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Let’s take a look at our stats for the local regions outside of the King/Snohomish core. Here’s your October update to our “Around the Sound” statistics for Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, Island, Skagit, and Whatcom counties.
Things are looking pretty similar all around the Puget Sound region—extremely low supply, high demand, and skyrocketing prices. The one tiny bright spot for buyers is that new listings are higher than they were a year ago in every county.
First up, a summary table:
| October 2020 | King | Snohomish | Pierce | Kitsap | Thurston | Island | Skagit | Whatcom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $745,000 | $579,972 | $430,000 | $437,000 | $395,000 | $449,000 | $441,500 | $474,450 |
| Price YOY | 12.9% | 17.2% | 17.8% | 13.2% | 13.4% | 24.7% | 17.6% | 13.2% |
| New Listings | 2,986 | 1,309 | 1,512 | 472 | 492 | 173 | 197 | 320 |
| New Listings YOY | 29.7% | 20.6% | 23.1% | 27.9% | 21.8% | 29.1% | 4.2% | 4.9% |
| Active Listings | 2,258 | 652 | 881 | 280 | 217 | 122 | 188 | 323 |
| Active YOY | -37.6% | -59.2% | -46.6% | -42.5% | -54.4% | -60.3% | -44.9% | -51.4% |
| Pending Sales | 3,007 | 1,403 | 1,658 | 524 | 549 | 182 | 219 | 331 |
| Pending YOY | 16.0% | 12.4% | 11.2% | 10.3% | 11.8% | 16.7% | -0.5% | 2.2% |
| Closed Sales | 3,027 | 1,438 | 1,520 | 527 | 522 | 179 | 232 | 344 |
| Closed YOY | 36.0% | 36.0% | 18.0% | 28.9% | 15.0% | 32.6% | 22.1% | 19.0% |
| Months of Supply | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.9 |
Median home prices were up in every single county from a year earlier. King County’s 13 percent increase was actually the smallest around the sound, while the largest price gains were in Island County.
Here’s the one sort-of bright spot for buyers: New listings are on the rise, especially in King County.
However, active listings are down dramatically from a year ago in every county. The biggest decline was in Island County (probably no surprise then that prices are up the most there), where listings fell by 60 percent from a year earlier. King County saw the smallest drop, but was still down 38 percent.
Closed sales were up across the board in every single county. The biggest gains were in King and Snohomish Counties, which both saw closed sales increase 36 percent from a year ago. Pierce and Thurston had the smallest gains at 18 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
Months of supply is just absolutely abysmal for buyers everywhere. Every single county less than one month of supply in October.
In summary: It’s still a pretty terrible time to be a home buyer, across the entire Greater Seattle Area.
If there is certain data you would like to see or ways you would like to see the data presented differently, drop a comment below and let me know.
RE: softwarengineer @ 246 –
SWE,
Do you have a blog spot, contact addy, place where people can share,post, communicate/reciprocate info, beyond RE info?
-Cares Act-
“(1) In general – during the covid cover period, a borrower with a federally backed loan experiencing hardship a financial hardship due, directly or indirectly, to the covid-19 emergency may request forbearance on the federally backed mortgage loan regardless of delinquency status by-
(A) submitting a request to the borrower’s; servicer and
(B) affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial hardship to to the covid-19 emergency”
If you have a federally backed mortgage, and you are directly or indirectly affected by covid, you can stop paying your mortgage or mortgages for a year, gotta hurry and do it before the first of the new year. Maybe indirectly affected means you are scared you may lose your job? Maybe you are working less overtime? The only problem is that you can’t get more mortgages during forbearance and 3 months after you end forbearance. Take the forbearance and enjoy a stress free year with your family homeowners.
RE: Erik @ 248 –
Sorry, single family deadline is 120 days after pandemic ends and it’s still going. Multi family has until the end of the year. Maybe refinance to a super low rate and then take 12 months of mortgage forbearance? Homeowners and single family landlords are the winners of this pandemic.
RE: Erik @ 249 –
Good News for Erik
The $900B Relief Bill Trump Stimulus Checks [$1200/family] Get Handed Out Next Week…albeit, the eviction ban got extended and goes on through Jan 2021 too.
RE: ruxpert @ 247 –
Hi Ruxpert:
It called: OVERPOPULATION
https://overpopulation-softwarengineer.blogspot.com/
Its politically neutral to add comments and it does affect Seattle Area real estate price trending 100%. Check it out, its a real deal…LOL
BTW, who’s Addy???….Merry Christmas Ruxpert and Happy New Year!!!
RE: softwarengineer @ 251 –
SWE
Earlier you said “good-bye Tim”
Earlier you said “this site is no longer a good site in my book”
Yet you still visit daily and promote your site here.
Goodbyes are hard, or maybe you actually still like it here and realize this site isn’t so bad after all.
I understand.
Happy holidays!
RE: softwarengineer @ 250 –
Yeah I saw a married couple gets $600/ adult and $600/ child under 17.
Eidl loans are a $10,000 grant to businesses in low income areas that lost 30% over a 8 week period compared to 2019. Otherwise $1000 grant per employee. Plus an SBA loan if you want it. Make it rain on people that buy houses $😀$!
We did the hard work of putting down the down payment and pulling it back out. We’ve won the good race. The the fed keeps throwing money at people that own houses.
RE: Voight-kampff @ 252 –
The pandemic has been psychologically tough on people and this situation may be an example of that.
RE: Voight-kampff @ 252 – I visited SWE blog to see what he was promoting. No one has commented on that blog for years. He came over to the Tim’s site as an interloper, copying and pasting his blog posts to Tim’s site. He basically ruined it. Would NOT take a hint until Tim started graying out his posts. Next step is deleting them. It’s not fair to everyone on Tim’s blog to be inundated by SWE’s rants copied from his blog. Tim finally put his foot down. Thank goodness.
I applied for an EIDL grant today and they told me the stimulus hasn’t been approved yet, so I can’t get the money. I checked it out to see what’s up…. Trump refused to sign the bill because he wants the money to go to Americans and not foreign countries and lobbyists. Trump wants $2000 for each husband and wife as opposed to $600 for each husband and wife while the rest of the money goes to other countries and lobbyists.
I’m going to miss the transparency with Trump.
RE: chip&dip @ 255 –
Where’s Your Blog? Where’s Waldo?
My website hits are 800% higher than a month ago. Folks are reading it like crazy. I don’t care if they comment, actually that could also mean they agree with me to and their comments are moot. I also comment all over the country and the world; many recognize my handle too.
You are right, I miss my friends here and stop by to chat and say Merry Christmas; don’t try to turn that into something bad, it isn’t and I bet many visit my blog to read it, not comment on it. Why is this bad, it sounds SOP to me. Most People now fear Conservative Slanted comments, they black list you at work they think….am I wrong?
RE: softwarengineer @ 257 –
Keep going and ignore commenters that are named after a party snack.
When you argue with liberals, you are basically arguing with emotion and not logic. Have you every had a highly illogical and emotional wife or girlfriend? Did you get anywhere arguing with them?
RE: Erik @ 258 –
LOL Erik…Merry Christmas Fellow Engineer!!!
I’m retired and free! Trolls trying to intimidate us likely also have far less total wealth than we do…LOL. They want us to share all our hard earned money with free loaders? They think its cool to be a do nothing brainless lemming and scream for more unemployment when there’s MASS job openings all over Seattle. They have fuzzy brains IMO, maybe they’re like Autistic folks, their brains don’t have all the wires connected? Lord only knows Erik.
Today’s update from Zumper –
There are 2,863 1BR apartments for rent in Seattle! In comparison, Bellevue has ‘only’ 200. Seattle rent collapse still has a ways to go…
https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/seattle-wa
RE: Eastsider @ 260 –
Renters aren’t the only ones getting fun price drops… Our mortgage payment dropped by almost 10% with the refi this fall! I’m thinking about doing it again :)
It’s too bad you can’t renegotiate your rent as often as you can refinance your house.
RE: uwp @ 261 –
If you missed my previous comments, take mortgage forbearance after you refinance and you can stuff an entire year of payments into your bank account or the stock market. If you put the skipped mortgage payments in your bank account, you would effectively get 2 years of free rent. All you have to have to do is self attest you’ve been directly or indirectly affected by covid. We may have more pain ahead and $30k extra in your bank might reduce your stress and come in handy.
By Erik @ 262:
This forbearance ‘strategy’ is not for homeowners. The debt does not go away. It is no different than maxing out HELOC. You run the risk of losing your home when economy turns sour. And it does not build wealth.
You will do much better refinancing to lower rate and/or shorten the duration. The sooner you own your home outright, the earlier you can retire.
Erik is still working multiple jobs…
RE: uwp @ 261 –
Given current market conditions in Seattle, I won’t be surprised if landlords are offering unadvertised ‘incentives’ to fill units. This looks like the rent collapse in the last bubble. 1BR rent will likely drop another $300. It was $1,849 before Covid lockdown and is currently $1,495.
RE: Eastsider @ 263 –
Multiple jobs? You got me mixed up with someone else. I have one job and have been on vacation all week. My one job is second shift so I can spend the day with my kids and then I go to my low stress federal job. I’ve got a sweet deal on the earned income side right now. I just need to buy more Seattle condos while inventory is up so I can retire before this gig runs out.
Forbearance is for anyone that owns a home or rental that is federally backed. The owner can add additional payments to the end of their loan. It’s a sweet deal for homeowners and landlords. It’s basically free money for people that buy real estate and have a federally backed mortgage. If you owned 10 condos in Seattle with a federally backed mortgage, you’d make about $200k in forbearance in exchange for adding an additional year to your mortgage. It’s a great trade.
I’m telling you, the US government rewards people that invest in real estate and this is another example of that. Every crash landlords and business owners get bailed out. I’m also going to be entitled to an additional $10k EIDL grant for investing in real estate. It’s nuts. The US government bails out people that own a business and rentals are a business whether you officially formed the business entity or not. Earned income dependent index fund investors lose every time.
RE: Erik @ 265 –
How is it that you qualify for an EIDL grant if you have [I assume] no employees?
RE: don @ 266 –
No employees besides yourself equals 1 employee. My wife can technically be counted as an employee as well because she does all the accounting. I just setup the business and buy and sell. I hire property managers and don’t really do much to run the business other than find ways to profit and get new properties or sell one that’s doubled in price.
This bailout is different than the cares act. This time if your business is in a low income community and you got 30% less gross income in any 8 week period compared to last year, you automatically get $10k. I was ignorant and got no grants for the cares act, so I should get $10k this time. If you just claimed a $1k grant for the cares act and then took this one, you’d only get $9k this time.
I haven’t gotten the grant money because the new bill hasn’t been signed yet. Snohomish county is considered a low income area and so is Orleans Parish, where I work, so I’m claiming it. 30% less gross income over an 8 week period should be pretty easy with vacancies due to covid and repairs.
The fed is looking for reasons to give real estate investors and small businesses money. I’m new to realizing I’m a business and there are a lot of advantages I hear and I’m just starting to tap into them.
RE: Erik @ 267 –
Interesting,
Do you submit W2’s. 1099, corporation papers. all that kind of stuff to qualify?
RE: don @ 268 –
Nope. You don’t need an entity such as an llc, s-Corp, etc, so no company documentation or anything. I provided my rental income as a single number for the year and my rental income loss for the year. Other than that they just want name, birthday, ssn, etc.
Do you have a rental business?
RE: Erik @ 269 – RE:
Where are you applying for this? Is it with all banks? What is the cap allowed? Would Seattle qualify as low income. I’ve not heard of this program.
RE: Erik @ 265 – I’m shorting Seattle right now still. By shorting I mean I’m in Florida wearing shorts today and flip-flops.
My wife is threatening to divorce me if I so much as make an offer on Seattle real estate.
RE: Erik @ 269 –
I had three up until last year. It was time to reduce the obligations and retire.
No regrets at all.
I was just curious about the validation requirements for the grant.
Merry Christmas, Bubbleheads!
The median price for a home increased over 14% Nov ’19 – Nov ’20. Around 67% of Americans own a home.
Looking forward to an even better 2021.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-24/small-business-administration-sba-loan-fraud-payouts-show-magnitude-of-issue?srnd=premium
“Thousands of $10,000 grants went to people who falsely claimed to have businesses.”
I think you really want to make sure you have your ducks in a row on this. $10K isn’t worth looking over your shoulder for many years to come, wondering if you really had your facts straight on the eligibility.
RE: Justsomedude12 @ 273 –
I agree, have your ducks in a row and don’t lie.
RE: don @ 271 –
Good job investing in real estate. Hopefully you made so much money that you never have to worry about money again.
RE: Erik @ 275 –
I don’t worry about it, and thankfully I don’t have that disease where no matter how much you have, you still want more.
RE was good to me, but I admit to being in the right place at the right time, so I’ll take lucky as well as trying hard to be smart.
But don’t discount equities and wall street entirely. Coming out of the hole in march was a beautiful thing if you had the moxie. It’s just another tool, if you can make it cut straight and smooth, it deserves a place in the box.
Merry Xmas to All
RE: don @ 276 –
I invest in the stock market, I just prefer real estate. I convert my gains into more real estate.
RE: David @ 270 –
Seattle is not an enjoyable place to live, but can’t you invest there anyway? I think prices are going up there no matter if it’s nice to live there or not. I plan on buying more Seattle real estate, but I have no desire to move back to the rainy, traffic jammed, expensive, unfriendly city that is Seattle.
RE: Erik @ 278 – I was going to buy more property in or, most likely, outside of Seattle proper, but I don’t like being that far away from my assets. I’m looking more at some places in Nashville currently.
In re EIDL, I’m hoping Trump drops a deuce on Congress and demands the $2,700/person spending bill be reallocated into $2,700/person stimulus checks and doubles the landlord grants.
By Erik @ 278:
Seattle likes to pretend that the “Seattle Freeze” is a thing but it is not – it is just a town of a$$holes who think they are emotionally couture.
RE: softwarengineer @ 251 –
SWE,
Okay, I see . I can post info via commenting to one of the posts posted there:
https://overpopulation-softwarengineer.blogspot.com/
(but cannot initiate a post of its own, with it’s own title per se)
Roger that.
Merry Christmas!
The Fight for the Soul of Seattle | A KOMO News Documentary
https://youtu.be/WijoL3Hy_Bw
RE: David @ 280 –
There are way more men than women in Seattle and that’s part of what makes the city lame. Women automatically turn down men because they are constantly getting harassed because of supply and demand. That’s what I think of when I hear Seattle freeze. I can tell you from first hand experience, it’s a real thing. I can tell you when I was in Everett, there were 20 men for every woman that was a normal healthy weight.
RE: David @ 279 –
I’m 2500 miles from my assets and so far so good. When I was near them I never visited them or talked tenants anyway. I just get a good property manager and relax. The only reason to be near the property is to manage the remodel, but at this point, I may just pay to get a contractor to do it all for me and pass it off to a leasing agent. More costly, but may be worth it just to acquire more rentals in Seattle.
RE: Erik @ 283 –
https://www.towncharts.com/Washington/Demographics/Seattle-city-WA-Demographics-data.html
RE: ruxpert @ 285 –
Now filter to only include women under 200lbs.
Lockdown Damages
Demographics
&
Covid Madness
Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.
Shakespeare, Hamlet II,2
https://lockdownsceptics.org/covid-madness-and-no-end/
—-
Melinda Gates Admits “We Hadn’t Really Thought Through the Economic Impacts”
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research, In a wide-ranging interview in the New York Times , Melinda Gates made the following remarkable statement: “What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/melinda-gates-admits-we-hadnt-really-thought-through-economic-impacts
Merry Christmas Seattle house sellers! Inventory in king county is almost below 1000. Raise your offer prices 25% this spring sellers, you’ve earned it by buying. Get your year of mortgage forbearance and sell if you want the cash. Otherwise rent it, take forbearance, and jump on the EIDL grant. 2021 is gonna be a big year for king county home owners with a mortgage.
