The official layoff count for WaMu was made public today. According to various news sources, JPMorgan Chase will be cutting 3,400 jobs in Seattle.

JPMorgan Chase is laying off 3,400 Washington Mutual employees in Seattle, according to spokesman Tom Kelly. That’s more than 80 percent of the 4,300 people it employs in the city.

Most branch workers will keep their jobs, however.

WaMu’s former headquarters city is taking the brunt of the 9,200 WaMu layoffs that JPMorgan is making nationwide.

This is even more than the estimates we heard just a few weeks ago, when anonymous WaMu executives were cited in a Times report that said “as many as 3,000 of WaMu’s 4,200 workers in Seattle could lose their jobs.”

Fortunately it sounds like those that are losing their jobs are at least being given pretty nice severance packages, and many will have lots of time to find new jobs. It still hurts to lose a job though, and I sincerely hope that those affected by the massive bank failure are able to keep on their feet through these difficult economic times.

(Melissa Allison, Seattle Times, 12.01.2008)

First up, here’s a look at the total closed sales by quarter, for every quarter since 2000:

The third quarter this year looked very much like the first and second quarters, with the volume of closed sales coming in far below every other year on record. With just 4,510 total SFH sales closed in King County, Q3 actually came in lower than even the worst Q4 on record, which was 2007 at 4,524.

Next up, here’s an update to our listing breakdown graph, introduced and explained by Deejayoh in February this year. For historic charts of this data going back to 2001, check the ‘delisting’ tag.

The number of delisted homes (red) in October was somewhat high at 2,087, but not unprecedented for the first full month of fall. 2000-2002 saw similar numbers of delisted homes in October as well. In October last year, as we headed into the slow season, the market had 7,493 “stale” listings. This October there were 8,196 “stale” listings, a 9.4% increase.

Another thing that is somewhat interesting is that the number of homes delisted in October exceeded the number of homes sold by 760. That never happened from January 2003 through September 2007, when monthly sales exceeded delistings by an average of 1,786. Since October last year, delistings and sales have been relatively even.

This poll will be active and displayed on the sidebar through 12.06.2008.

The specific portion that I believe may be of interest to Seattle Bubble readers is the following chart, which is a scatterplot of Seattle-area zip codes, with the average list price of homes sold in each zip code in the last 3 months on the x-axis and the average percent discount from the final list price that they closed at on the y-axis.

I thought it was quite interesting to see a relatively strong correlation between the average price of a neighborhood and the percent below asking price that homes are closing at.

For anyone that is out there right now making offers (not that I think it’s a great time to buy yet), be aware that the more inexpensive the neighborhood, the less likely a seller is to accept an offer significantly below asking price.

If you’re interested you may download the full data summary here.

No post today. Consider this an open thread for any of you that are hanging around here today.

Photo taken August 10, 2006

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

Price drops accelerated slightly in September for all three tiers. The low tier and middle tiers are rewound to just below April 2006 values, while the high tier is just above its May 2006 level. The middle tier again took the biggest percentage hit in September, falling 1.8% in a single month.

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

The low tier had the biggest year-over-year hit, but not by a large margin. Both the low and the middle tiers fell over 10% YOY in September. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of September - Low: -10.5%, Med: -10.2%, Hi: -9.2%.

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

The decline frome the peak looks remarkably similar across the three tiers since peak +12. This is interesting, since the low tier reached a considerably higher peak than the middle and high tiers, and it would be reasonable to assume that it will correct further. So far we have not seen that happen to a large degree. It will be interesting to see whether the HPI for the three tiers get closer over the next year.

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 11.25.2008)

I’m hearing rates for purchases and refi’s are anywhere from 5.25% to 5.125% at par. Earlier this year, I sent out an APB for people who are waiting for super rates.  Here they are again.  Let me know off-line if you would like a reference to loan officers who can give you a good faith estimate and get the ball rolling.

S-Crow

Down 1.4% August to September.
Down 9.8% YOY.
Down 10.1% from the July 2007 peak

Last year prices fell 0.25% from August to September and year-over-year prices were up 4.7%.

Here’s the usual graph, with L.A. & San Diego offset from Seattle & Portland by 17 months. Portland has now outperformed Seattle on a YOY basis for 10 months, dropping 8.6% YOY in September.

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:

In September, eight of the twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities experienced smaller year-over-year drops than Seattle (the same as August). Dallas at -2.8%, Charlotte at -3.5%, Denver at -5.4%, Boston at -5.7%, Cleveland at -6.4, New York at -7.3%, Portland at -8.6%, and Atlanta at -9.5%. Phoenix just barely edged out Las Vegas again for the largest year-over-year drop, with prices in both those cities falling over 31% 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.

