2008 property tax bill: $14,948
• 8-car garage
• guard tower
• “massive fireplace, a caretaker’s residence and other outbuildings”

Oh, and the second one happens to be formerly owned by one Al Capone.

When I do finally decide to jump into the housing market, I think I’d be doing myself a disservice not to seriously consider other parts of the country where your housing dollars seem to go a bit further than they do in Seattle.

Hat tip: Calculated Risk.

P.S. – Yes, I realize the $2.5 million price tag on Capone’s hideout is the starting bid for a foreclosure auction which is not really directly comparable to the price of a MLS-listed home. This post is meant to be light-hearted. Note the “Humor” tag.

One thing led to another, somebody posted it to Reddit where it subsequently made the front page, and before you know it, guess which two homes are the most popular in all of Snohomish County on Redfin?

Who knew MS Paint could be so effective?

[Update]
Everett_Tom strikes again, pointing out that the MS-Paint-ified photo was just grabbed from Snohomish County records!

Before MS Paint

After MS Paint

You want to buy as soon as you see prices going up. Never mind that it’s a seller’s market and you’ll have to pay more today than you could have for that same property last year. If prices are going up, the home you buy today will be worth even more next year and, hopefully, more still the year after that. You want to catch and ride the wave.

And this:

How Do You Know When the Market Turns Around?

It’s easy to tell. You can simply read the real estate articles in your local newspaper.
…
Or you can make contact with a real estate broker, announce that you want to wait until the market gets better, and ask for a call when there’s a turnaround.

Following below is a four-page excerpt from this 238-page book of gems that I found to be especially entertaining. I hope you enjoy it as well. Click any page to enlarge it to a more readable size.

Mr. Irwin also wrote another, more recent book that was even more well-timed: Tips & Traps for Getting Started as a Real Estate Agent, published in 2006.

Check out this spam I recently received:

From: 1 Day Dough
To: The Tim
Subject: Flip REOs With Proof Of Funds

It’s no secret that the biggest area of opportunity in Real
Estate right now is in For’eclosures. There is a tidal wave of
them for us to ca’sh in on.

The rules of engagement have changed though.

The good news is I’ve cracked the code and so no there’s NOTHING
to hold you back.

Join me Thursday June 4th at 8:00 PM ET /5:00 PM PT for a fr’ee
webinar where I will share with you the details on how you can
start flipping For’eclosure deals immediately with none of your
own mo’ney or cre’dit.

Space is limited. Reserve your seat now here

[website address removed]

Here’s to you and me making 2009 our best year EVER!

W’ow. I should probably ju’mp on this opportunity right AWAY!

From D.R. Horton: Smaller is better in some markets, May 5th:

D.R. Horton’s chief executive says smaller, more affordable homes are selling well in some areas and will bring higher profits to the nation’s largest home builder.

CEO Donald Tomnitz said the smaller homes were particularly popular in Seattle and Portland, Ore. Smaller homes are cheaper to build and attract first-time buyers because they are priced competitively with foreclosures.

From Weyerhaeuser CEO: Housing excess ‘made up for’, April 21st:

Weyerhaeuser CEO Dan Fulton (Weyerhaeuser owns Quadrant Homes) – “We see some signals that average home size is declining. That to me makes sense. It’s simpler. It’s smaller, and that’s bringing that home price back down to the point where your average prospective homeowner with the median income can buy a new home.”

Meanwhile, on 196th Street in Lynnwood:

Hmm…

San Diego, CA
Central San Diego County SFH resale median: $300,000
Central San Diego County SFH new construction median: $355,000
Central San Diego County SFH + condo median: $270,000
March ‘09 San Diego metro area unemployment rate: 9.3%

Notes: All King County home price info via NWMLS, San Diego home price info via DQNews. All home price info for March 2009. Unemployment data for Seattle via Workforce Explorer, San Diego via Workforce Partnership. No, I don’t want to move to San Diego—I personally like the rain. This post is an attempt at humor, intended to lighten up the mood on a rainy day.

Mark Zimmerman (zim) had a problem that many have been faced with thanks to the housing bubble:

A few years back, I got tired of living the American Dream and struggling to keep up with a horrendous mortgage and rising credit card debt. I know there’s really only two ways to balance a budget, spend less or earn more, and I didn’t see a huge wage increase in the future. Also, I have always been interested in unusual homes and can’t pass a two or three hundred square foot enclosure without wondering what interesting living space could be made there. Less space, less stuff, less consumed, less owed. It sounded like where I wanted to be.

So what was his solution? Convert an old bus into a cheap home, of course!