RE: Blurtman @ 272 –
I agree. Then when inflation hits in 2023/2024, prices will continue to inflate at an even faster rate. Toast your champagne glasses high at the annual Samammish country club Christmas party before you drive to your mortgage free home in your red Ferrari.
RE: Erik @ 289 –
Where are you applying for the 10k grant? Is it through the sba? Also, is this more of a loan?
RE: David @ 279 –
Sounds Like You Mentioned Nashville
You’ll change your mind when you read today’s news about the giant bomb terrorists blew up in Nashville today. They shut the whole downtown down over it and the FBI is looking for clues.
Merry Christmas David….you married a wise women…LOL
RE: Erik @ 283 –
Yes Erik:
My retired Lt Col brother in law has 3 daughters in the Seattle area about age 30-40, Milenials IOWs….the one suffered from Bipolar Mental Illness and is married in Renton with a new baby boy…the other two apparently sold their “failing” marina business in Seattle and moved to Idaho, they live together as single sisters now.
The “rich elite” young women [top 10% incomes] are leaving Seattle like rats from a sinking ship, apparently this is the general case for those with lots of $CASH$…there’s many women [Gen-Zs] age 24 and younger that can’t do this, they have no funds. Those are the ones cramming their parents’ Seattle area home driveways with broken wrecked cars and basements with “basement dwellers”….you see most of them don’t work and survive on care giving, barderring and house cleaning for those that can afford their room and board. Hence, help wanted signs all over the Seattle area….do you agree?
Merry Christmas and stay single if you live in the Seattle area?
RE: Erik @ 289 – Yep, interest rates will remain low in order to stimulate the economy. And the 2021 mid-engine Corvette Stingray is a much better sports car, everything considered including bang-for-the-buck, than any Ferrari, and it is made in the USA.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
What if Trump wins 2020 Election?
What effect will that have on the Real Estate market?
By ruxpert @ 293:
I can answer that. I have been to the future, as far ahead as Dec 25, 2020 in fact, and I can tell you that Trump loses the November election. It wasn’t even close.
RE: Bumble @ 294 –
Hi Bumble,
That’s not an answer to the question presented!
However, if you insist:
What about:
Revenge Of The Kraken!
https://youtu.be/SzSLoMGERHo
You are witnessing an all-or-nothing struggle for the Presidency of the United States. This foreign internal defense sting operation has captured in real time the biggest criminal conspiracy in America history. The winner will control the fate of history for all time – the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Visit this link to see Trump’s 12th Amendment Path To Victory:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12M-dkEFlvTq1ckTugemuZ4xgRyFIcC57iKHvRAGHbpU/edit#slide=id.gb15f869f7e_4558_39
Give it up, Ruxpert.ru
Q is nothing but a digital dust cloud, he ain’t coming to save you.
RE: don @ 296 –
don, you are trying to overlook the real details via misdirection,
I am not sure whether that will stave off the impending reality, either way.
Either way it appears WE are all going to be impacted by a collision course?
—
Nevertheless; regarding the misdirection routines:
Would you address my original question please?
Thank you, and Merry Christmas
RE: ruxpert @ 297 –
You are a troll.
You try to relate the election drama to real estate so you can dodge Tim’s dragnet that seeks to preserve the intended topic of the board.
Trump lost, and you are lost with him. Get over it, and quit stinking up the place with your blind and desperate youtube trash. Go over to SWE’s sandbox.
RE: don @ 298 –
dear don,
ridiculing / calling names, hypocritically instigating fights, misdirection routines is troll behavior!
You bringing up your buddy Q did not address anything within what you ridiculed.
And why you think anyone cannot see the obviousness of such, is telling why you hypocritically continue your ridiculing behavior.
—-
I will post my question again, so either address it accountably, or please don’t instigate more of our hypocrisy / troll behavior please.
What if Trump wins 2020 Election?
What effect will that have on the Real Estate market?
RE: ruxpert @ 299 –
Oh ya,
the 2020 election has not yet been decided!
Please stop lying about such!
RE: ruxpert @ 300 –
LOL, merry christmas, bud…
What a world you live in, what does the map look like?
RE: ruxpert @ 300 –
Here are the important dates in the 2020 presidential contest:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-timeline-idUSKBN25Y1HI
Jan. 6, 2021:
Congress meets at 1 p.m. in Washington to count the electoral votes and declare a winner.
—————
the results of the presidential election won’t be finalized until January.
—
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/10/heres-when-the-results-of-the-2020-election-will-be-
finalized.html
What a world that hypocrisy, deniers, liars make for the rest of us?
Merry Christmas To All, with the hope that buds of honesty will flower more frequently!
Erik, I have been following your posts for some time now and have also been listening to Kevin podcasts as well. Got 1 paid off rental. Got another one in 2017 on eastside which is giving good (+ cash flow) rent. Should be able to pay off in next 4-5 years or so.
I can see investors going to Everett and/or to Maple Valley. Since you lived in Everett at one point, I am interested in your thoughts? Also any thoughts on Maple Valley. I could only find somewhat OK deals either way up North or in South/West.
BTW, thanks a lot for pushing other small investors like me to invest in real estate.
RE: ruxpert @ 302 – Happy New year Ruxpert
I have a new real estate prediction article at my OVERPOPULATION website. It explains why folks blame Trump for the Wuhan China PANDEMIC. Since ADS/ADL and Autism is surging exponentially in America, and assuming Autism is wires unconnected from the brain distorting reality completely. It may likely explain the common sense anomalies in Seattle Real Estate thinking. Read it and come back to comment on my new theory on this brainlessness.
Autism has no cure BTW. Its lifelong.
RE: softwarengineer @ 303 –
1 in 34 little boys (compared to 1 in 144 girls) are diagnosed as having autism according to the CDC. Sometimes we change our definition of something and that creates a surge, like obesity. Some very normal people walking around have been defined as being “obese” because the definition changed. Same with Autism.
It’s a dangerous world when you let a small few define what “normal” is and isn’t.
Congratulations, Tim. You site is worse than ever with misogyny and shoddy business practices galore. I didn’t think it could get worse, but you’ve managed to let these near-men take over and just blow their wads, yep, you hear me all over your site. Once in a blue moon I check to see if you’ve shown any courage and cut these fools off, but no.
Thoughts regarding the impact on inventory and home prices when the eviction moratoriums end?
RE: Blurtman @ 305 –
Inventory will go through seasonal changes before the moratorium ends. So comparing the change from today would not give an accurate picture. Inventory always expands forward from here and is fairly non-existent now in the markets I follow closely.
The bid ups in December, single family Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond, for homes priced at a million or less have been building weekly since October at a rate that is beyond belief for an average, nothing to look at here kind of house. The most recent one I saw (Redmond) bid up $250,000. One before that (Kirkland) bid up $125,000 to $150,000 with 21 offers.
October-November I was seeing 8-9 offers regularly, but December produced a few weeks with only one house vs 2 or 3, so all 21 buyers ended up at the one house.
That’s a lot of backlogged buyers moving in to 2021 unless we start seeing 3 to 5 houses a week coming on market AND as to your question, that will likely happen before the moratoriums end. So by then the impact may be small. At the moment the moratoriums run to end of March. By then inventory expands irregardless of COVID related issues just because of the normal cycle.
What are the best guesses that the moratorium will continue to be extended at end of March to end of June? Maybe they’ll start with 1 month vs 3 month extentions after March. But I don’t see the moratorium coming to a complete stop on March 31st.
Prices will also recede the same as they did in 2018 when the bid ups leveled out and down. That bid up of $250,000 over asking will recede for the next house if 3 comparable houses are for sale in that week. YOY won’t be as much of a difference as MOM after December. But don’t use December-year end prices as a start point because they were batsht crazy.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 306 –
I suspect we are at the bottom of a bull run in Seattle and Eastside. I’m glad I was able to seize the opportunity in the 2018/2019 housing crash. This thing is about to take off again.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 306 – Thanks for the insights. 2018 had rising interest rates as well, was that part of the slowdown? The thing I can’t get out of my head is if you have a cash buyer at $100k over list then that’s a new comp for the next sale. It may not lead to bid ups down the road but would lead to a higher list price right?
RE: N @ 308 –
No one agrees as to what caused the 2018 modest correction in either the stock or housing markets, but housing market was easier to trace to a lack of 10% bid ups following the stock market correction. To be clear, “correction” is defined as 10% decline up to 19%. Correction territory.
When you choose a List Price, everyone puts their information together differently. By no definition does one sale under extreme market conditions of “only game in town” = a new market price for the next house. At best it is weighted with 2 to 4 other sales and if the next house is in a week where there are 2 to 3 other competing houses then there is no basis for that bid up scenario to repeat itself.
If your house was “worth” $850,000 when you listed it and it sold for $1,100,000, there is no reason for all owners of the same home to start pricing their homes at $1,100,000. No appraiser is going to use that one sale as the full basis for your value.
An owner should always list the house for full appraisal value. What you can document the house should appraise for, so that the guarantee of value over appraisal is in excess of the list price and in the bid up range.
If the asking price is upped to $900,000 or $950,000 then it should appraise for at least that amount. A buyer offering $1.1M should agree to fund the difference in cash over and above the % down required by the lender. So if your lender requires 20% down and the houses appraises at a million, then that extra $100,000 is funded in cash by the buyer. That one bid up will not raise the appraisal enough to support all future bid ups. BUT, often the house will appraise at most any value if the buyer/borrower has strong enough credentials. We haven’t been seeing appraisals be short, though I may check on that $250,000 bid up after it closes as to where it appraised.
Just because it sold for $250,000 over asking doesn’t mean it appraised at that price. The buyer guaranteed the difference between appraised price and sold price. One sale like that gives you ONE comp and then you have to average that out over 3 to 5 sales that did not have that massive bid up. How you choose a list price is tricky. If you over shoot it, you could end up not selling at all. There is one like that hanging on market in Kirkland. Once it’s stale and the only house not sold, buyers become afraid of it as they can’t really tell why it didn’t sell. They only know it is the only house that didn’t sell.
RE: N @ 308 –
Low inventory and high demand means prices are heading higher. The only way to change this is to increase inventory or shrink demand. This puppy is headed up. Eviction moratorium isn’t gonna do squat in reducing housing prices.
RE: Erik @ 310 –
Long term, the whole PNW will continue to see strong demand due to the desirability and sustainability of the region. Wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, etc, will drive climate refugees to places like the PNW where we enjoy relative safety and sustainability (Although we could do WAY better in rehabilitating and protecting our environment). Add to that thriving industry, natural beauty, recreational opportunities, and so on. There wasn’t much development here 120 years ago compared to the rest of the country. The PNW is a relative newcomer. The trend has been explosive growth since then, and the trend will continue. I’m bullish on owning land in the PNW for the foreseeable future.
RE: Bumble @ 311 –
Democratic Deerhawk moved to the Pacific Northwest from NYC because he sees long term growth here. Puget Sound is a tech cluster that will continue to boom.
In 10 years, people will be saying “If I only would have bought houses when they were cheap back in 2021.”
My New 2017 Coleman Electric Furnace Came for About $7600
The high voltage relay shorted out this week flipping my 90 AMP high voltage furnace electric service breaker….this is typical of the new housing material JUNK they sell us. The warranty is toilet paper too, Southwest Plumbing installed it but are no longer doing warranty work on furnaces, ask ’em. I went to Angies List and found an experienced electrician [with 25 years experience, not these green village idiots HVAC repairman trainees] and he got to my house 25 minutes after my call [ION Electric BTW]…fixed the shorted relay and replaced 2 switches high voltage service breaker switches for $450 with parts and labor within an hour…he showed me the shorted furnace relay…LOL…it looked fine to me….but to an experienced “savvy” electrician the relay gap for electrical flow was a 1/16th of an inch too big. It could have set my house on fire had I not repaired it.
The internet claims the regular HVAC repairmen wouldn’t have clue on what was causing this type of electric furnace breaker amp failure…always hire experienced workers if you want it fixed with far less cost too. Ion Electric is hiring trainees too, but no one wants to work any more the experienced electrician told me…
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/linkedin-migration-data-shows-techies-arent-leaving-seattle-despite-tech-exodus-silicon-valley/
“New employee migration data from LinkedIn shows that Seattle still added 2.2 tech workers for every one worker that left, from March to October of this year. That’s just slightly below the 2.5 number recorded last year.”
“Additional data from LinkedIn shows that many Bay Area transplants are actually relocating to Seattle. The number of people moving from the Bay Area to Seattle increased 28% year-over-year from March to October.”
Financial capitalism continues to reign in 2021, which means that asset price inflation continues. It remains to be seen what the disgorgement of the COVID19 unemployed homes does to inventory, but it may be that Blackstone hoovers up the discards, as before.
Rentiers continue to rejoice. Stock and bond holders continue to rejoice. Renters, student loan holders, medically insured and uninsured, unessential workers, those unconnected to power, all pay.
As both the Coke and Pepsi parties are controlled by the same monied interests, who also draw up the laws, Biden will continue more of the same, poorly camouflaged by glib, trite rhetoric, and empty symbolic actions. Afterall, Bernie was ahead at one point in the primary, but you saw the power of the MSM and monied interests in torpedoing his chances.
The renters, assetless, and powerless cannot compete with the kingmaking financial wherewithal of the corporations and billionaires, and so nothing changes.
But if you are a rentier, stock and bond holder, or just a simple single home owner, things are looking good for 2021. Best to try to be in this group, no?
RE: Justsomedude12 @ 314 –
“ Startups in Seattle are also raising gobs of money, providing fuel to help early-stage companies grow. Venture capital investors sunk $1.1 billion across 65 deals during the third quarter, according to GeekWire’s tally, derived from our running list of Pacific Northwest startup investments.”
Some of those startups are going to do very well and cause more high paying job growth in Seattle. New employees will have to fight over the 1000 houses available in King County. Seattle is going to boom again.
RE: Erik @ 316 –
Justme and Sfrz screwed home buyers.
Does anyone know how Tim gets the “Total Inventory for Seattle WA” graph from Altos shown at the bottom of this site?
Do you gotta pay for the subscription from Altos to get that?
I must have missed these two. Were they not credible or one hit wonders? RE: Erik @ 317 –
RE: seah @ 319 –
In 2018/2019, the Seattle market cooled slightly. During that time Justme was posting bias data to show that Seattle real estate prices were going to crash much further. The data was somewhat convincing to people that aren’t real analytical and don’t understand the market.
Sfrz, a Seattle area agent that was jealous of Ardell’s success, would support everything Justme would say, would pile on with her supposedly practical hands on experience. Then this other agent in the Woodinville area would drive from open house to open house and use the number of attendees to gage how hot the market a was. It bothered me because they were giving bad information to good people on this site, which hurt them financially if they listened.
The whole thing with real estate agents is that there are some really clueless ones out there like Sfrz and the agent counting the number of people at open houses. There are also some really good ones like ardell. The bar is low to become an agent, so you really gotta shop around to find a good one. And agents are generally the worst at predicting where prices are headed because they are too close to the product and their emotions get in the way of their objective reasoning.
By Erik @ 286:
HAAAAAA !!!!
RE: David @ 321 –
Dave, Even Killer Flu Hospital Directors Are Quitting Their Jobs, Staying at Home and Getting FAT
Its the new norm now….HELP WANTED signs all over and everyone is scared of Killer Flu and no one wants to work.