In the fourteen months since the price peak in Seattle prices have declined approximately 10.1%. The city with the most similar degree of price drops to Seattle fourteen months after its respective peak was Las Vegas.

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.

Seattle’s Case-Shiller value for September 2008 of 172.84 was fairly close to its April 2006 value of 172.28. Prices have now “rewound” two years and five months.

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

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 11.25.2008)

How is this related to real estate? You can probably guess…

Across the state, declining home values and tighter credit have added a new twist to the old story of families bankrupted by medical bills, divorces or job losses. Experienced attorneys say they’ve never seen so many filers with houses.

In some cases, those filing for bankruptcy bet on real-estate investments at just the wrong time. An engineer acquired more than $4 million in property. One schoolteacher took out mortgages to buy five houses.

More common are those who faced insurmountable increases in mortgage payments when their teaser interest rates jumped, say bankruptcy attorneys. By then, the real-estate market had dropped and they couldn’t sell their homes. They include retirees, nurses, teachers and software engineers.

Count among them the Ruedas, who like many first-time buyers in the recent housing boom, relied on 100 percent financing with an adjustable rate to buy their three-bedroom rambler.

Said Ruedas: “It was the American dream, right?”

The family profiled in the Times article bought a home in Auburn in 2005 for “a little more than $200,000″ on a pair of $12 an hour incomes. They put zero down and got two mortgages (80/20), both adjustable-rate.

This is exactly the kind of dangerous loan situation that was disturbingly common during the boom years, since everyone mistakenly believed that the real estate market would be hot hot hot forever and ever, and hey, you can always just refinance later, no big deal.

Turns out it was a big deal.

In a somewhat related tale, I was digging around on the Snohomish County records and thought I’d share the anonymous history of one of one property I’m researching.

February 2003
Bought for $320,000
Mortgage of $256,000 - 30-year, 80% LTV

May 2003
Acquired a $32,000 HELOC

December 2005
Refinanced to a new 30-year mortgage for $353,180

September 2006
Equity withdrawal to the tune of $40,000 in an additional 15-year mortgage

February 2007
Refinanced to a new mortgage at for $459,000
30-year adjustable-rate fixed for 2 years at 7.625%

February 2008
Notice of Trustee Sale received.
Behind more than $15,000(!) in monthly payments.
$454,955 owed on loan.

September 2008
Foreclosure finalized. Property now bank-owned.
Listed by bank for $400,000.

November 2008
No bites, price lowered to $360,000. Bank now nearly $100k underwater.

Situations just like these have played out and are playing out all across the Puget Sound with surprising frequency. I have seen many, many properties with similar histories in my research.

October MOS for King County as a whole came in at 8.33 (compared to 6.29 for October 2007 and 6.57 for September), bringing the current run of 6+ MOS to fourteen months—by far the longest King County has ever seen.

In the graphs below, you’re looking at the MOS for the “Res Only” data from the NWMLS King County Breakout pdfs for the one-year period of November 2007 through October 2008. The bar graph is centered vertically on 6.0 MOS, so that it is easier to visually tell the difference between a seller’s and buyer’s market (i.e. - shorter bars mean a more balanced market). Each graph again has the same scale on the vertical axis and has the King County aggregate figure plotted in red on the far right, so they can be easily compared.

Note that there are a few areas that appear to have no bar at all for a given month—this represents an MOS value at or close to 6.0. Also keep in mind that whatever the reason, pending sales have become increasingly disconnected from closed sales recently, which means that these statistics are likely understating the magnitude of the “buyer’s market.”

We’ll start off with the chart that lets you directly compare each area’s MOS to its value one year ago. October 2007 is in red, and 2008 is in blue.

Following below are the breakouts for SW King, SE King, Seattle, N King, and the Eastside, as well as a summary of this month’s data.

Note: Area 100 (Jovita/West Hill Auburn) was over 21 in January, and has been clipped.

Note: For Area 701 (Downtown Seattle) we’re using condo data.

Note: Area 800 (Vashon Island) was over 17 in September, and has been clipped.

Note: The vertical scale on the Eastside graph was adjusted to fit the multiple areas with 16+ MOS.

Only three of thirty King County areas were in seller’s market territory in October, ranging from 4.47 MOS in 710 (UW, Wedgewood, Lake City) to 5.94 MOS in 330 (Kent). The city of Seattle was still the region closest to an overall seller’s market, although only two of eight areas came in below 6 MOS.

