Let’s go over what we’ve learned about the Seattle real estate market. Single family homes: cost increasing, supply decreasing. Condos: cost increasing, supply decreasing. Geographic range of Seattle’s bubble: north to Mount Vernon, south to Olympia. Today we learn that the bubble’s effects stretch even to the obscure niche markets, such as houseboats.
“At one time this [Lake Union] was a poor neighborhood where bootleggers lived and was sort of a waterfront ghetto-type area with only shanties and shacks,” he said. Today, the floating homes range from about $400,000 to $1.3 million, he said, and the median price is about $513,000.
“There’s been tremendous increased interest. There’s very high demand and very low supply,” he said. Very low indeed, considering there are only about 500 floating homes on the lake. The dwindling supply has cut into sales, with Minor’s floating home sales going from 14 last year to four so far this year.
The bottom of the range is $400,000, for a house with no land and monthly moorage fees. What a steal. Maybe you can still afford to buy a house in the Seattle area if you go underground, or in a tree, perhaps just plop a house on top of an existing building, or maybe just one that floats in the air. Speaking of air, I think I’ll just bide my time until the air comes out of this insane market.
(Jessica Swesey, Inman News, 08.11.2005)