Seattle Bubble

Foreclosures in the Seattle area were up 41% year-over-year, according to a report from RealtyTrac.

Seattle-area foreclosures continued to rise in July, according to a new report.

The area, defined as King and Snohomish counties, had 1,030 properties with foreclosure filings, up 41 percent from a year earlier and 13 percent from June, according to a Thursday report from RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif., company that tracks foreclosures.

The area’s rate of one filing for every 1,043 households put it 147th out of 230 areas RealtyTrac ranks, down from 145th in June.

Statewide foreclosures were up 56 percent from a year earlier and 0.7 percent from June. Washington’s rate of one filing for every 977 households put it 26th among states, down from 22nd in June. U.S. foreclosures were up 55 percent from a year earlier and 7.9 percent from June, with one in every 464 households receiving a filing.

Here’s a chart of King and Snohomish foreclosure data since late 2006, courtesy of data collected from Foreclosure.com by the Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking blog:

Click to enlarge

I feel that this trend will continue for a while.  As home prices continue to drop, many of the dangerous loans made in 2006 and 2007 will become foreclosures.

(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 08.14.2008)

Lots of local real estate news hitting today.

Here’s another short one: Moda Condos in Belltown goes rental.

When Moda Condominiums started accepting reservations in September 2006, prospective buyers lined up hours early and quickly locked up all 251 units.

Now, with the Belltown building two months from completion, Moda’s developers have changed it to rental apartments.

“The market and the financing conditions for condominiums have really taken a drastic turn,” said developer G. David Hoy, head of HMI Real Estate Inc. “The vast majority of (Moda’s) buyers decided not to proceed with the purchase of their unit.”

Some buyers found they could no longer get a loan, particularly for second homes or investment units, while others just got cold feet, Hoy said. “Because the vast majority have bailed out on us, we have no choice now but to turn it into a rental.”

Dang. The “vast majority.” I wonder how many of the other condo projects coming online in Seattle over the next couple years will meet the same fate.

(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 08.12.2008)

Even when we have direct access to the hard facts of the local real estate market, it’s still fun to see what kind of spin the local papers put into their report of the data. So, it is time yet again to continue our monthly tradition of rounding up all the local “mainstream” articles about last month’s housing data.

How many ways can you print “now is a great time to buy”? Read on to find out…

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Here are a few stories from the last week or so that are worth pointing out.

First up a TV report from KOMO News: “Open House” — sign of the times in Snohomish County

Real estate agents in Snohomish County are now resorting to a “shock treatment” for slouching home sales in their area.

Realtors advertised more than 400 open houses over the weekend. Agents say they hope playing the numbers game adds-up to more home sales.

“It’s to get the public excited about all the great listings they can see out here today,” said Rich Williamson, President of the Snohomish County Association of Realtors. “It’s a chance to see more homes than they ever saw in one day or one weekend.”
…
Chris Lamoreaux says the housing market story is more than just numbers.

“We’re going fight the media that’s been negative about the housing market,” he said. “The real estate market in Snohomish County and the Puget Sound is excellent.”

That darn media, always being so negative about the housing market. I wonder if anyone can find me a quote from a real estate agent thanking the media for all the positive press when the housing market was gangbusters? Let me know if you come up with anything.

Moving to the opposite end of the Sound, down in Thurston county the “incentives” are flowing strong. The Olympian reports: Home sellers turn to incentives to draw buyers

A new Honda scooter, a trip to a Caribbean destination and a chance to win free gasoline are just some of the incentives that South Sound real-estate agents are using to entice prospective buyers in a slower housing market.

Some agents, though, are split on whether such incentives and other marketing efforts are worthwhile. Re/Max Four Seasons broker and owner Dean Stohl says the best approach for home sellers in this cooler housing climate is to think carefully about the sale.

“The most important ‘non-gimmick’ are sellers pricing the property competitively and making sure it is in ‘tip-top’ condition before putting it on the market,” he said.

Still, some agents are rolling out increasingly creative hooks to land that next sale because sales have cooled since the piping-hot years of 2005 and 2006.