RE: softwarengineer @ 322 –
My sister is a nurse at Providence hospital and she works part time. They offered nurses $1400 or $1200 if they agree to pickup and extra shift. She’s working a ton right now because it’s great money.
Although I’m not a fan of working for money, that’s a good opportunity to raise capital on a short term basis to invest in residential real estate.
RE: Erik @ 318 –
To get every zip code in 1 County is $149 a month for up to 3 users. So $50 each. Back when they were new and in Beta phase the co-founder offered a bunch of us free sidebars like that to promote their product. Some of the things I got for free back then I still get for free. I didn’t do the Altos as their numbers didn’t match the ones I hand calculated myself, so I preferred to do my own stats and still do.
Here’s their current price structure.
https://altosresearch.com/pricing
If the user is posting it in a sidebar then they usually get a discount or free because it is an ad for Altos. But if you are just getting it to use for your own personal or business goals, then that’s the price. You can probably work some kind of deal but right now you are likely looking at different Counties and even different States, so cheaper to just use someone else’s Altos sidebar.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 324 –
Thanks for the information Ardell. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something. The graphs look pretty cool, but not worth paying for since I just like to buy real estate and rent it out.
948 houses for sale in king county and 900 condos for sale, crazy. It’s a great time to own a house in king county.
On a side note, Camano Island has been on a tear. Who knew?
RE: Erik @ 325 –
Almost all houses are on a tear. People working from home have to get out of their 2 bedroom houses and rentals and too small 3 bedroom houses and rentals.
People whose houses are too small are asking me for contractors who can expand their houses because there aren’t any bigger houses to buy.
Almost all houses are “on a tear” plus lots of work for contractors who know how to expand a house vs just update the existing square footage. Contractors who know how to expand the footprint or add a 2nd floor are in high demand…to give estimates anyway. Not sure how many will actually pull the trigger on that, but many are getting bids for that.
As to your Camano, it actually works very well for a “work from home” situation because of the way it’s laid out. It was a good purchase for a lot of reasons both past and present. Your tenant should be a happy camper.
Covid-19 vs death rate.
The graph from the link below tells you everything you need to know about the pandemic. This graph is not available elsewhere. (You can ignore the fraud part.)
https://thedonald.win/p/11ROCFC1Ew/2020–chinese-year-of-the-thief/c/
Data from CDC website –
Year / Deaths from All Causes / US Population / Deaths per 100,000
2012 2,543,279 313,914,040 810.2
2013 2,596,993 316,128,839 821.5
2014 2,626,418 318,857,056 823.7
2015 2,712,630 321,418,820 844
2016 2,744,248 323,127,513 849.3
2017 2,813,503 325,719,178 863.8
2018 2,839,205 327,167,434 867.8
2019 2,854,838 328,239,523 869.7
2020* 2,913,144 332,770,000 875.4 (Deaths will be a little higher but still below trend.)
Why are we still in lockdown?
I’m a nurse . this is a rare time where the hospital systems will overpay a nurse , in real term. Previous for years, Medicare has been deflating the hospital economics with shorter stays .
RE: Erik @ 323 –
RE: Eastsider @ 327 – Aligned with your post: https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/12/30/what-is-left-to-say/
C’mon, man, Trump is gone, let’s stop the lockdown.
Antifa, WTF!? Stand down. He’s gone.
Ardell,
What has more resale value – 2nd floor addition or expansion of square footage as a rambler ? Is it based on location?
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 326 –
RE: Seah @ 330 –
The ROI is better better with a ground floor expansion on a rambler IF you have the space for that. I’ve seen more awesome ground floor expansions than I have 2nd floor additions. I did see one 2nd floor addition that worked and was awesome, but only because the house had a lake view and could absorb more added value. Note I said ROI as the cost is quite different, so it’s not only about value added. Location does matter as well, but most people in poor locations are moving to a larger house in a better location vs expanding a house in a poor one. That’s where I think one of the projects on my desk will fail. Not sure how much extra value we can pull on the Shoreline house, not far from Aurora, vs Kirkland houses. Even in Kirkland if the house is too small to start with, it might be better off sold as a teardown. My cutoff is under 1,000 sf. Under that…let the builders have it or throw it away and just build a new house from scratch.
RE: SeaH @ 328 –
Experienced BSN’s I know do pretty well. 3 days a week and good pay sounds like a good deal to me. Enjoy the extra pay while you can.
Invest your extra money in a 2br condo in Seattle and rent it out. Condos are down. It’s a matter of time before they go back up.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 326 –
2 awesome retired people rented it. They just wanted to garden and have a nice view. They’ll probably stay a very long time I’d imagine. It’s a great place and they are getting a good deal. Retired people generally don’t move into a 4br house and move out in a year or 2 in my experience.
I was just telling my wife today how good of a deal you got me in Camano. I’m a tough client and you always navigate my issues whether it’s an angry HOA or my wife is acting irrational. We started remodeling the Camano house and my wife didn’t want to leave just like you said. After fighting her to leave Seattle, I wouldn’t be able to get her to go back into Seattle. She said today how much she loved that place. It wouldn’t have worked out with any other agent, thank you.
This guy is wrong. Hurry and buy before the fed prints more money and loosens lending standards. Nobody is talking about loosening lending standards because that is the last bullet. We aren’t there yet, but it’s coming after we stop printing all this fake money. Overpay now and sell to the bigger dummy in 2 years do you don’t have to pay capital gains tax. Then rent and wait for the big one with an extra $100k in your account.
Yeah right, real estate prices are going to drop with very low supply and high demand? Don’t be gullible people, there is no magic here. Housing supply will be low for years and demand will be high for years. Get in while it’s cheap and sell to some unsuspecting software person at the top.
https://www.bankrate.com/mortgages/advice-for-buying-in-a-housing-boom/
RE: Erik @ 334 –
The US economy contracted 3.6% in 2020 according to a forecast by the Conference Board. The US has lost 10m, or 6.5%, nonfarm jobs since February. These jobs account for 80 percent of the workers who contribute to the GDP.
Nobody knows where prices will be a year from now. The last housing crash was about a dozen years ago. No one saw that coming.
You should buy a home based on your individual needs and financial conditions. Not as an ‘investment’. You risk losing money at these prices.
I Liked Ardelle’s and Erik’s Comments:
They are more open minded and cautious than these “know-it-all ” village idiots” who shoot from the hip. They appear ready to reset as needed in the future….no crystal ball knows the future now.
RE: Eastsider @ 335 –
As always, I completely disagree. People that understand real estate bubbles saw it coming. There I point arguing with you, your path in life is set.
RE: Eastsider @ 335 –
Dean Baker, Noriel Roubini, The Economist Magazine, many professionals in the mortgage derivatives industry, and a bunch of carpenters I was working with at the time were convinced that a crash was coming. That is “seeing it”.
RE: softwarengineer @ 336 –
I like Ardell’s comments too, that’s why I read them.
Fortunately we don’t need a crystal ball this time to see what’s going to happen this spring. Housing supply in king county is under 1000 and we have about 1 more month for inventory to shrink. Maybe in end of February and the beginning of March there will be 800 houses for sale? Unless something crazy happens, housing prices are going to explode this spring in king county because there’s no inventory. I just don’t see any other solution unless the fed does the opposite they said they were gonna do and raise interest rates, which would be economic suicide.
Buyers buy based on payment, not on price. That’s something new I learned this year.
RE: don @ 338 –
Sure there are always people who saw it coming, after the fact. LOL.
Unlike housing bears, countless Tesla bulls “who saw it coming” are now billionaires and millionaires.
According to your idol Noriel Roubini, “The Mother Of All Asset Bubbles Will Burst In 2016.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/roubini-the-mother-of-all-asset-bubbles-will-burst-in-2016-2014-12
And now who’s this Erik guy that you are following?
I remember back in 2004 when I was high school , there was article about mortgage backed securities in wsj , 2006 about how some mbs were going sour . And the Asian countries pensions were buying MBs to park their excessive saving . The economist called out the housing bubble in Anglo Saxon countries before the burst .
I met this site a little more than a year ago . Ardell and eriks and others rely on numbers To “ reset” .
RE: Eastsider @ 340 –
Erick and ardell, What’s so special about the spring and spring 2021? I alway thought that summer was more important.
RE: Erik @ 339 –
I’m waiting for the numbers to come out and use that advice you mentioned earlier post. RE: Erik @ 332 –
RE: Seah @ 342 –
Spring is when the prices go up quickest. It’s called the “spring bump” where prices bump up. Sometimes price increases continue into the summer, but spring is fairly certain and is generally the majority of the price increase.
Ardell knows more about the intricacies of the market and when prices typically change. I just focus on where prices are headed and this spring should be a good. I would be very surprised if housing prices in king county didn’t go up 10% or more by this time next year.
RE: Eastsider @ 340 –
Unlike the stock market, the housing market is somewhat predictable. Read “The Housing Boom and Bust” by Thomas Sowell. If you really understand it, you will go from the person that is most ignorant of real estate cycles on this website to above average. Do it for me so we can have a meaningful conversation.
RE: Eastsider @ 340 –
Read ’em and weep:
“In September 2006, Nouriel Roubini told the International Monetary Fund what it didn’t want to hear. Standing before an audience of economists at the organization’s headquarters, the New York University professor warned that the U.S. housing market would soon collapse — and, quite possibly, bring the global financial system down with it. Real-estate values had been propped up by unsustainably shady lending practices, Roubini explained. Once those prices came back to earth, millions of underwater homeowners would default on their mortgages, trillions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities would unravel, and hedge funds, investment banks, and lenders like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could sink into insolvency.”
From: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/why-the-economy-is-headed-for-a-post-coronavirus-depression-nouriel-roubini.html
RE: don @ 346 –
You read about these predictions/forecasts all the time. Some are right (by luck) and most are wrong. Remember Greenspan’s irrational exuberance warning?
Again, I am not making any prediction on the (housing) market.
RE: Eastsider @ 347 –
Your Statement that “No one saw it coming” is wrong.
Some did see it coming. That is my only point here.
qed
RE: Erik @ 345 –
MORE TENANTS for Erik’s Condos in Seattle Now?
“…For the first time in 100 years, Seattle renters outnumber homeowners. FYI Guy looks at how that sets us apart from much of the rest of the nation and why, since 2010, Seattle’s renter population has grown at twice the rate as the owner population…”
Its all good.
RE: Eastsider @ 347 – Ben Bernanke completely missed the last housing bubble, proving, once again, that one climbs the ladder through the regurgitation of accepted dogma.
I took an Int’l Econ course taught by Janet Yellen decades ago, who curiously looked exactly the same as she does today. This was during the period of Japan’s economic ascendancy. Yellen reiterated the dogma favored by the powers-that-be, which was that the US should exit manufacturing in industries in which it was no longer competitive, like the automobile industry, and should focus instead on high technology industries in which it had a lead.
Even to this relatively business naive student, it seemed likely that emerging economies could also focus on high tech industries, whch of course was what happened. And so either Yellen is a boob, or she was parroting dogma favored by the powers-that-be, in order to advance her career. Likewise, Laurra Tyson, who went on the be an econmic advisor to Bill Clinton, famous off-shorer of US manufacturing jobs. For a devastating take-down of Tyson see the Charile Rose interview and Tyson-Goldsmith debate, circa 1994. Tyson, of course, was proven to be spectacularly wrong, but she was successful in advancing her career. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwmOkaKh3-s
RE: Seah @ 342 –
As of right now there are only 503 properties for sale in King County, all types with at least 3 bedrooms, priced at a million dollars or less. Only SIX of them are houses in Kirkland, Bellevue and Redmond combined. NONE are in Kirkland. Two are pretty far out in 98053 (vs 98052). Five of the six have been on market for less than a week, so half or more will be gone by review date.
We are coming into the year with virtually NO inventory of 3 bedroom homes priced at a million or less.
This changes incrementally as we move toward April. April is usually the peak listing month. 2020 of course was not a year to base anything “usual” on. But even with COVID not being behind us, listings should rise (even if sold quickly after listing, so not STANDING inventory) each week forward through end of April. Sometimes they peak in May.
Summer you see the closings of the things that happen in Spring. Often an April sale will not close until Summer or the seller will want a rent back until end of school. June closings are often the highest for residential, minimum 3 bedroom properties. But those sales happened in the Spring.
As to my comments about should change by Spring, I am talking about homes being available for people to buy and few buyers to buy them. Each month after August in a typical year you keep gaining buyers but losing sellers, so that by year end you have a backlog of buyers bidding on few houses. Those price increases due to monster bid outs by December are not sustainable once you have at least 3 houses per local market for people to buy in a week’s time. In a month where there are 3 to 5 houses per week you start chipping back on the backlog of buyers and the market balances a bit better. Usually that happens by April.
The number of buyers who want a house for $850,000 give or take in Kirkland, Bellevue and Redmond are rising to 20 per house in the best of areas and 8 or 9 per house in the OK areas. New buyers will come into the market each month, so you need houses for some of that backlog OR some will just buy in Bothell or Sammamish or Upper Renton or Mill Creek or Duvall…but mostly they will all stick it out for a so-so house in a more prime location. Maybe not fair to put Sammamish in that crowd as most of Sammamish beats out much of Redmond.
It’s not unusual for December to have no houses for sale, but more often it is because people took them off market for the Holidays after Thanksgiving vs them selling with 20 offers and bidding up $100k or more in December. That’s a sign that most if not all of 2021 will be soaring prices even as supply increases and demand decreases as people find and get homes. When December is batsht crazy, that means the cycle never ended in the previous year and it will all push forward into the next year at an accelerated pace.
As to prices being highest in Summer…I’ve seen a given neighborhood pump in its full year appreciation in January and February and then flatten out for the rest of the year at the same 30% increase. It really depends on how the listings come out the gate.
I see the “crash” differently as to the evils of loose lending. If 50% lost their homes, and I think that’s a very high estimate, then there are tons of people who would never have owned a house who were able to buy zero down who DIDN’T lose their homes. So it was an opportunity for many. What killed them wasn’t that they bought with loose lending but that the system wouldn’t let them refinance, as promised, in two years to shed the high rate on the 2nd. They would have been better off with PMI than an inflated rate to avoid PMI. Those who could buy back then at zero down and refinance as rates declined to this day are not worse off. There are many for whom the loose lending was a once in a life time opportunity. Is the glass half full? Didn’t many who are now investors start the ball rolling with a zero down or two? Propelled them. Didn’t it? There are people who had nothing and no hope of getting something who were able to change their circumstances forever due to the loose lending. Not everyone suffered and most didn’t walk away without great advantage.
RE: softwarengineer @ 349 –
I was reading that this morning and really couldn’t come up with a meaningful conclusion for a landlord. Does that mean we are at peak renters and it only gets worse from here or does that mean Seattle has turned into a city of renters like NYC and Miami?
It’s been said the rent decreases and lack of demand on rentals was in multifamily as people have flocked to larger spaces for home office etc. Was surprised to see some West Seattle SFH’s (bridge I know) properties at quite attractive prices (levels they rented in 2018 or lower) sitting on the market and not renting, with price reductions in the several hundred dollars. These are 3 bed/2 bath reasonable sized homes.
If this continues, at what point do some buyers decide to take a deal and become renters instead. Maybe spring and summer will bring a better rental rate.
The latest Zumper data also shows 2bd apartments down 15% YOY – only a couple cities in the country are worse.
RE: Erik @ 352 –
I think there is a high number of people who could afford to move on without selling. Many homes in Seattle in the median or lower price range that are of sufficient size to not tear down are still owned by people who haven’t lived in them for decades. They bought a new house or a replacement used house without selling their previous residence.
