Seattle Bubble

I have a couple of RSS feeds from real estate sites that I use to monitor listings that might be of interest to me.  They are targeted at a couple of neighborhoods, and focused on homes that are likely to be mid-century modern.  Over the past couple of weeks, I had noted that the volume of new listings had really dropped off.  I mean, there was almost no activity. I attributed it to the market slowing down - figured it was just a late summer phenomenon.

Then I checked them this morning, and was surprised to find five or six new listings on each.  What was going on?  So I headed over to Redfin to check to see what Seattle had in the way of new listings overall (side note:  what did we ever do before Redfin!?).  What I found there was pretty interesting:

• There were 108 new listings in Seattle yesterday, versus 123 in the last three days and 350 in the last week.  The rate of new listings was double the average of the last three, seven, or fourteen day period!

• I figured this might be some sort of statistical anomaly - so I checked Bellevue too.  It looks almost exactly the same:

Checked Tacoma too. Same story:

I’m not sure what might be going on.  I thought that listings were more likely to come on to market early in the month, not late in the month - but they seem to have exploded on the last day of the month.  I see three possible explanations:

1. It’s normal.  The drop off just reflects the fact that homes sold.  (I don’t personally think this makes sense.  Homes aren’t selling all that quickly, and I don’t think it would explain the big difference between the one and 3 day average)
2. There was some sort of glitch in the feed from NWMLS and new listings didn’t get posted for a couple days
3. What I initially surmised:  that sellers had been waiting to see what happened with the Housing Recovery Bill and decided that since it was signed,  it was a great time to jump back into the market.

What say ye?  Any other perspectives?

Is this the first sign that downtown Bellevue has reached its condo saturation point? Seattle Times: Bellevue condo project, European Tower, put on hold

The housing slowdown has claimed another local high-rise, high-end condo project.

The developer of 16-story European Tower, a downtown Bellevue project whose design features just one unit on each floor, said Wednesday that it won’t start construction until the market turns around.

Eugene Gershman, chief operating officer of Bellevue-based GIS International Group, attributed the delay to reticence among prospective buyers whose current homes are taking longer to sell.

He said buyers indicated that if construction started now, the tower might be finished sooner than they could close on their units.
…
Buyers have reserved six of the project’s 16 units, he said.

The article also mentions some of the other projects around the Seattle area that have recently been “postponed.”

European Tower’s delay is the latest in a string of postponements. The Insignia Towers project in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood recently announced a delay, citing the market slowdown.

And earlier this year, work on the luxury 1 Hotel & Residences in downtown Seattle was postponed until at least late summer while developers redesign the project to make it more appealing to lenders.

Gershman said availability of financing was not a major reason for European Tower’s delay. But Dean Jones, of the Seattle marketing firm Realogics, said tight credit is taking its toll on a number of downtown Seattle and Bellevue condo projects.

“If they’re not under construction now, with a few exceptions, I would doubt we’ll see any break ground this year,” Jones said.

The question is, are enough projects holding off to keep the market from experiencing a severe oversupply in the next few years?

(Eric Pryne, Seattle Times, 05.22.2008)