Home prices near Microsoft falling too

[redmond_watcher]

Looks like home prices are rapidly falling near Microsoft too. I found this listing today . From KC records, this house was bought in 2005 for 1 million, and is now on the market for 835K - We should be close to 2002 prices soon.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

I've heard that is impossible. Are you sure that house isn't actually near the Microsoft offices in Redmond, Idaho?

[thelongwait]

redmond_watcher,

Read the comment from the listing again. This is an REO:
"Lots of room everywhere with this lender-owned repo opportunity near Grass Lawn Park. Nice designer touches throughout! Sold as-is, without warranties or representations of any kind."

The lender is taking a loss. The last sale was probably a mortgage fraud. I've seen at least 2 other new-built houses from this builder, ROYAL CREST HOMES INC, that have gone into short sale.

[faster]

Damn that's an ugly house.

Looks like someone who built cheap apartments decide to try and build a house and didn't quite get it.

[perfectfire]

[Cougar]

I love the sturdy steps off the slider door. For 835K I would expect more Makes one wonder where else they skimped hence "sold as is".

[SeattleMoose]

Looking at bubblicious appreciation rates (Zillow) in that neighborhood I have determined that the neighborhood in question is about 40% overvalued. Hence, the MOST that house is actually worth based on a more normal appreciation of 4% per year, is about 500K. And we go down from there based on all the "as is" reasons...

[jack_carter]

seattlemoose - zillow neighborhood values don't account for size differences in houses. zillow lists this house at nearly 4000 sq. ft. If you think it should sell for 500K or $125 sq/ft, most seattle owners would be under water. I bought my house in the 80's and i paid more than that per sq. ft.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[redmondjp]

[bubble_popper]

I agree with redmondjp - the house is way overpriced - 500K at the most. I have a friend who lives on the same street and am familiar with that neighborhood, and it is way overpriced.

there is a lot of new construction in that neighborhood including those three story houses that are selling for over 600k (ridiculous). Also, the neighborhood has some really crappy homes (at the 148th/old redmond rd intersection) which are a real eyesore - i can't imagine anyone paying more than 50k for those.

[redmondjp]

[redmondjp]

Well, I just walked by this house yesterday afternoon and took a look-see again, and now there is a RE sign up, and that's all. Lawn is almost a foot tall, and there is 3-foot-tall fieldgrass growing in the landscaped area along the street.

From reading another local RE blog, I know that some agents actually lift a finger or two in order to get a house sold, and I would strongly recommend that the listing agent for this place learn how to utilize his digits to activate the cell phone keypad to call a yard maintenance company (or actually wrap those same digits around the handle of a lawn mower if he doesn't want to spend the $300 to get the yard cleaned up).

Some staging inside would be nice as well. A 3500sf house looks insanely large and empty inside without some furniture here and there.

[Ben]

[redmondjp]

Well, I stopped at the house tonight to take pictures of the still-unmowed and weedified (gotta get those Bushisms in while he's still in office ) landscaping, and the neighbor came out (who owns the mirror-image house across the street, the last of the four in this cul-de-sac to be built and sold) and we chatted for a bit. He is a 9-year MS employee (what a shock) and sold a smaller home to move into his current one, so had some equity plus a few stock options I'm guessing (I desperately want to understand how my neighbors can afford a $1M home while I can't ).

Apparently the original owner of the house in question re-fi'd maybe a year after purchasing and extracted every last penny of equity and then (lived in it free for several months and) walked. The RE sign is still up but the neighbor told me he thinks that it is sold (no "sold" or "pending" noted on the sign however, but no surprise there, as the realtor didn't even pony up the $ to clean up the yard--it's funny , as the neighbor complained about it to the RE agent and was told to go ahead and get a bid--exactly $300 as I guessed in a previous post).

Now here's the shock (if true)--the neighbor told me that the remaining two other homes at the end of the cul-de-sac will both be foreclosed upon also!!! So he is the only 'real' homeowner out of the four houses--the other three were apparently just scamming the system for some quick cash while living in a new house for a year or two. Damn that's scary!

So three of the four of these new homes built in 2006-07 are going to be foreclosed upon--wow, just wow. I can't say that I'm that surprised, but gosh darnit, this is on the Eastside a mile away from Microsoft--say it can't happen! Let's say that each of the two other home-debters also re-fi'd using bogus inflated appraisals and ran with the cash, and we could be talking about losses to the banks and mortgage companies of close to one million dollars--IN JUST ONE CUL-DE-SAC in an area that at least one RE agent on other blogs claim is just bulletproof, RE market-wise.

Now multiply this cul-de-sac by hundreds if not thousands across this country, with many if not most other areas in the country not being economically as healthy as our area currently is. That should give you an idea of the magnitude of this storm that we are seeing the leading edges of now.