This is also true of more recent buyers in the last two decades who bought a condo or townhouse when they first moved here for a job and didn’t sell those condos and townhouses when they bought a house. Maybe bought on The Eastside once they started having children or school age children without selling off their condo or townhouse, but rather kept it as a rental. They easily cash flowed because they bought when prices were lower and rates were higher, so they just refinance and rent vs sell. As an owner they are no longer in Seattle. Only their starter “home” is in Seattle as a rental. So the % rented increases without the replacement house not showing at all, because no “in Seattle”.
So the number of “landlords” increases as people often own their current home and still own their “starter” residence, which could have been a condo or a townhouse or a house. Even without an increase in “investors” who own multiple houses, you have a substantial increase in the number of “Mom and Pop” landlords who own their current home and their previous, starter residence.
Lots of tech people who had no need for a big house initially, but didn’t sell their first purchase when they moved out and bought a larger residence. They have all become “Landlords” as to their first residence. Not investors and not “accidental” landlords. Not sure what you call them. They could have afforded a big house as their first purchase, but they didn’t need one. They just never sell anything they ever bought.
When you don’t need to sell in order to buy, often you just keep it as a rental until you feel the value has peaked. I have several clients like this and we look at the big picture annually, usually when the lease is about to expire vs Jan 1, and decide whether to rent another year or sell it. A lot of non-investors own 2 properties and live in one and rent out the other. But they don’t consider themselves to be “investors” any more than everyone buying a place to live in is “an investor”.
They never bought “an investment property”, they just didn’t sell their residence when they bought someplace else to live.
RE: N @ 353 –
I don’t usually look at rentals so I don’t know how odd this is. But it looked pretty odd to me given “the mls” is not the normal place people place a property when they are looking for a tenant. In my comment 351 I noted that there were 503 properties with 3 bedrooms or more for sale in King County priced at a million or less. I just looked at all rentals in King County that are using the mls to find a tenant and there are 442 of them. Seems awfully high in comparison. It looks like there are still plenty of places for people to rent but very few for them to buy.
I think some of these Landlords need to let go and let someone buy a place to live. I have seen a lot of that in the Fall, but we need more of that especially for houses. In fact the majority of homes I’ve seen come on market were Landlords or dead people/Estate Sales. Not many occupied homes unless they were moving out of State with the proceeds of the sale.
Required Disclosure for this and my post #351 where I forgot it. Stats in my comments are hand calculated in Real Time by ARDELL and not Compiled, Verified or Published by The Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
RE: N @ 353 –
As I previously stated, it looks like a good time to buy something in west Seattle. I want a couple more 2br west Seattle condos when I can buy again. The closer to the bridge, the bigger the discount.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 354 –
Those sound like intelligent people that are investors in the making. Tell them to continue moving and buying properties and renting them out in a year. If they do that a couple more times, they’ll have enough money to buy rentals without having to move. That’s how you start.
I can’t believe how little inventory there is in my neighborhood right now. There is not ONE house for sale in NE Seattle right now that I would voluntarily live in, no matter how high you set your max price! One townhome is OK… at $1.1M~!!! Hello, bubble 3.0!
Edit: OK, there’s one in Laurelhurst at 1.6M, I take it back :P
I went to HD and Lowes, all constructional material price is up by 2-30%. Seattle just start min wage at $16.38. Hello inflation. Constraution activity is down huge in 2020. No inventory. Hello higher Seattle housing price.
Erik and ardell,
How do you choose condos .(tips) … the bylaws in hoa might restrict leasing out and rare 3 bedroom condos I see.
Erik are you having a hard time renting yours out ? I mean rent in Seattle and large cities are dropping .
RE: Erik @ 357 –
Seattle rents plunged.
In December, the median asking rent for 1-BR apartments in Seattle dropped by 2.6% from November, by 20.6% year-over-year, by 21.5% since October 2019, and by 25% since the peak in May 2018, to $1,500:
The charts above show that the trends in rents started in 2019, well before the Pandemic, but that the Pandemic lit a fire under those trends.
These are rents in apartment buildings, including apartment towers. They reflect the pressures on rents from two directions: The exodus from certain big cities with ridiculously high rents, which had started before the Pandemic, and the exodus from apartment towers given the virus transmission risks in potentially crowded environments, such as elevators.
https://wolfstreet.com/2021/01/04/exodus-havoc-rents-plunge-in-san-francisco-new-york-boston-seattle-other-high-cost-cities-but-in-newark-soar-50-in-18-months-with-double-digit-yoy-jumps-in-20-cities/
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 354 –
Most condos on the Eastside have bylaws against rentals or impose rental caps. Rental cap is required for FHA-approved condos. What you described, when a homeowner also owns a condo, is uncommon. Perhaps Seattle is different but I doubt so. Without FHA approval, condo values are comparatively lower.
RE: N @ 353 –
The current collapse in condo/apartment rents is certainly going to impact their values. I’m going to predict(!), if it hasn’t happened already, that Seattle condo prices will drop in 2021.
SFH is another story but plunging condo prices may drag down home prices too. We shall see.
RE: Eastsider @ 361 –
I’m out walking and answering on my phone. I just had to acknowledge how funny that comment was. What do you do for a living? If you are an agent using a fake name you are wise to keep that secret. Just know that none of that is accurate.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 363 –
None of that is accurate? How are they inaccurate if you speculate that I’m an agent? I look forward to your refutation to what I wrote in 361.
RE: Eastsider @ 361 –
It may have changed, but I owned two condos in King County, and around 2015 or so FHA changed their rules and wanted basically NO rental cap. One HOA I was a member of decided to re-up their FHA approved status, and as part of the process (with one FHA pending sale), they completely dropped the rental cap. I guess that FHA learned that being able to rent out a unit may give some owners the ability to pay versus walk away?
Another HOA that I’m still in has refused to qualify for FHA, namely due to this rule change.
Now that I’m typing this, it may be that the FHA just demands the HOA Board have little to no say in who is renting now (in addition to or instead of the cap).
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 363 –
Ardell,
Given COVID and the insanely low inventory, what are you advising your clients at the moment who have been waiting?
We (stupidly in retrospect) sold a townhouse in 2016 and moved to a smaller condo we also owned at that time while looking for a detached SFH. We put in lots of offers, but ultimately never upgraded. I’m watching closely to see if we can get something this spring, but it has been hard trying to find a great place (where we can stay for ~10 years) given the low inventory, and who knows where prices will be over the next 10 years, so hate to settle much given we might be stuck there a while.
You are clearly knowledgeable (probably more than at least 90%+ of RE professionals?); too bad you don’t work the areas we are interested in (Issaquah, North Bend, Snoqualmie, and Vashon), else I’d certainly try to get on your client list :).
PS: sorry to piggy back on your last comment, wasn’t sure how to ping you otherwise.
RE: Seah @ 359 –
I’m going to let Erik answer that as I don’t necessarily recommend it as an overall plan the way he does. Not unless you are going to improve it while living in it for 2 years the way he did the first one, which makes the whole rental CAP thing fairly irrelevant.
Personally I like the “land play” where you buy a 4 plex or maybe a tri-plex or duplex and live in one of the units. Up to 4 units and not more than 4 units qualifies you for regular, owner-occupant financing. This gives you a higher value asset while collecting rents to help with the mortgage payment. You can’t have a Special Assessment as you have the same control as you do if you own a house. You can later in life leave it and keep it as a rental property or you can move to a different unit each time one becomes vacant and update (not remodel) each while you live in them. I say “land play” as most often a builder gives you an offer you can’t refuse, even when it’s not for sale, so he can put townhomes there. :) It’s harder to do these days than it was when there were plenty of them in Ballard and Greenwood and Greenlake. Most of those already town down and townhomes there. But still a few choice areas like Shoreline and if you have the heart for it, South Park.
As to condo, just some generic info. You ALWAYS know everything AFTER you make an offer vs before. Sometimes you can know before, but often not. There is a small window of time when you get all of the info (this is true for duplexes to 4 plexes as well) AFTER your offer is accepted when you get tons of documents and x days to cancel after examining them. That is an important window that many let pass by without reading the documents. For a 4-plex it’s the actual leases and some other info which you obviously can’t see until you are in contract. For a condo it is called a Resale Certificate and the number of days may be different one to another and once in a blue moon it is available before you make an offer. More common these days though that’s not necessarily a benefit to either the buyer or the seller. Even if it is available before you make an offer, you need a new one if it’s stale and by definition if it wasn’t ordered FOR YOU only after the offer is accepted…it is already stale. Some people get an outdated one and then don’t bother to read the new one they get while in contract because “they already saw it”. But the devil is in the most currently available details.
Usually you do know the Rental Cap info before you make an offer because the seller doesn’t want to accept an offer without telling you that. It’s usually in the listing somewhere, but I don’t know how much is public knowledge vs agent access because I’m an agent. But almost always the rental CAP info is immediately available.
Personally I like a realistic CAP more than NO CAP. CAPs tend to run from 10% CAP to 50% CAP and 33% to 50% CAPs are good. Also LARGER complexes as even a 50% CAP can be bad if there are only 8 units. I just double checked and while the CAP info is easy for me to see it does not seem to convey to the Public Sites. But if you are working with an agent it’s easy. I’m double checking if it’s a mandatory field even though it doesn’t convey to the public site…no. It’s a field that tells you No Cap, Yes but Cap is not met, Yes and cap is met or over, No rentals allowed at all. But that’s an optional vs mandatory field, so helpful but not iron clad dependable as a source.
These days it is almost always in the listing some where even if you can’t see it on a public place like Zillow or Redfin. If you don’t have an agent you can ask the listing agent. As a general rule many if not most of the newer ones have them and many of the older ones don’t. But that’s not a hard and fast rule, just a guideline. Also a high Rental CAP is a benefit and not a deterrent, as I said above. Rentals should generally not be allowed to go over 1/3rd and 1/2 the absolute max. For instance I’m looking at one right now that has NO CAP and only a 40% owner occupied rate. That is also important even in a NO CAP building. You don’t want a 60% rentals building, so NO CAP in and of itself is not what you are looking for.
I honestly don’t know how to tell you or even another agent sometimes how to find and review these things because my knowledge of these comes from my non-agent experiences like working in a bank for 20 years and managing condo complexes for a few years. So I don’t know how other people know what I know. Erik might be able to answer that better than I can for that reason. If he buys one at auction as example, maybe he finds out there on the floor or he calls the complex manager to find out. He can answer that one.
RE: Seah @ 359 –
The 3 condos I currently own in Seattle are as follow:
1. North Seattle 2br: Bought at auction in 2017 and fixed up. Tenant will probably never leave, I’m currently keeping the rent the same. No rental cap.
2. Highpoint 2br: Bought at auction 2017 and upgraded to make beautiful and rent to a couple that said the want to rent again and they will be on their 3rd year there. There is a rental cap for entire Highpoint redevelopment, but the number of rentals is way under the cap. Rent was kept the same last year and will stay the same this year for them.
3. North Admiral 1br: Bought 2017 at auction and painted, new carpet, made minor repairs. Had 2 tenants move out of the 1br, but 1br’s are notorious for turnover. In 2020, my 1br tenant moved out and I tried to rent at $1650, the rate I was getting from the previous tenant. It sat for 2 weeks without action, so I dropped the price to $1490 and had it rented that week. No rental cap.
I sold a 2br in Alki 2019 and had to fight the tenants to get them out. Nobody has left any of my rental condos or houses willingly besides my 1br because I remodel nicely. I remodel nice so I can sell when the price doubles and it is no sweat renting the unit out. This was the second condo I lived in, remodeled, and sold. Both times I’ve done that I’ve made about the same after tax and repairs as I borrowed. Maybe I was very lucky, but I’ve pocketed around $400k doing this after repairs and taxes and all that. Ardell sells for me and everytime she does I get top price in the building. I don’t count my mortgage payment because I consider it an expense I’d have to pay anyways. That’s a lot of money for me as a poor struggling aerospace engineer living paycheck to paycheck.
Condos in the city will always rent. Right now housing with land is super hot in Seattle and condos aren’t as desirable because of oversupply. That will change at some point. I’m not sure if condos are at the bottom, but they could be? Now is a great time to buy them, get them rented, and sit back and wait. If you make a 2br condo pretty and charge market rate, you will likely have a renter that will stay a long time as I’ve never had a tenant want to leave a 2br condo.
So, no, I don’t have any trouble renting out my condos. I had to drop the rental price on the 1br because of the bridge and it costs me like $2k/year extra. Big deal. I’ll probably sell my houses when they reach what I think is the top, pay off my condos, and collect rent on those 3 until I die. It takes the pressure off of having to make a lot of money at work and is much easier. Just sit back, do nothing, and collect rent while hopefully the asset price goes up.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 376 –
The group I go through to buy at the auction gives me that information Thursday night for the Friday morning auction. They tell me if there is a rental cap or if the rental cap has any room. I learn about the liens, condition of the property, and if I have to evict anyone. That house I did last in Rainier View for example had a tenant that was a felon that skipped bail. That’s why he lost his house, for not paying bail. That’s probably why I got a good deal, because the other investors were too scared to hand deliver the eviction notice, which is a requirement for eviction.
I don’t see the problem buying units without a rental cap because that is already priced into the condo. I would imagine no rental cap could potentially lower the price of a condo, but that hasn’t been my experience in Seattle. In those 2 condos I was talking about above that don’t have a rental cap, you would never know they don’t have a rental cap if you lived in them.
RE: disasteraverted @ 366 –
First, thanks for the assist on the Eastsider response. I wouldn’t have laughed at his comment if he had addressed it to someone other than me. :) We’ve gone in circles before and he’s a horrible dance partner, so I usually leave him alone to spar with the people who play the who is right and who is wrong game. But I just had to laugh because he was telling me…as if. LOL!
I’m bringing your comment forward so I can respond in line.
>Given COVID…We put in lots of offers, but…” You would need to email me to get the answer to that whole paragraph because I would need to know what was wrong with your offers. Sometimes I need you to send me one for me to know that. How you should proceed depends on that answer, so I can’t comment further without knowing that. If you click my name on most any comment, it will lead to my email address and phone number. As example, if you are not winning because you are buying with minimum down then the advice is different than if the reason is because you are making a different and easy to fix reason. Could be as simple as you have a bad Pre-Approval letter, as example.
Not sure what you mean by “Given Covid”. Can you explain how that influences anything?
>You are clearly knowledgeable (probably more than at least 90% of RE professionals?); too bad you don’t work the areas we are interested in (Issaquah, North Bend, Snoqualmie, and Vashon), else I’d certainly try to get on your client list :).<
I generally don't help buyers in areas that I don't recommend they purchase in unless they have a really good reason why. I have a different set of criteria for sellers because I will help people get OUT of areas that I won't help them get IN to. LOL! Even then I did Camano for Erik because he had an excellent reason to buy there, though you are correct that I wouldn't have done that for most people.
I did a Snoqualmie once but it was a PITA to get appraised back then. Not enough similar product sales to comp off of. I got through it, but it was a bear that had to go into field review. I know Snoqualmie has recently gotten popular and I know why. My fear is it will end up like the old Monroe and Lake Stevens and Cougar Mountain deals of the last bubble that went sideways when the closer in locations became more affordable. I generally don't like the chase new to wherever it may be game. It's usually a fool's errand and I rarely help someone be foolish. Vashon? hmmm ~ North Bend I had to turn down for even an excellent client because that River kept getting in the way. LOL!
RE: Erik @ 378 –
I like No Rental Cap. I do them a lot. I just don’t like them if they are 60% Rentals because that inhibits people from being able to finance them with most lenders and that is a bad value proposition. But No Rental Cap and 25% rented or even 30% rented. Not a problem. After that it can get a bit dodgey.