Then, I got a call from a buddy that purchased a pair of used school buses from the Texas A&M surplus property auction. He knew I had been interested in one and was willing to hold on to it until I could head out to pick it up. I got myself to College Station, spent a few days changing fluids, ripping out the seats and doing general preventative maintenance. Then, for about $1400 for the bus and another $600 in diesel (probably twice that, now), I headed back to Florida with the beast. Two years later, I’ve got a fully functional, comfortable, clean living space for about $12,000 and my monthly housing and utility costs are less than $400/month.

It’s no Ballard Craftsman, but I guess it’s a step or two above living in a van, down by the river.

Hat tip: Boing Boing

Hat tips: Marlow Harris @ 360Digest & Matt Goyer @ Urbnlivn.

Hey gang, it’s me again. Just wanted to update everybody on our big road trip. We’ve seen lots of places all across the country. It’s fun seeing new places. It’s like, as exciting as you can expect places outside of Seattle to be, anyway.

January 2:

Happy New Year everybody! Since I last popped in, we’ve driven through Dallas, New Orleans, Tallahassee, and stayed a few days in Fort Myers Beach on the gulf coast of Florida, where we rang in the new year, followed by a day trip to North Captiva Island.

While these places were all fun, I’m sad to report that I still haven’t found a place as special as Seattle yet. Here’s a quick rundown of what these places are missing that could make their real estate market invincible like our own.

Dallas / Ft. Worth: Where are the mountains? I didn’t see any. It’s just flat and brown as far as the eye can see. Yuck. Also, we drove right through town in the middle of the afternoon rush hour, and hardly hit any traffic at all. Those Silllyheads have built too many freeways. How can they expect downtown real estate to gain value when it’s so easy for people to get where they’re going?

New Orleans: We visited the French Quarter for lunch. It was a pretty wild experience! New Orleans totally has a lot of history, but you know what they don’t have (other than protection from hurricanes)? That’s right, Boeing and Microsoft. How can a city expect to have valuable real estate without special employers like that?

Tallahassee: Wow, there was like, nothing going on in this town. Seriously, the capital of Florida is the capital of boring. What do people do around here for fun? I mean, there’s no mountains, I didn’t see a single REI (where do they get their gore-tex?), and there definitely weren’t any Space Needles or EMPs. As our first stop in the so-called “sunshine state,” Tallahassee was a bit of a disappointment.

Fort Myers Beach: This beach town sure had a lot of people from all over the place for new years. And yeah, they had sunshine and temperatures in the 80s. But seriously, that would get so old like, fast. I guess you could say that they’re running out of land, since it is an island after all, but warm temperatures and sandy beaches are hardly a match for mountains, lakes, and Ballard.

North Captiva Island: OMG guys, I swear like, half this island is for sale! We rode on a golf cart from the marina to the house our friends were renting for the week, and like, nearly every other lot had a for sale sign out front! My guess is that people are selling their island vacation home here so they can buy a cute rambler in Kirkland. Best move they ever made, if you ask me.

Well, that’s all for now, gang. I’ll report back again in a few days. We’ve still got a long ways to go before we make it back home to the most specialest place in all the world!

Editor’s Note from The Tim: I’m pleased to introduce Crystal, the pretty pink pony; mascot of Seattle real estate. She’ll occasionally pop in (especially over the next few weeks) to share some of her thoughts about the Seattle real estate. She has a… unique perspective that I hope you will find entertaining. Please give her a warm Seattle Bubble welcome.

Hiya gang! I’m Crystal, and I’d like to thank The Tim for this opportunity to share some of my thoughts with you while we travel across the country! I’m so excited about Seattle’s real estate market, and like, this chance to see how other places stack up against our totally awesome town!

December 26:

Today we drove through Arizona and New Mexico. We drove through Flagstaff and Albuquerque, but sadly, we did not get to visit Phoenix, since we stuck to I-40. It was pretty and all, but I can easily see why real estate prices are dropping down here. First off, there’s like, a ton of land down here! I mean, in Seattle we’re totally running out of land, but in Arizona and New Mexico you can see for miles without even spotting a single house. Definitely not special.

Seriously, check it out:

The southwest also comes up short on specialness ’cause it’s way too sunny. As you can see in that picture, here in late December the sun is still shining away. What’s with that? Hey Arizona, hey New Mexico, have you met my friend Winter? Bleh. What fun is a state where it’s this sunny in December? No wonder people don’t want to buy homes here anymore!

Also, I kept a pretty keen eye out for the most common signs of specialness, and was mostly let down. Here’s how Arizona and New Mexico stack up on the checklist:

• Microsoft & Boeing: Barely.
• Trees: Not enough.
• Mountains: Yep!
• Rivers and lakes: Not many :(

As you can see, Arizona and New Mexico don’t have much hope of ever being as special as we are in Seattle. They are fun places to visit, but don’t count on real estate there to make you rich.