Seattle Bubble Forum Archive

You are so right on. We were driving up in the North Seattle area and we were seeing so many of them we started counting; we saw five for the same development in probably a mile radius, and then we started pitching around theories of why this was going on.

It's odd because nobody would employ someone specifically to do THIS -- it seems like an ineffective sales vehicle. I don't know about you, but I've never bought a condo because a guy on a corner had a REALLY BIG ARROW. So that's when we reached the conclusion that they weren't employing them to do it -- it was just an odd job employees could do during slow times to drum up business.

We both also agreed that we'd never seen it before, at least not to this extent. Now you see these people every day. There's a glut of condos, and not many new buyers. Doesn't shock me. I wonder what kind of incentives they are offering.

I'm also curious as to whether anything can save these developers. Many have already overbuilt, so they have inventory the MUST SELL. And the incentives kind of miss the point. It's not even about buyers being unwilling to buy, but without subprime mortgages, they will be unable.

And even for those of us who have good credit and money down, there is very little reason to buy a condo. They're an oversupplied and risky investment, and a new plasma at closing wouldn't change that.

I was in the south end a couple of weekends ago and there was a guy standing in the middle of a 4 lane road holding a for sale sign.