@Ardell – to piggyback on what @disasteraverted asked, I’d also love to hear what you are advising your buyer clients going into 2021.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 380 –
I learned something new, thanks.
RE: N @ 381 –
If you want to know if values are gonna go up, ask an investor. Ardell is an awesome agent that can help you get a great buy and sell for top price. In my opinion, the best.
As far as if now is a good time to buy is something you should ask real estate investors, not people that help people buy and sell houses. Agents are too close to the product to make that decision in my opinion. They are handicapped in that way. I would go as far to say agents are notoriously the worst at advising when to buy and sell.
Right now is a good time to SELL, not BUY! People are reluctant to list their homes these days because they don’t want crowds of strangers pass by and bring the virus to their nest. I totally understand them. At the same time it creates pent up supply, which will flood the market once the virus situation is more or less under control. The supply will increase significantly in the second half of 2021 and will bring prices down. You don’t have to be an investor or an agent to see the common sense.
RE: N @ 381 –
You can see from my past sales on Zillow that I told no one to buy last year.:) I did make offers for one client because they have a compelling reason to buy and have some others going into 2021 who have a compelling reason to buy.
But if someone is happy enough where they are, it’s still a no in most cases.
RE: IssaquahResident @ 384 –
Ha! That makes about as much sense as the agent driving from open house to open house to forecast how hot the market was gonna be. Or when the Seattle times blamed lack of sales on the Seahawks going to the playoffs.
Inventory is low so prices will go up. You need to read the data as opposed to creating a fun story that your head can easily understand. Trying to find practical reasons like people are scared to buy because of covid is a fools game.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 385 –
Erik: Real Estate prices will go up in 2021 and last year was the best time to buy.
Ardell: Real estate prices will go down in 2021 and advised clients not to buy last year.
We are opposite ends of the spectrum here. We disagreed last year too.
Erik vs Ardell
Whoever wins gets their comments highlighted for a week and nobody gets to disagree with them for that week.
“Might is Right” 😄
RE: Erik @ 386 –
Well, for the time being you are correct, and possibly this could last through 2021. But I can also see how logical it is to think Issaquah Res. is correct and this boom could last only about another 6 mos. We have had almost a year of government shutdowns hurting local businesses, a governor who thinks he can spend his way out of this mess, making the tax system more “fair”, an incoming Biden administration that has also threatened a nation wide shutdown, and also thinks they can spend money we don’t have to prop up our economy- an economy that’s been propped up since the last crash on low interest rates, allowing everyone to amass huge debts– government, businesses and personal debt. I can see a strong argument for this coming to a head this year, though I know just about every “expert ” is predicting a great year for real estate for 2021. We’ll see…
RE: Brianna @ 388 –
Asset prices will start increasing 2023/2024, so my prediction isn’t just for 2021. I predict we are at the bottom of a real estate boom cycle where real estate investors get richer and renters get poorer.
We are not at the end of the stimulus train. The Fed can still loosen lending standards, which will create a huge real estate boom like last time. Fed isn’t done with printing fake money yet. There are more bullets left in the gun. People on here think stimulus is over, and I say we are just beginning. Trump gave stimulus to businesses. Biden will give stimulus to people that are not on sound financial footing. Those people will get loans they shouldn’t get. Housing prices will boom for years on bad house loans and then the economy will bust and the fed will print money to bail us out again. Nobody ever learns and history repeats.
RE: Erik @ 387 –
“Ardell: Real estate prices will go down in 2021 and advised clients not to buy last year.”
I think you added the “Real Estate prices will go down in 2021” part. LOL! I don’t think I said that.
“We are opposite ends of the spectrum here. We disagreed last year too.” Yes. We always are. Because I follow The Prudent Man Rule and you aren’t a prudent man. :) That’s OK. It’s worked out well for you to be the way you are. But you are willing to lose and more willing to lose than many other people. So what is right for you is not necessarily right for them. Most people don’t position themselves to keep their at risk funds low and the lender’s to be as high as possible. So your risk is different than the average buyer in this market who is “winning” by putting a substantial amount of their hard earned money into the property. They are not using borrowings from appreciation borrowed out of other properties. They are using their hard earned savings. And they really, really don’t want to lose that.
An analogy. A man walks into a casino with 10 bucks and wins $20,000 and is fine to keep on playing even if he might lose that $20,000 because he is playing his winnings. Another man walks in with $20,010 and leaves with 10 bucks. Both played and risked losing the same $20,000. But the second man is hurt more than the first one if they both lose and walk out with only 10 bucks. You are the first man. Most of my clients are the 2nd man.
“Whoever wins gets their comments highlighted for a week and nobody gets to disagree with them for that week.”
It’s not about winning, it’s about making wise decisions for your family for most people. A stupid move that makes a lot of money is not better than a wise move that keeps them from losing their accumulated savings.
That the market will continue to be up until at least August is not the issue. That you can squeeze another dollar out of it before it goes down is not the issue. Mainly because almost NO one sells when it’s a good time to sell because it is a good time to sell. In the 30 years I’ve been in Real Estate, almost NO family sells their home because it’s a good time to sell. They sell their home based on real life situations like death and divorce and job changes and unpredictable time frames. They also sometimes NEED to buy when it’s a bad time to buy and won’t sell when it’s a great time to sell.
That is Residential Real Estate. Even when I was managing Investment Portfolios it was never ONLY about highest gain or highest income or highest anything. You never put at HIGH risk any money you can’t afford to lose. You can afford to lose more because it’s not yours. You didn’t eat ramen for 5 years to save it. LOL! and the biggest loser will be the bank and not you if you keep the leverage high.
If someone says is this a good time to buy, there is just no answer to that except no. Then they can still buy or not based on their immediate needs. That is why I say ONLY if you have a compelling reason to do so. Same with it’s a good time to sell. I think anyone who has maxed out their tax free $500,000 gain should sell and I have told them that since the house I helped them buy reached that net $500,000 gain threshold. Whether they do or not is up to them. Whether the market goes up or down does not make the advice “wrong”. It’s still the prudent thing to do.
I realize saying The Prudent MAN Rule is sexist. Can’t help it. That’s what it’s called. LOL! While the State of Washington doesn’t require “fiduciary” duties and prudent man rule and so I haven’t had to work at that high bar for the last 15 years, I worked for 35 years before that with the high bar and I don’t see myself every losing it, especially since WA is one of the only States that doesn’t require it. I’d probably move to a State that does still require it before I would lower my standards.
But yes…you are right…we are at opposite ends of the spectrum and why I have only helped you sell at top dollar and only helped you buy a home for your family and made sure it was one your wife would love. Glad it worked out that way. The rest of the purchases are a bit Vegas and I was happy to be there to make sure they ended well and help you in the middle whenever something starts going sideways. Because I do love you . That new daughter of yours is a beauty! Happy New Year!
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 372 –
There is no need to be snarky even if I am mistaken about rental cap. My comment on rental cap wasn’t wrong btw.
Prior to the housing crash, the owner-occupancy requirement was about 80%. FHA lowered owner occupancy to 50% following the housing crash, and to as low as 30% for new constructions in recent years.
In general, when a condo complex is not FHA approved, the only buyers are investors, which means lower prices.
UST 10yr yield is set to break 1% this week. It currently yields .994% as I typed. It is at the highest level since March lockdown.
I’m going to call the bottom in 30yr fixed mortgage rate. This is my second call today. We’ll find out if I am wrong end of the year.
RE: Erik @ 389 – Eric, do you have another time in US history other than 2006 when lending standards were loosened to create a bubble? I’m really curios and have to admit that don’t know the economics history very well. My concern is that you may reference this single instance as a rule and make decisions based on that.
RE: Eastsider @ 391 –
Again…just not true. When a building becomes CASH ONLY buyers then yes…those things happen. But NOT when they don’t have fha approval.
That used to be true a very long time ago. That’s why I asked where you were getting the information and maybe you were an agent years ago when that was true. It’s old news. Not currently relevant. I can’t remember the last time I needed an fha approved list. Conventional lenders have better products than an fha, so not relevelant.
Show me the time when the market was booming that one building’s values were falling because they were not fha approved in the last 10 years. Cash Only building, yes and I helped a couple of people get great deals due to Cash Only Building. But not fha approved? Ho hum.
Just checked some recent condo closings to be sure nothing changed during COVID. First condo sale I looked up and I looked down in Federal Way and Kent where it might still be relevant. Nope. First one I came across. Sold price $257,000, Loan Amount $249,290, Loan Product-3% down Conventional.
Not fha approved has not been a deal killer for a condo building in many, many years. 3% down Conventional almost always beats fha.
Haha . I’m currently laughing at the narrative . You probably didn’t like those two . RE: Erik @ 386 –
I wonder how many homes will be up for sale after the eviction .moratorium and forebearance is lifted . If we can find out before hand . That’s an important number .
RE: Brianna @ 388 –
RE: Erik @ 389 –
Biden will give stimulus to people that are not on sound financial footing. Those people will get loans they shouldn’t get.
I agree that this is pretty likely but it seems unbelievable that government could take action to start another bubble less than 20 years after the last one. They would have to state we won’t cause a bubble, but if lending standards loosen how could it go differently?
I just refreshed my memory, this is from wikipedia:
“In 1996, HUD directed Freddie and Fannie to provide at least 42% of their mortgage financing to borrowers with income below the median in their area. This target was increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. Under the Bush Administration HUD continued to pressure Fannie and Freddie to increase affordable housing purchases – to as high as 56 percent by the year 2008.[25] To satisfy these mandates, Fannie and Freddie eventually announced low-income and minority loan commitments totalling $5 trillion.[26] Critics argue that, to meet these commitments, Fannie and Freddie promoted a loosening of lending standards – industry-wide.”
Many people nationwide are having an awful time financially with covid, and many were having an awful time even before covid. It is not difficult to picture Biden proclaiming something like – now is the time to make up for past injustices by helping folks buy a house. Especially if both Georgia Senate seats go Democrat, which right now looks more than possible.
RE: northender @ 397 –
Those are my exact thoughts and it’s officially a blue wave. President, house, and senate are all Democrats. This administration will stimulate the economy by lending more money to minorities by loosening their lending standards, watch.
Last bubble, looser lending standards were first given to blacks only. Next, lending standards were loosened for all minorities. Then they let the white devil in and it all blew i up in our faces. Our political landscape is all setup for this. We’ve seen this situation before.
What the last crash taught me is if you can buy houses for zero down, just keep buying. Rent those houses out and foreclose on them when times get tough, but keep them rented. Rent them 5 years without paying your mortgage on those properties. Then use that rental income to pay off your other houses or pay cash for more houses. When the opportunity presents itself, be ready if you want to retire early with extra cash.
RE: Erik @ 398 –
Question. Yes, if the current race falls to the Democrats and with Biden as President there will clearly be a lot more stimulus than if Trump had won re-election and the Republicans had won the Senate, both. Senate still unknown.
Would you feel differently about home prices in the next 18 months if Trump had won vs Biden? If both Trump won and the Republicans had a Senate majority, both. Would your forecast be any different at all?
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 394 – May I ask how to qualify for the 3% down payment loan? My bank is asking for 20% down.
Recall from days gone by, stories in the Wall Street Journal, with well-designed cartoons, of how mortgage backed securities work. There were actually securities created in advance waiting for mortgages to be parked inside them. Remember the dazzling stories of how Wall Street banks were hiring physicists to work their magic, turning lead into gold.
It really wasn’t unqualified buyers, per se, that caused the financial meltdown and RE crash, it was fraudulently rated securities. As investment banks were hoovering up any and all mortgages to package into MBS, the demand for mortgages increased beyond sustainability. This created false demand for RE, which inflated home prices.
And the issuers of the mortgages were more than happy to abandon lending standards, as they sold these mortgages to Wall Street, getting the risk of their books. And the rating agencies were more than willing to overrate the resulting securities so that they could do business with the investment banks who were creating the toxic securities.
Of course, home buyers with no jobs or income could not pay the mortgages, and it soon became clear that the mortgage backed securites were not AAA, and that the ratings were grossly inacurate, and that as a result, the MBS were far out of the money, in actuality.. And the music stopped. And the fake demand stopped. And RE prices fell to earth. And the onwers of inflatedly priced homes, looking at the readjusted value, decided to walk away.
And so what happened was the creation of false and unsustainable RE demand. to service securities fraud.
Is there false and unsustainable demand now? Will there be in the future? If yes, then bubble.
RE: Blurtman @ 401 –
A round of applause for Blurtman setting the record straight. Rich people on Wall St caused the 2003-2007 housing bubble.
RE: IssaquahResident @ 400 –
Given the asking price and/or anticipated bid up for property in your area of interest, is there any possibility that your loan IF in King County WA would be over $741,750? If yes…you can’t do a Jumbo with less than 20% down and some are requiring 30% down…though that is changing as we speak.
If no possibility of the loan being over $741,750, you can speak with any Mortgage Broker vs Bank. I don’t want to give a Mortgage Broker recommendation here in public. But know that petty much any would have access to it. Call 3. Call 5. But not Banks. Banks have typically been better for Jumbo Loans and some other products. But never for minimum down products. That is why when it was just banks OR fha…fha power influence was great. But since fha added to the MIP costs and put roadblocks to getting rid of MIP EVER without changing out of fha, the conventional lenders have stepped up to help people avoid those restrictions and give them options.
To get the most options out there for those who need more options, which is especially true for lower income or lower cash available to close buyers, you need to use a broker not a bank, even if that broker ends up placing it with a bank.
Do know that you don’t usually walk into a bidding war with 20 offers thinking you will win with 3% down on your finance contingency, so discuss that with your agent to have a workaround strategy for that scenario.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 379 –
Thanks Ardell for your comments. The main information I was looking for came out in #385 (and perhaps what @N was looking for as well):
Basically at the start of COVID you mentioned advising your clients to wait if they can, was just curious if that changed, I see it has not.
At this point I’m a bit torn, though. I think RE is really high, but @Erik is also probably right that Fed and political action to come these next few years may wipe out any advantage of waiting for things to return to normal.
Good thoughts on why you focus on the locations you do. We have family in the Burien/Des Moines area we would like to visit weekly or at least monthly, but other than that we have worked remote for years… unfortunately for us everyone else is in the same boat now. Perhaps it’s best to skate by where we are until next summer and see if the closer in places are popular again (or maybe 18 months from now). If that’s the case the further out places may be more on sale for us, but who knows.
RE: Blurtman @ 401 – Good synopsis.
I would just add that I think unqualified buyers did definitely play a role in the crisis. They set the fire, Wall Street just pored gasoline on it with their securitization of mortgages.
Neither party was innocent.
RE: disasteraverted @ 404 –
This year is pretty much starting out the same as last year did. The remaining inventory left on the market was bought up in December, and we entered into the year with record low inventory. Even still, I did notice a slowing in the market at the end of summer and fall. Even if this year goes the same way, and remains hot from low supply and high demand, it could soften a bit later this year. It’s probably best to wait if you can until then. It’s really tough to try to outbid 20 other eager offers to buy something now.
RE: IssaquahResident @ 400 –
The conforming loan limit in King county Ardell spoke of is now $776k as of January 2021. I’ve had a broker offer a deal where you could go above that with 10% down by using a 2nd/equity line but the rate and costs were quite high. Otherwise your looking at paying cash/down payment to bridge from $776k to your sale price. So if your under 950k ish you likely can figure out less than 20% down with decent rates/costs (adding PMI), but going higher requires at least 20% down or costly alternatives.