The cumulative MOS for Seattle proper bumped up from a seller’s market of 5.13 in September to a buyer’s market of 6.74 in October, the first time in the recent slowdown that Seattle proper has been above 6 MOS. The Eastside as a whole shot up month-to-month and year-to-year to a staggering 12.42 MOS.

Only four of thirty neighborhoods trended more toward a seller’s market than a year ago. Ten neighborhoods were above 10 MOS, firmly in buyer’s market territory. I suspect these numbers will only get more dramatic as we head into the slow selling season of winter.

The three toughest markets for sellers were all on the Eastside: Mercer Island (510) at 18.90, Kirkland–Bridle Trails (560) at 17.68, and the old standby Medina / Clyde Hill / W. Bellevue (520) at 16.00. 520 continues its 10+ MOS streak, now at 14 months.

West Seattle (140) lost its place on the sellers market list, jumping from 4.61 to 7.88 in a single month. The three best markets for sellers as of last month were: North Seattle (710) at 4.47, Ballard/Greenlake/Greenwood (705) at 5.46, and Kent (330) at 5.94. No other market had less than 6.0 MOS last month, although Jovita/West Hill Auburn (100) did have exactly 6.0.

I’ve been consistently impressed with how much Estately founder Galen Ward has been able to do on a shoestring budget with a minimal staff. Especially with the new addition of past sales, Estately’s search technology has been keeping toe to toe with the larger, better-funded Redfin.

Since Redfin and Estately are (IMO) the top two real estate search websites in terms of technological feature sets, here’s a comparison chart of some of the features of each site, to visualize how they compare:

One of the coolest features offered by Estately is probably the shareable saved properties list. Just like Redfin, you can save a list of favorites. But unlike Refin, Estately allows you to share your favorites list with friends, or make the entire list public. For example, here’s mine.

Even more nifty is the ability to share your notes on listings with anyone on your Estately “friends list.” If anyone is interested in sharing notes and favorites with me and other Seattle Bubble readers, you can add Seattle Bubble as a friend here. Once we build up a few friends, you can click on “Other’s Properties” an “Other’s Notes” to see what everyone else is saving and sharing.

Sales of existing houses dropped more in Washington than anywhere else in the nation last quarter, compared with a year earlier, according to a new report. King County’s median sale price also dropped roughly 10 percent from a year earlier.

The state’s sales were down 36 percent from the third quarter of 2007, the National Association of Realtors reported. The next-largest annual drops were in Vermont and Delaware, where sales fell 33 percent.

A big reason why Washington’s annual drop is larger than other states’ is that its decline started later, meaning other areas had much slower markets a year ago.

According to Global Insight’s analysis, Washington is still overvalued, while bubble states California, Nevada, and Florida have largely corrected. It looks like Washington real estate has some fat left to trim in order to catch up with the rest of the nation.

(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 11.19.2008)

As a reminder, I based the gain/loss percentages on Case-Shiller data for May and August; and for the purposes of this comparison, I used the following definitions:

• “Boom” returns are the total appreciation between 09/2001 (based on the oft cited relationship between the Fed taking down short term lending rates and the housing boom) and the peak for each market.
• “Bust” returns are the total decline from peak to the latest reported numbers.

Couple of things I noticed in this updated version of the analysis:

• Overall, the slope of the line got steeper - meaning that the ratio of “bust” to “boom” increased. Based on what we are seeing in the super-bubbly markets (SF, San Diego, Phx, LA, Miami) I would expect this phenomenon will continue.
• The “fit” of the line also got better - meaning markets generally moved closer to the line
• Of the markets identified as “outliers” in the earlier analysis (Seattle, Portland, New York, Detroit), all but Detroit moved in the direction expected.

According to today’s Seattle Times, JPMorgan Chase plans to cut around 70% of WaMu’s Seattle-area employees.

JPMorgan is handing out layoff notices now and is expected to finish making decisions about all of WaMu’s 43,200 employees nationwide by Dec. 1.

As many as 3,000 of WaMu’s 4,200 workers in Seattle could lose their jobs, according to current and recently departed WaMu executives who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“It’s pretty dire for Seattle,” said one former high-ranking executive.

The layoffs will leave gaping holes in downtown Seattle’s commercial real-estate market, where WaMu occupies more office space than any other company.

With no other major banks headquartered here in Seattle, I wonder where all these newly jobless banking professionals will be able to find work.

I’d like to extend my condolences to those that are affected by these cuts, which are likely to include some of my friends. Sure, we were right about the housing bubble, but nobody likes to see people lose their jobs.

Best of luck to the soon to be former WaMulians.

(Melissa Allison & Eric Pryne, Seattle Times, 11.19.2008)