{"id":417,"date":"2006-10-23T13:20:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-23T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?p=417"},"modified":"2011-12-23T11:27:23","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T19:27:23","slug":"anecdote-extravaganza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/23\/anecdote-extravaganza\/","title":{"rendered":"Anecdote Extravaganza"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a while since the last anecdote post, so I thought now would be a good time for an update.<\/p>\n

First up, let’s go way back to early June. Remember the million-dollar new construction in Redmond? It was originally listed in mid-May for $1,625,000<\/a>, and the last time we checked in<\/a> it had taken $130,000 in price reductions, dropping the price to $1,495,000. It has now been languishing on the market for 159 days<\/a>, and taken two more price drops\u2014$70,000 on 09\/05 and $150,000 on 10\/14\u2014for a new grand total of $350,000 (21%) off the original asking price. Do you smell that? I think that’s the smell of desperation.<\/p>\n

It’s been two or three months since my former coworker and her husband moved to California<\/a>, and their rural King County house still has not sold. However, the good news is that they did finally lower their asking price (though not by much), from $490,000 down to $480,000. I’m still predicting that they won’t sell for much more than $430,000.<\/p>\n

Remember my coworker that listed his rural Snohomish County home for $350,000<\/a>, then dropped down to $305,000 and announced that as the “*FINAL PRICE REDUCTION*”? Well apparently he wasn’t kidding, because after receiving no bites for weeks at that price, the house was taken off the market, and hasn’t reappeared in the months since. I know that he has moved to Moses Lake, so I can only assume that he is now paying two mortgages and hoping that next spring will save him.<\/p>\n

I got an email from a friend (that I don’t see often enough) a few weeks ago, enthusiastically telling me that he and his wife had just bought a condo… in Kent. From what I can tell, they paid just over $200,000. I didn’t even know they were looking. I still haven’t responded to him, because I just don’t know what to say… all I can think of is “that’s exciting.”<\/p>\n

Lastly, lest I be accused of cherry-picking only the most dismal-sounding stories, I offer the following tale from the Fremont \/ Greenlake area. I mentioned this friend’s story in passing<\/a>, but (by request) I was saving the full story until after the closing date. After doing some relatively inexpensive (under $5,000) sprucing up to improve “curb appeal,” the house was listed in the $450-$475k range. They collected offers for a week, receiving a total of 11 offers (five of them over $500k!), and eventually closed for over $510,000.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that before listing, when my friend asked his agent “what is available in this neighborhood for under $500k” the answer was “nothing.” It is also worth pointing out that Zillow’s estimate of his home’s value came in at around $535k. While I don’t think the close-in neighborhoods are likely to slow as much as those further out, I think his “price low and see where the bidding process takes you” strategy was a good one (it’s what I recommended he do when he told me he was selling his home). As far as I can tell, that seems to be the best way of determining a home’s true “market value.”<\/p>\n

So what have you been seeing “on the streets” lately?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a while since the last anecdote post, so I thought now would be a good time for an update. First up, let’s go way back to early June. Remember the million-dollar new construction in Redmond? 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