No two recessions ever have the same cause or the same outcome. Comparing anything that is going on right now to 2008 is letting our lazy brain get the best of us. My new outlook is that we will have a small correction (8-12%) in some real estate markets next year and a long term (5 year) period of economic stagnation. Here’s why:
1. Mortgage rates will continue to go down and the 10Y T-Note will continue to go up. Why? These two rates are no longer correlated as long as The Fed is on autopilot to fund any qualified mortgage. If mortgages are going to be funded no matter what then there is very little pressure to raise mortgage rates.
2. A low mortgage rate market is now the new normal. The longer this goes on for the more price and interest rates become decoupled from each other. We will see less buyer urgency this spring and summer because of this.
3. The 10Y T-Note is going up because there’s more demand for them. The stock market is historically top heavy (especially in tech) and money will begin to both rebalance in the market and move out. As always, retail investors will be the ones holding the bag.
4. Corporations had a massive amount of debt pre-covid. The CARES act allowed them to sell new bonds (funded by The Fed) that paid off the old debt. These are still poorly run companies with bad debt and the ones that survive won’t be able to invest in growth opportunities. These are what people call Zombie companies and an estimated 20% of the public companies in the US are currently in this status.
5. There won’t be a $2000 stimulus check or any more stimulus. Politicians tell you what they want to be perceived as wanting. Powell and Yellen are smart enough to know the money printing is just winding up a spring more tightly. A double digit percent of our GDP is gone for now. Deal with it. Initial demand for travel and entertainment will help make up for some of it.
6. There will be a massive amount of consolidation among corporations. Some industries like oil and gas will have intra-industry consolidation. Most consolidation will be cash rich firms snatching up cash poor ones. Don’t be surprised if Apple owns a movie theater or Amazon owns an airline or Coca-Cola.
7. Seattle real estate will have a short term correction once the vaccination is more widely deployed and mobility comes back. People that have been stuck here for the past 10 months (16-19 months at that point) by themselves have realized this is a bad city with overpriced housing, crappy weather, and politically and socially heading in a very bad direction (I identify as liberal for what it’s worth). The Eastside will be fine. After the dip Seattle will be strong in the medium term (3-5 years) and then eventually have a wakeup call like San Francisco is right now. Remember: every time Inslee gets on TV and says how he’s going to continue making Washington State a great place for business, what he’s really saying is “We’re going to rip away your protections as employees and let corporations (bleep) you up and down.” This works in the short-term but not the long-term. Eventually the employees get sick of it and the corporations find a new state willing to give them what they want.
Everything above goes out the window if we truly are headed for a dystopian society of never before seen rigidity between the rich and poor. In that scenario private equity will buy up every house in existence.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 399 –
My forecast has nothing to do with who is president. I take a broader perspective and look at only the data points I think are relevant.
Datapoint 1: The Mathematical Top
If you were to only play the odds, mathematically speaking, 18 years is the most common interval between housing crashes. If you were only concerned about getting out before a crash, you could use 2006 as your reference point. I know the top was 2007 in Seattle, but being conservative, use 2006. 2006 18 = 2024. So just looking at probability, the best time to sell in Seattle is 2024.
Mathematical top = 2024
Datapoint 2: The Cycle
Based on a economic cycles, here are the 4… Recovery, Expansion, Hypersupply, and then Recession. Let me use some deductive reasoning to try and figure out what phase we are on.
Hypersupply: Hypersupply is when there is a large supply of inventory and we are at record lows, so we definitely aren’t in Hypersupply.
Recession: We aren’t in a real estate recession, so we aren’t in the recession phase. Prices went up over 10% last year in king county due to stimulus.
I just dismissed the 2 ugly beasts that would less me to believe real estate is gonna crash. What’s left is Recovery and Expansion.
Recovery: This is high unemployment and typically lots of foreclosures. Unemployment is a little high and foreclosures are low. We could be in a mini recovery cycle if you count 2019 as the bottom.
Expansion: Expansion is where prices rise, new construction increases, and unemployment goes down.
I tend to think we were in expansion and hit the Rona and had a reset and are back in expansion again. If this is correct, we still have to go through Hypersupply to get there and Hypersupply goes on for years. I estimate Hypersupply is 4 years, but it could be as low as 2.
Based on the cycle we have 4 more years to top out on expansion, loosen lending standards, and go into a real estate recession:
Cycle Top = 2025
Datapoint 3: Cycle inflection points
There are usually 2 corrections or bears before a bust. We’ve only had one correction, which just passed. This data is just to get another way to look at the market, but I think it does have some merit. According to this we need another bear or correction before the big one. We just had one and if we get another one, be on alert. I estimate a year minimum before the next down cycle that rebound. That will take a minimum of 3 years to cycle, but probably more.
Cycle inflection points: 2024
This is how I see the market. Politics in my opinion is just a distraction from what is really going on. Did you notice the yield curve inverted right before the covid stock market crash? This means smart money knew something was coming. I prefer to stick with the fundamentals and not get sucked into all the distractions so I can be smart money.
Seattle, hang onto that real estate a few more years and sell to some poor unsuspecting software person at the top of the market. Get that recently graduated code monkey using generational wealth for a down payment. We have 3 more years before we offload our overpriced real estate onto this shifty eyed code monkeys. Hang on!
RE: Seah @ 395 –
I come on here for 2 reasons:
1. Learn more about real estate
2. Laugh at my own jokes
I’m glad you are having fun too.
That’s…. a lot of superstition. You wouldn’t happen to own a rabbit’s foot would you? You’re like two steps away from saying the next recession will start when Jay-Z throws up the Illuminati sign again.
RE: IssaquahResident @ 393 –
Valid concern. I do not know other times in US history where loosening lending standards caused a recession. That’s why I’ve made 2 separate comments to the Tim requesting a graph with time on the horizontal axis and median housing price on the vertical axis. Then flag stimulus points on the horizontal axis to see how the market reacted.
Maybe you can email him asking for that information as I’ve already asked twice.
RE: IsErikRichYet @ 411 –
That’s a lot of analysis. I’ve made a lot of money by trusting my analysis, so I’m going to continue following it.
RE: IsErikRichYet @ 408 –
I think that it’s fairly likely we have another small dip in the next 5 years before a crash. 8-12% could very well be. I said in my inflection point analysis that another correction or bull is likely, which mean 0-20%, so you are in that range. I read 1,2, and 3 and quit reading. Yah, mortgage rates will remain low until at least 2024, fed already said that. Then the fed will let inflation run high for a while until it gets out of hand. That means rates will stay low until probably 2026 and that’s 5 years.
I skimmed the other points and you just started talking about random crap that has nothing to do with real estate prices in Seattle. You talk about Amazon, Apple, Coca Cola, oil, Covid vaccinations and on and on until I finally had to go walk around. I could give 2 sh!ts about this garbage. It has nothing to do with where real estate prices are going.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 390 –
I am not a prudent man, I like to swing for the fences every time. With real estate, I’m not sure you can really lose your a$$ if you get a place you can rent. If you make a mistake, you can just rent your property until you get the price you want.
Every transaction I’ve had with you has been very successful. You help me get top price when I sell and I get what I want when I buy. My transactions are complicated… Emotional wife, HOA after me, change my mind last minute, etc. It’s always a sticky situation and you turn into a beneficial situation for me somehow. I’m not sure how you do it, but you do.
I will never forget when you bailed me out of that hard money deal gone wrong. Thank you so much.
Back on topic, I think real estate prices will boom until at least 2024. King County inventory is at record lows and demand is high. Evictions don’t cause foreclosure and ending forbearance won’t cause foreclosures because prices are up and there is high demand. All I’m saying is I’m just not seeing it.
RE: IsErikRichYet @ 408 – This sounds suspiciously like a post from Eastsider. The fact that your name is a needle at Erik only strengthens my suspicion.
But my real question is this…why do you identify as liberal when you acknowledge that it’s a bad way to run a city? The fact that people vote liberal because they feel like it’s a part of their identity, all the while knowing deep down that it’s a poor way to run things is very frustrating to me.
Full disclosure: I’m neither conservative nor liberal, just a common sense middle-of-the-roader.
By Erik @ 415:
I’m going to stick with my belief that all this DEBT (hoping Biden sends more $ so I can upgrade my media room with a PS5 and swank speakers) – is going to drive asset prices HIGHER.
The Government cannot raise interest rates or they’d raise the national interest payments through the roof.
Housing should rise.
Here are the questions though:
1) Can housing outpace inflation when the prices are already so high relative to income?
2) Will housing do anything other than maintain a hedge on inflation?
3) If housing is so high relative to incomes:
a) yet still climbs because of inflation thereby making housing ONLY a hedge
b) then housing is a zero return asset relative to inflation on par with LONG historical trends as a
0% return asset.
c) wouldn’t it make more sense to invest in high-quality company stock (equities) with lowish debt?
The problem I see is that you have to KNOW you can always get enough rent to offset the very high prices for real estate even at low-interest rates on the loans.
However, you still control a, say, $500k asset AND have POTENTIAL net worth as a result. You’d just have to be happy making no income on it. And you’re living on debt.
Personally, if I owned enough houses, I’d look at one I can make a certain profit on, sell it, then pull out my amortization schedules on the others and strongly consider paying down debt on each to the point they are fat assets.
Or paying my personal residence off as long as it is protected under Homestead like here in Florida.
RE: David @ 418 –
I’m going to eventually sell half of the homes I own and pay off the other half. I’m not selling anything more unless I can use the proceeds to own the deed of another property. My end game is steady cash flow from paid off rentals. I only care about building net worth right now so I can use my net worth to create cash flow. The best way to cash flow is to not have a mortgage.
Once I get a income stream equal to my expenses, I’ll figure out what to do next. Right now, I just need to keep buying in Seattle area.
RE: David @ 417 –
Biden will definitely inflate asset prices.
Here is my opinions on your questions below:
1. Tim has proved housing prices very loosely correlated with affordability. “Loosely correlates” is what Tim called it, but I think you gotta see the graph to understand. The graph shows that sometimes in Seattle, affordability goes down while prices go up and it can continue like that for years. For a Silicon Valley transplant moving to Seattle, housing prices in Seattle are half price and they make the same. I don’t think housing prices are high in comparison to incomes for code moneys.
2. I think housing prices in Seattle will beat inflation as they approach Silicon Valley prices. Note explanation above.
3. Right now Seattle housing prices are growing at the second fastest rate in the country behind Phoenix. Seattle is taking companies from San Francisco and housing prices are going up in Seattle. We are a major tech hub now and we are gonna keep growing.
RE: David @ 417 – You may have noted vacant RE purchased soley as investments/inflation hedges/speculative bets. Like non-dividend yielding stocks. All the better if you do recevie dividends/rent payments for one class of investor. Unecessary for another.
RE has been financialized. It’s an asset class, like stocks, bonds, bitcoin, gold, etc. Erik has made this point numerous times.
By Erik @ 415:
Where is the evidence that “demand is high”? It feels that way because of artificially suppressed inventory. Once the inventory gate opens (mortgage forbearance, eviction moratorium), price discovery will return.
RE: Eastsider @ 422 – That would qualify as fake demand if inventory is unleashed.
By IsErikRichYet @ 408:
I disagree. Mortgage rates and 10yr rates can’t be untethered completely. Otherwise, the USG will be funding all mortgages. Yes, it happened after the housing crash but the volume also tanked. Unsustainable.
10yr is at 1.081%. If there is a stimulus check of $2k, expect it to break higher. I won’t be surprised if 10yr hits 2% later this year. Sit tight.
P.s. 10yr started at .919% on Jan 1.
RE: Blurtman @ 423 – The correct term is market manipulation. Well, central banks have gotten away for over a decade. Unsustainable.
RE: Justsomedude12 @ 405 –
It’s a bit more in between the actual buyers and Wall Street. Especially here locally. Lenders, predatory lenders and some more respected ones, were pushing people into sub-prime because the loans were easier to process. People would ask for a pre-approval letter and get one at a price that pushed their ratios into sub-prime. In some other States that wouldn’t have worked because there is a rate cap in the Finance Contingency. WA took that out a long time ago and before I moved here in Jan of 2004. In most States if a buyer thinks rates are 4% as example and they get approved at 5.5% on the first and 11% on the second because the sub-prime kicked in and they thought the price was “correct” and standard conventional rate, they had no legal out. In most States there is a rate cap spread like if rates increase by more than 1% they don’t have to close. It’s a blank you fill in and can say 1/2 point or pretty much anything, but the norm is a one point spread. THAT would have saved many…but WA doesn’t have it. I asked an attorney who was involved in writing the contracts here why it wasn’t there and he said it used to be, but they removed it.
The lenders would then say not to worry because you can refinance in 2 years. Eat hot dogs and ramen for two years and we’ll get you to the going rate. Since they had no legal out and didn’t want to lose their Earnest Money they bought that story…and it turned out to be a lie in hindsight.
I had to stop a few closings when I first moved here like like that (another agent’s clients, not mine) and in some other cases had to get the Pre-Approval letters re-drawn to the correct Purchase Price amount. I had already been in real estate for 16 years when I moved here and in 4 other States and never saw anything like that. So locally, the game was stacked against the buyers more so than in some other States.
In most areas where I have worked in NJ, PA, FL and CA there is not as much of an effort to push people to buy when they can’t afford to buy or when they shouldn’t buy. I found this area to be more aggressive in that regard because they short-shifted the Buyer Agency issue. That’s a bit complicated and I won’t go into it, but basically they pretend to have Buyer Agency but don’t in reality. That has not changed. Each State has different Agency Laws and in some ways WAs is both best and worst. :)
Saying that demand is high because inventory is low is laughable and completely subtracts the status of the world currently. We will have our answers to what demand really is in the late Spring and Summer.
Saying that RE has been “financialized” (I don’t think that’s the term you’re looking for) and thinking that’s a controversial or interesting thought strikes me as odd. It’s always been possible to have RE investments. The difference compared to stocks, bonds, etc. is that RE has a boat load of non-time related costs. It’s always been that way.
The narrative of some tech exodus from SF isn’t real. All of the HQs are still there and not moving any time soon and people have left but they still work for California based corporations. The companies that are offering remote won’t result in SF refugees moving to Seattle, which is only a slightly less worse cesspool than they currently live in.
Seattle is at or near peak right now but don’t let the facts get in the way.
– The Bay Area has more than twice the population of Seattle-Bellevue, better and more universities (UW is great but the Bay has Stanford, Berkeley, UCSC, and others).
– The gap between Bay Area and Seattle houses is already close to closing if you look at price per square foot and that the Seattle homes are significantly older and shittier.
– A recession in corporate spending is coming and ads (Facebook, Twitter, Google) and cloud/software (AWS, Microsoft, Google, countless others) are the first expenses on the chopping block.
– Amazon is moving its retail operations organization to Bellevue and Nashville, hiring more for AWS in Virginia than Seattle, and its ads team is primarily in Austin. Amazon will always have a decent sized presence here but that’s only because Bezos is shrewd and he will use Seattle’s eventual exodus as leverage against the city.
And no I’m not Eastsider. Get an imagination.
RE: Erik @ 415 –
Totally agree and why you don’t ask me if it’s a good “time” to buy or sell. But you can understand that if you called me right before buying something, I would likely have a conservative and well supported response. That is why you don’t ask me. You say don’t ask an agent because they have a self interest. But you also know that my answer would NOT be self interest oriented and you don’t ask me because you don’t want to be conservative. That’s OK! But more often someone who asks me that does NOT want to buy. Has no compelling reason to buy right now.
I asked you a question you didn’t answer. If your opinion of should you buy would be different if Trump was re-elected than if Biden won. For most people that answer is yes and why if someone is thinking to buy 6 weeks before the election…they should wait to see who gets elected. It’s what any “prudent man” would do.