Sounds like Dean Stohl has it figured out. Good luck to all those salesmen thinking that the prospect of paying 30 years of interest on a scooter will sell houses, though.

Another great column from the P-I’s Bill Virgin popped up last week as well: Economic woes could run deep in the region

As large and influential as those companies [Washington Mutual, Weyerhaeuser, Starbucks, Costco] are, there are less-visible layers of small and medium-sized companies that also keep the region’s economy moving.

Or not.

Those smaller outfits are dealing with the pressures and headaches of a slowing economy, some generated by the same factors plaguing large companies, others the result of cutbacks and retrenchments by larger companies with which those smaller firms do business.
…
“In today’s deteriorating economic climate, the ranks of companies feeling the pinch are growing,” writes Michael Newsome, a principal with Seattle-based investment banking firm Zachary Scott, in a recent newsletter. “Even in a fairly buoyant Northwest economy, we are entering a period of rationalization that will cut across industries. For a number of companies, depressed consumer confidence, ballooning energy costs, restricted credit access and, before long, higher interest rates will trigger sufficient financial distress to mandate restructurings and, in some cases, business sales or outright liquidations.

It’s nice to have at least one voice of realism in the local press. Too bad it seems like nobody is listening. Most people would rather believe that pink ponies will dance through the streets of Seattle forever and ever than consider the possibility that economic slowdown might actually affect us here.

Here’s one a few people pointed out. The latest top-ten list from Forbes’ Matt Woolsey is America’s Most Overpriced ZIP Codes. Guess who gets #3?

3. Seattle, Wash.

Downtown
ZIP code: 98104
Purchase-to-rent spread: 30.3

Until recently, Seattle has been held up as the example of a city immune to price drops as its market posted price increases from 2006 to early 2008. But as transaction volume has slipped and prices have flattened or fallen in many neighborhoods, the downtown area, near Pioneer Square, which experienced some of the most rapid price escalations during the boom, particularly in condos, appears vulnerable to correction.

Hooray for Seattle.

Lastly, here’s one from the national news scene. New York Times: Default rates for “alt-A” loans increasing

The first wave of Americans to default on their home mortgages appears to be cresting, but a second, far larger one is quickly building.

Homeowners with good credit are falling behind on their payments in growing numbers, even as the problems with mortgages made to people with weak, or subprime, credit are showing their first, tentative signs of leveling off after two years of spiraling defaults.

The percentage of mortgages in arrears in the category of loans one rung above subprime, so-called alternative-A mortgages, quadrupled to 12 percent in April from a year earlier. Delinquencies among prime loans, which account for most of the $12 trillion market, doubled to 2.7 percent in that time.

But I thought subprime was contained.

(Eric Schudiske, KOMO News, 07.28.2008)
(Rolf Boone, The Olympian, 08.04.2008)
(Bill Virgin, Seattle P-I, 07.30.2008)
(Matt Woolsey, Forbes.com, 07.29.2008)
(Vikas Bajaj, New York Times, 08.04.2008)

Rain City Guide, Seattle Real Estate Professionals, and Seattle Bubble all get mentions in Aubrey Cohen’s latest piece for the P-I: Debate over real estate goes online

Real estate agent John “Mack” McCoy wasn’t expecting an argument when he started blogging about housing and commenting on other posts and news stories online.

“I started out thinking that people might be interested in what a real estate professional has to say about buying and selling homes,” he said.

“Now, it seems that the audience is (composed) of people who want to tell real estate professionals what they know about buying and selling homes.”
…
“I’m not speaking from the perspective of someone who has something to sell, but rather just a guy that is taking in a ton of information and trying to process it all to make it easier for other people to get beyond the sales pitches and find out what’s really going on,” [Seattle Bubble author Tim] Ellis said.

The article is worth a read, although there’s not really any new information in there for anyone that has been following any of those three sites. I guess the purpose of the article is more to point out the online discussion to folks that tend to just read the newspapers.

This month’s theme is “let’s scare fence-sitters by telling them that rising interest rates will eliminate any savings from falling home prices.” Let’s see how well our local papers do at driving this point home.

Read on for the this month’s roundup…

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