The oddity is that the markets are defying the chaos. The DOW is up over 31,000 right now. It was up while they were taking over the Capitol Building. It was up as the Senate control was shifting. The market is defying what a Prudent Man would think and do. Being prudent is NOT about being “right” and why the whole right vs wrong argument doesn’t make sense.
Investing is not a “right vs wrong” game, nor is buying a house. It is about making the wisest decisions possible given the facts at hand on any given day.
But you are correct that you do it correctly for you and as your agent I never fight with you about that as I am an extension of you. But with other clients…I am an extension of them. Once in a blue moon there is one clear trend and same answer for all. But this is not one of those times.
When I managed 350 different investment portfolios for 350 different people, I did not invest them all the same way. That’s why Prudent Man Rule forces you to decide if THAT investment is right for THIS person today. There are no blanket good answers…well rarely.
Remember when I was pointing out how low Real Estate Stocks were? Redfin at $11 back then against their IPO price of $20 (I think I’m remember that correctly). Look at it today. It went as low as $10.33 and is at $72 today. now ask yourself how sustainable that price is. It’s easier to follow it with the stock prices because it’s a more fluid market. Everyone’s talking about the 30% to 40% stock increases in the tech industry during COVID. Redfin’s up almost X 7. Tell me there’s no bubble now. You could buy the stock in March when I said it and sell it now. You can’t do that with a house for your family. That’s the difference. It would have been prudent to buy Redfin Stock but not a house. :) Even still, if someone tells me they don’t care if it’s a good time or not, my answer is different than if they ask me if they should and is it a good time. At the end of the day, most people aren’t you and I let you be you and them be them.
RE: IsErikRichYet @ 427 – Your posts have all the hallmarks of Eastsider. The snark is even there! I’m more convinced than ever that you two are one in the same!!
RE: Justsomedude12 @ 429 –
It would make sense, they both talk like they understand the real estate market and have no idea what’s going on.
RE: Erik @ 415 –
Also important, even if someone should buy and has a compelling reason to buy…most of my clients can work from another State or Country. People talk about “work from home” and buy in Duvall or North Bend. But the reality is most of my clients can work from Canada or India or New York or Austin. So sometimes the don’t buy means maybe not here. This particularly true of 2020 and the fear of Seattle Area overall. Many are leaving Seattle to the Eastside but many can also leave Seattle to a different State or even Country. Living with a growing homeless population isn’t for everyone but neither is moving to a redneck area. :) There is a lot to consider in these trying times. Hopefully that will settle down by Spring. That’s another reason why inventory is low. They don’t want to sell because they may want to leave the Seattle Area entirely and haven’t decided yet.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 431 – As discussed on here previously, working remotely from a far-flung place is not so easy when you actually start to contemplate it seriously. For example your current job can end at any time, and finding another job that allows you to work from hundreds or thousands of miles away may not be so easy.
That’s just one consideration. But again, not as easy as it sounds once you start actually thinking about the details.
RE: Justsomedude12 @ 432 –
A lot of tech workers can easily transfer to a completely different location was my point. Stay with the same Company and work from a different location. I wasn’t promoting housing changes based on working from home. Sorry if something i said was unclear. People are leaving Seattle but their choices aren’t limited to moving anywhere near here.
RE: Eastsider @ 425 – Always amusing to see touts talk their book, while trying to sound like anything but. More power to them. Unleash the Kraken!
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 428 –
I trust my own analysis more than anyone else’s analysis when forecasting real estate values. I still ask, but I have a great track record and I like my own forecast best.
I would never believe it if someone told me that you advised them one way for your own self interest. I’m guessing that you probably don’t need the money and can get as much work as you want, so there is no reason for you to do that. Even if you were poor and needed the money, I don’t believe you would ever mislead a client for for your own gain. You believe what you tell clients. You are the best agent I’ve ever known by far and I’d love you to run every transaction, but I’d like to do my own forecasting because I think it’s my strong suit.
I thought I did answer your Biden question in comment 409. Whomever is president has nothing to do with my forecast of real estate. Please read comment 409, it took me a while. The master is the analysis of the cycle in 409 and the president is the slave, not visa versa.
This imprudent man has invested all his real estate money in Tesla and has been killing it, so my only stock has been doing very well. I wasn’t smart enough to get in at the very bottom, but I’ve done well. Like I said, I like to swing for the fences. I’m a math person and it is bilinear for me.
I’m sure you said to invest in Redfin, but I don’t recall. Redfin is getting high in value, but so are a lot of other stocks. I don’t think Tesla is high, that’s why I’m all in it still. Plus, I’d have to lose big to go back to the original borrowed real estate money I invested. Money I work for that I’ve been saving for years is in slow growth as a backup plan, but at this point, I’ll probably end up not using it.
By ARDELL Della Loggia @ 433:
What I’m saying is staying with the same Company and moving to a location far away is not as easy/prudent as it may seem at first blush. It is a fun daydream for some and a hot topic right now, but not practical for most people. For instance if you work for Microsoft and move far away, and then lose your job or want to change jobs, it may not be so easy to find another job that lets you work remotely full time.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 428 –
Thinking more, yes I remember you saying it’s a good time to invest in Redfin before in 7X’d. I wasn’t paying attention as much because I was just investing in real estate and saying my 401k was my stock money. Now that I see how I can increase my money to invest in real estate in the stock market, I’m paying attention now. I should have refinanced my properties in March 2020 and put them in Redfin or another high growth stock. Oh well, next time. Now I know.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 431 –
I have lived in the Puget Sound area since 3rd grade. I’ve learned not to bet against Seattle. There are a lot of highly educated people there and they seem to conspire, invent something, and the area explodes in value. I don’t believe that the Eastside will ever get way more expensive than Seattle. Light rail is coming, which will further normalize the prices more. Jenny Durkan is leaving after this term and now we need Sawant Kshama out and I think the city would be a nice place to live again.
My other option is to start buying in Metairie Louisiana, it’s right outside of New Orleans. I kinda like the idea of Seattle better. People here aren’t really looking to improve or learn.
RE: Erik @ 435 –
Sorry I missed that. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
Even if I took all of that as gospel, the message to then dump it in 3 years is not particularly relevant to people who are not looking for a 3 year house. Jumping in at today’s (or last year’s) price point with a 3 year hold plan is a lot riskier than if someone bought years ago and is waiting those same 3 years. So even if I agreed with you I would still not recommend it.
As I said earlier, I only recommend people sell if they have maxed out their $500,000 tax free gain and/or if they were already contemplating a sale and move. In most all of those cases, and going by your thinking, they wouldn’t be selling and buying at the same time. They would be selling and waiting for “bottom” and so renting in between. I have only had a few clients who did that even though many knew that was the way to go. They still didn’t want to rent in between. So I primarily focused on those who could pocket their $500,000 gain so that when they started over in their new residence they weren’t risking that money. Maybe they could have borrowed it out as you do. I prefer it be removed and deposited.
It seems to me you are espousing, to some degree, the BRRRR method (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) but toward a different end game of selling some and converting the others eventually to most all cash flow with zero debt. I only see the ones that cash out the gain, so I’m not sure. I haven’t heard you say BRRRR method, though I could have missed it. Is that somewhat the plan in the short term?
I was born and raised on the Eastside, and lived there for 12 years of my adult life as well. I know all about it.
The Eastside is like a pristine Honda Accord. It is very well maintained and cared for, and serves it’s purpose well.
Seattle is like a Porsche that has been poorly maintained as of late. It has some dents and dings, and is in need of a tune-up, but has a higher intrinsic value. At some point it will get the TLC it needs and be restored to it’s potential.
RE: Justsomedude12 @ 440 –
I have bad news for you but a city that is primarily inhabited by people that only moved there for work will never receive the TLC it so desperately needs.
By Justsomedude12 @ 440:
Lol pristine Honda Accord? I think living in the Eastside has long ago surpassed Seattle when it comes to quality of life, schools, crime, raising a family, etc. If Seattle is a Porsche that needs maintenance, then the Eastside is a freakin’ McLaren lol.
Empty Homes Around Seattle Area?
Why do I see empty driveways and no lights on new home villages? Perhaps I need to clean my periscope lens?
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-building-boom-1-in-10-seattle-apartments-are-empty-and-rents-are-dropping/
RE: IsErikRichYet @ 408 –
Quick question. Is your 5. position still the same? It was only 20% possible back on 1/6. Isn’t it 0% possible today? Or will they have to use a different number to make it look more all their idea? If I were them, I wouldn’t make it exactly $2,000 for that reason.
RE: softwarengineer @ 443 –
Give an example. What is a new home village? Address?
RE: OA @ 442 – The Eastside will never be more than a Honda Accord, albeit a very well maintained one. That is it’s ceiling. As I said, it serves it’s purpose.
Comparing Seattle to the Eastside is apples and oranges. Like comparing any city to it’s suburbs. They serve different purposes and each have their appeal to different people for different reasons. Many people will even change their preference between the two over the course of their lives depending upon their needs and desires at the time.
Seattle is just 2 city council seats away from a huge change for the better. Just replace 2 of the left-wing activists, that’s all it will take.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 439 –
My 2024 estimate has a lot of conservatism built into it because I’d rather be early to to party than late. I agree though, we are getting closer to the end of the cycle. If I can sell my houses in 2024 and own my condos with a few hundred thousand in the bank and a steady cash flow, that is something I will have to really take a hard look at in 2024. I need the cash flow to reduce the risk of losing my job and I need cash in the bank to buy more rentals at the bottom. That’s my goal at least assuming prices boom the next few years.
BRRRR is an awesome plan. I tried to do that on the house I bought at auction in Rainier. It’s the one I was sleeping at with the remodel crew that I sent you pictures of in 2019. I paid $311k at the auction, i remodeled and it appraised for $580k. Sounds great except I put more money into that one than the $80k(75% LTV) I pulled out, so I call it more of a failed BRRRR although I could pull the rest out now if I wanted. I probably left $55k in that deal because of issues I had with my contractor and there probably wasn’t enough meat on the bone I guess. I got all of my money back through mortgage forbearance and investing money in the stock market, so I’m ready to buy again 3 months after my forbearance ends in August. I can buy earlier with hard money, so really if I was in Seattle right now I’d be out shopping at the “Vegas” style auctions right now.
I’ll be waiting for a phone call from my favorite real estate agent in the whole wide world with a 25% off real estate deal. If it’s a quick close all cash deal, I can get hard money and refinance out later. I can’t borrow from Fannie/Freddie until August, but I can get hard money now, so please let me know if you bump into a deal.
By Justsomedude12 @ 446:
Even if you compare Seattle suburbs to Eastside, Eastside is more superior. Just look at property values between the two, Eastside is more expensive, it’s not even close. When I think about Eastside, I’m talking about the area between Kirkland and Issaquah. I’ve yet to meet a family (with kids) that would prefer to live in Seattle suburbs vs Eastside. I know numerous people that rented/owned condos in their 20s in Seattle before they had kids. Once they started having kids, most made the move across Lake Washington. Some families that weren’t able to afford it bought homes in Shoreline/Northgate/North Seattle.
Also know a few young single people that prefer to live in Bellevue vs Seattle. I have a younger brother that rents in DT Bellevue, yet works in South Lake Union. He didn’t want to live in Seattle. He works in Seattle but spends most of his free time in Bellevue. Bellevue is not what it used to be even 15-20 years ago, it’s not as big as Seattle but has plenty to offer.
RE: OA @ 448 –
I’ve lived in Kirkland and Seattle. Personally, I prefer living in Seattle. I like living in west Seattle vs downtown. Kirkland has a lot of self entitled beta males. That’s fine, but I just prefer Seattle people and the amenities.
When I was in the area living in Seattle with my son and wife, my plan was to cash in some investments and live near market street in Kirkland with the yuppies. The main drivers were so my kids were safe and Kirkland has awesome schools. I wanted to shelter them I suppose.
But it sounds like you haven’t explored all of Seattle. A lot of the neighborhoods are really nice. And it’s not all closed minded, scared code monkeys like Eastside. I like people with grit that have a backbone. In my experience, the Eastside just doesn’t have that.
RE: OA @ 448 – I preferred the Eastside for many years (the part that you’re referring to), but gradually just got very bored with it and needed to get out.
Like I said, Seattle and the Eastside appeal to different people for different reasons.
Enjoy your Honda Accord. They’re great cars!
(sorry about that last bit, I just couldn’t resist) :)
By Erik @ 449:
I went to school (UW) in Seattle for 4 years, worked there for another 6 afterwards, and used to rent in the Queen Anne area. Seattle definitely has a lot of really nice neighborhoods and areas, no doubt about it. Obviously comparing the 2 areas is a matter of personal preference. But there’s a reason why the Eastside is more expensive. I’ve only worked at tech companies my whole career, and most colleagues (with kids) would prefer to live in the Eastside if cost wasn’t a barrier.
My preference is less about politics, as the Eastside is pretty liberal as well.
I only commented on the original post because of the Honda Accord vs Posrche comparison, which is sort of funny.
By Justsomedude12 @ 450:
I like both cars! lol
RE: OA @ 452 – Cheers!
RE: Erik @ 447 –
I thought that $300,000 house in South Beacon Hill on a 5,800+ sf lot that came on the other day was interesting. But it came on at 5:30 a.m. and was solid into Pending by 2 in the afternoon. :) It needs more than a remodel though. It needs to be expanded. I don’t think you’ve ever done that. Could end up as a tear down. Will be interesting to see what they do with it, but $300,000 on a decent sized lot looked interesting.
RE: Erik @ 449 –
Just so you know, anyone reading your comments (“low testosterone”, “beta males”, “code monkeys”) can immediately tell you have a massive superiority complex with software developers. You should probably work on that.
RE: OA @ 451 –
Childhood—>College—> 5th year senior(Queen Anne)—>gated community 🤢
You like monotony and I don’t. I want to learn and grow my whole life and living in a gated community full of code monkeys that all think the same is not conducive to that.
By ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 444:
Yes I’m sticking with 0% chance of $2000 stimulus. Up is down and down is up when you’re not in power. I think we are going to get back to the good old days of in-fighting between Democrat House members, but it will mostly just be posturing for their constituents. There will be a bill with $2000 stimulus attached to it but I expect there will be some other non-stimulus related issue in that bill that prevents it from getting passed.
Stimulus is a transfer of public money to private wealth which is why it was ultimately supported by Republicans (up is down and down is up). The first two have been a failure in getting it to people that actually need it and the money is only going downstream to companies that are going to continue to operate. Not to mention moratoriums and unemployment insurance are far more effective.
The real stimulus is in getting business going again by distributing the vaccines and protecting the employees with pay in lieu of testing positive or testing negative when contact tracing indicates. The US has serious supply chain issues in certain industries that are going to get really bad if things continue like this much longer. To this day we have had no leadership in how to help small and medium sized businesses operate in this climate, despite companies like Amazon and Wal-Mart carrying on just fine. I expect any future aid to go to states where they can do a more effective job of allocating the money and setting up programs like I mentioned. The public won’t like it because dumb people understand “free money!” but it’s the right thing for the long term and nobody is worried about re-election right now.
RE: IsErikRichYet @ 455 –
Thanks, I lived around them for years and I they constantly irritated me. You are probably one of them.
I’ll work on my problems and you work on yours
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 454 –
I would like something I can sleep at with running water and a place to sleep. I have 38 vacation days and 3 months paternal leave I can take, but I gotta give my company one month notice before I take the 3 months. If you see another deal with a little less scope, please put an offer in for me please. I can get a hard money loan, fly into Seattle, organize the whole thing, attach a lock box with the key, and do remodel and refinance from a distance. If you see a condo, that would be great too. Condos are easy.
Was just reading my friend Jonathan’s Housing Notes that just came out showing a couple of One57 units selling at 40% less than their 2015ish prices. When you think a City has it all and just can’t go down…you look at NYC.
https://www.millersamuel.com/note/january-8-2021/?goal=0_69c077008e-791eb0be69-98826781
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 460 – NYC is a McLaren with a few dents and dings in it, and in need of a tune-up.
By ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 460:
New York had lost over 1.4M people before the China Virus in the last decade. I worked in NYC for a couple of years. A city like that is only liveable with certain safety and general livability enhancements. Otherwise the people live there because they have no escape options – not because they want to.
Also, I deleted my Amazon account today. I didn’t have a Twitter or Facebook account to delete.
My wife, a citizen of another country, says the US has become like a communist country. My wife gives me an escape route/option.
RE: David @ 462 -NYC is a flat out awesome city. People will always want to live there. Sure there is a covid dip right now. That just means people will get a slightly better deal at the moment.
RE: David @ 462 –
Not to Worry, the 737 Will Crash Back Into Full Production Using Japanese engineering drawings “MAGICALLY” analyzed anyway by America Safety Engineers at FAA Engineering that can only read English drawings…LOL
https://www.the-sun.com/news/2109517/plane-vanishes-crash-boeing-indonesia/#comments
This latest crash of the 737 the nail in the coffin for Seattle Boeing? I think so and I’m an American Safety Engineer with “decades” of aerospace experience too. Ignore me? LOL
To what degree will Covid & The USA Govt. effect USA Real Estate?
https://youtu.be/0rrFSZQK0_0
By Erik @ 456:
Huh? I don’t belong to any those stereotypes. You obviously don’t know anything about me. My suggestion to you – instead of criticizing people for being “code monkeys” and “indexers” for having wealth, you should instead pick their brains on how they make and grow their money. You’re critical because you’re envious.
I live on the Eastside because my wife and I believe it’s a better fit for my family and raising our 2 kids. I’m not a code monkey.
RE: OA @ 466 –
Yeah, you’re right. I use to fight with some nasty people on here that work in software. Sorry about the jab, it was unnecessary. Bad habit.
My plan when I was in Seattle was to move to Kirkland off market street when my oldest becomes school age. I’ve lived on the Eastside, it’s nice. It’s a little too sterile for my personal taste, but nice place if you have a couple kids.
I don’t believe software people have more money than me. That’s not why I make those remarks. People that work for money and don’t have a side hustle generally has less than people that own real estate in Seattle. I make fun of software people because people in software use to attack me on here. It was an ongoing fight. I shouldn’t have made that comment and I take it back.
My opinion is the software people know the least about wealth because there income is a heavily taxed paycheck. They put their money into index funds like S&P500 and just work until they are 65. It’s nice to be a higher compensated servant, but still a servant. Business owners and real estate investors get the big bucks. If you take one thing from our interaction take that. People that work for money and rent or just own there home will probably have less than people that have a side business such as rental properties. Use your high income to buy rental property and you’ll have more than if you just bought stocks.
RE: Erik @ 467 –
I’ve always thought the disadvantage for younger software people I would hangout with in Kirkland was this… They make more than most people and are comfortable. They are so comfortable that they always play defense like investing in a well diversified stock portfolio. Then they pay off their house early so they can continue pumping more earned income into their well diversified stock portfolio. That seems like a bad life plan. I mean, they are setting themselves up to work hard their entire lives and then living off the money they saved until they die. They never really learn about investing because they are comfortable and complacent. Read the comments on here, the software people are too scared to go invest because they are playing defense.
RE: Erik @ 468 –
That is the way investments work Erik. The way you do it is not normal. You are not supposed to risk money you can’t afford to lose.
There’s nothing wrong with you being you, but what you just described is the way wealthy people have invested their money for centuries. I used to invest “old money” and there was never ANY high risk component. High risk = greater potential loss. You just don’t care as long as that loss isn’t yours because you are using high leverage as your protection. That isn’t normal. The people you talk with are not wrong. They are right.
A lot of people like to work and be productive contributors to the world. They aren’t working for a day when they don’t have to work until they are too old to do so. Not everyone wants to quit what they do. Some people love working. :) In fact anyone who works at something they feel is useful to others tend to dread the day when they can no longer work. Being retired young is not everyone’s goal. Losing money is never anyone’s goal and high risk and high potential loss go hand in hand.
RE: ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 469 –
Right, If I was wealthy, I would invest in well diversified stocks and precious metals. That’s how you are supposed to invest when you are already wealthy. There’s a big lump sum there and it would be foolish to risk that.
When people are in their 20’s and 30’s, they should be investing in real estate, not stocks. I think when I met you I had amassed $40k or something in my retirement fund by putting a little away every paycheck. I’d work and then trade some of my hours for money to put in my retirement.
I bought that condo in Kirkland in November 2011 and you helped me sell it in December 2013 for 2.5X what I paid for it. I put probably $12k into it. I felt like I woke up. I netted over $100k in one simple buy low, live/remodel, sell high deal that took 2 years. Plus I got to enjoy a beautiful condo in a great area. I made over twice what I had saved over many years and hours of labor by just buying at the right time, polishing it up, and having you sell it for top dollar. I felt like like I had been tricked into working for money for so long and wasted so much time when I should have been investing.
Now that covid struck, the fed lowered interest rates and borrowed money. All that does is gives investors more cash flow while their values go up higher even faster from inflation. It’s not fair to people that aren’t invested in real estate. If that wasn’t enough, single family investors don’t have to pay their mortgages for a year while possibly collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent if they say they are affected by covid. If you have a business you get $150k and you don’t have to pay it back. You know all this, but you think they should go to work and save a portion in retirement every paycheck until they retire?
I may keep working when I get enough cash flow if I like the job I’m doing. I’d like to be able to quit when I don’t like the job and live off cash flow. When I get enough cash flow to quit, maybe I’ll be a manager again and focus on my career, that was kind of fun. When they ask if I want to be manager, I say “no thank you,” because I have no time to invest as a manager.
By Erik @ 470:
This is like saying that you invested in TSLA at the beginning of 2020 and ended with over 7x gain in one year!
It won’t happen again.
You assume that price gains will exceed carrying costs. WaMu and many failing banks made the same assumption during the bubble years too.
Many people lost their (rental) properties following the housing crash. Weren’t you among them?
RE: Eastsider @ 471 –
I invested in TSLA in October and people were saying it’s over valued. It’s done very well since then and I think TSLA will double again by the end of 2022 or sooner.
Yes, I lost my only rental at the time. I made a bad investment and I had to sell short, but it helped launch me into the position I’m in now. I learned my lesson and landed on my feet and started sprinting. I fought my way out of a bad situation. Most people would have given up, but I kept going and I’m thankful I did. That’s called grit and why I have what I have today. I didn’t break under the difficult situation, I turned the bad situation into a big profit.
By Erik @ 468:
I’m not trying to play devil’s advocate here but what you describe above is the most proven way to build wealth over time. Anyone that saves more than he/she spends and consistently puts it into an index (like the S&P 500 for example), will typically come out ahead of most other investors in the long term. One doesn’t have to be an expert investor to make it big, you just have to be consistently investing over a long period of time and stick to your strategy.
The trap that people fall into is when they want to “retire” by a certain young age and then take on too much risk to get there. Also, everyone has a different risk appetite/tolerance when it comes to investing. What you do works for you, but it won’t work for many others.
Different strokes for different folks. The way that you do real estate investing would personally keep me up at night, but that’s because I’m much more risk-averse than you are. However, I’ve done OK for myself by 32 :)
By ARDELL DellaLoggia @ 469:
100% agree!
RE: Eastsider @ 471 –
Home Mortgage Interest Rates Will Rise 1-2% Soon???
The 10 Year treasury rate shown this type of pessimism to the Seattle Housing market sellers/buyers as follows:
“…What are Treasuries doing?
The 10-year Treasury note yield TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.133% was up 2.4 basis points to 1.131%, after posting its biggest weekly rise since June last week, while the 2-year note rate TMUBMUSD02Y, 0.144% edged 0.2 basis point higher to 0.139%. The 30-year bond yield TMUBMUSD30Y, 1.888% climbed 3 basis points to 1.893%. Yields and debt prices move in opposite directions….”
Sounds like the low interest rates are about to climb “SKY HIGH” with the manure odor of Biden’s proverbial 4 trillion dollar Killer Flu bill deficit agenda full of PORK to go to Congress after their useless recess period of do thing useful or workable this week. Time will tell more. Watch equity trending.
RE: OA @ 474 –
This is the long painful route. This route is taught to keep employees working through their productive years. If you knew the other way, you’d be saying what I’m saying. My way was high risk when I had nothing because I couldn’t afford a mistake. Now days, I consider investing in real estate very low risk.
Your method is to save until you can retire and try to make the money last until you die. That’s what most people do. You’ll have to keep working until you are old doing it your way. If you learn my way, you’ll get there a lot faster and build an income stream that lasts forever. I think it’s worth learning how to invest in real estate. I save 20% of my earned income into safe stocks these days because I make more than I spend and I’m conservative. My side gig in real estate is many times more lucrative than saving for retirement from my earned income. It’s good to have a few pots of money, so I do.
By Erik @ 476:
I’m not gonna argue with you which asset class if superior, obviously there’s money to be made in both real estate and stock market. If the stock market was a waste of time then 100% of all investors would be in real estate. You’re describing investing in broad strokes here. Best thing every person can learn from the start is how to manage their personal finances well, which will leave them with money to invest consistently. At that point, how they want to invest it is up to them. People like yourself don’t have a hard time with using a ton of leverage to invest and kuddos to you for that. People like myself are not comfortable with using that much leverage.
I started investing at a really young age (in both real estate and equities) and can “retire” today if I wanted to and live comfortably. But I won’t do that because I think my best days are still ahead in my career and I can continue to build my nest-egg to a point where my family will inherit significant generational wealth.
RE: OA @ 477 –
Here is the collection of facts you’ve told me:
-You come from a poor immigrant family
-You’re married with 2 kids
-You got a 4 year degree from UW and you work in software, but aren’t a software engineer
-You own your own home on the Eastside
-You are 32
-You invest in diversified index funds because you don’t want to take risk
-You have enough money to retire
Please explain.
What do you think Blurtman?
By Erik @ 478:
All true! I’ve been saving/investing 50%+ of my take home pay since college, and I’ve been really fortunate in my career in terms of promotions and moving up the corporate ladder. I’ve built my own home and don’t have a mortgage, that home is now worth 2x what it cost me to build (i still live there). All of this took a lot of planning and discipline! It’s hard but it’s doable.
RE: OA @ 479 –
I can do math and you are full of sh!t. Good day!
By Erik @ 480:
It’s math as well as a consistent LT plan and behavior! I’m secure with what I have and don’t need your validation. Good luck with your investment strategy, I really hope you achieve your dreams.
So you don’t fancy dinners or restaurants and vacations ?
That’s a huge opportunity cost. RE: OA @ 481 –
RE: Erik @ 478 – Well, all I can say is that this type of ostentatiousness is not generally tolerated by the old guard at the club, I can tell you that. In general, the unwritten code advises a dignified probity and decorum at all times. Although there was the time “Smith” went off on a Printemps fueled rant about his former Costa Rican mistress’ XY DNA test result, or when “Jones” discovered his wife in bed with a certain Seahawks running back, angry that she did not obtain even one autographed item from her fling.
But in general, if you are a member, no need to boast, eh wot?
RE: Blurtman @ 483 –
I just wanted to make sure someone else was reading this crap. The software people on this site are so dishonest.
On the Altos graphs below, does anyone know what “Median MAI for Seattle” is?
RE: Erik @ 485 –
Market Action Index – Their term for tracking if the market is moving toward Seller advantage or Buyer advantage
RE: ARDELL Della Loggia @ 486 –
Thank you again
RE: Erik @ 487 –
It May be an Anomaly Erik, but the hand writing appears on the wall [street] today:
https://www.macrotrends.net/2016/10-year-treasury-bond-rate-yield-chart
Its jolting suddenly upward and a 21% YOY increase too…bad news for mortgage rates in future with more deficit spending? This sounds like 2009 replayed again soon, at a theater near you. LOL…I liked your comments BTW…
By Seah @ 482:
We do. I’ll stop talking about this now as it’s giving some people here a hard time. My intent is not to be braggadocious, but to show that a disciplined saving and investing strategy goes a long way, especially if started in the very early years. And I know this for a fact because it worked for me.
RE: OA @ 489 –
Just go away code monkey. We have no time for liars.
In 9 years right out of undergrad, you paid off a house on the Eastside, had a family with 2 kids, paid off all your student debt, and have enough money to retire. You must think we are idiots. Oh yeah, and you came from a poor immigrant family, so you had no help.
That’s why I say beta code monkey. Beta traits are as follows: Lie, cheat, steal, scared of failure, scared to try new things. This describes you beta code monkey. Then you try to say something that sounds pretty at the end so I don’t call you out. You are a liar, please get rid of “OA” and come back as an honest person or go away. I don’t have a problem with successful people, I have a problem with liars.
I was going to calculate how much you’d have to make out of school to achieve that, but you aren’t worth my time. It would be like $300k/year right out of school. One thing I don’t like are liars and that is you.
RE: OA @ 489 –
If you want to lie, go to Facebook. At Seabub, we don’t like liars.
By Erik @ 490:
Let’s just move on, you don’t have to agree with me or believe me, this is a blog. Totally fine that the math doesn’t add up in your head, I’m not looking for validation here. Let’s keep it civil please!
An interesting graph about housing supply. On normal years, the supply is highest around Dec-Jan and then drops till summer. This year is reverse. It shows good increase in supply right now. Assuming the vaccination efforts go well, we should have good momentum of houses coming to the market by the summer and beyond.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSACSRNSA
RE: ruxpert @ 465 –
Washington DC Real Estate?
Radio-Theater
Far-Fetched, yet Intriguing listen/audiocog:
Regardless of what side you currently reside in the DemoRup Trap,
this appears to present some intriguing story-telling; you may enjoy?
Situation Update, Jan 12th, 2021 – Is Trump winning at unconventional warfare?
https://healthrangerreport.com/situation-update-jan-12th-2021-is-trump-winning-at-unconventional-warfare
RE: softwarengineer @ 488 –
Hey, thanks, real estate should be the foundation and stocks propel you forward faster. Not visa versa. People on here don’t want to believe that. Stocks and real estate work hand in hand.
Sucks for me if rates go up because I can’t refinance or get a federally backed loan until August. The federal reserve said they’d keep mortgage interest rates very low until 2023, but sometimes the Fed lies.
RE: Erik @ 495 – The really wealthy and successful people are entrepreneurs. You have got it all wrong.
The yield train has left the depot. I am calling for an above average Inflation this year. This is my third call for this year.
RE: Erik @ 495 –
You’re confusing the Fed overnight lending rate and mortgage rates. The Fed rate sets the floor for mortgage rates but mortgage rates are driven by their own supply and demand and many other factors.
RE: Eastsider @ 496 –
Yes, entrepreneur always win. Real estate investors are entrepreneurs and it’s easy to get in. I’m not sure why you ended with saying I got it all wrong?
The fed passed FAIT, the federally adjusted inflation target. The plan is to let inflation run high and we just printed tons of money. You’d be a complete fool if you thought inflation would run low. But thanks for stating the obvious.
RE: IsErikRichYet @ 497 –
The fed knows how to manipulate the market to keep rates low beyond setting the rate. What I’m saying is the fed will manipulate the market using the tools in their belt to keep rates low. Fed can create demand by loosening lending standards. They can make the federal funds rate positive.
RE: OA @ 492 -Nasty Eric doesn’t talk for all of us. He tries to dominant Tim’s blog. He’s boorish.