Months of Unsold Inventory?
From out of state (Atlanta, GA) with a friend in Seattle who we may be going into a house together on, partly so my wife and I can get a foothold back into Seattle where I grew up and partly so that he doesn't lose his. :shock:
I've always looked at months unsold as one of several gauges to determine where the market is going, nation wide I think it was 3 months unsold during the height of the bubble, now it's 10months. Personally I'm queasy anytime it gets above 6months because that level of accumulating inventory seems a good forecaster of bad things to come.
I've been trying in vain to find out what the current unsold inventory is in Seattle - is it close to the national average of 10months or lower? Is it lower than 6 months (I'd be suprised but hey you never know). I just can't get out of my mind that a dollar spent in Seattle gets me far less than a dollar spent nearly anywhere else in the country for real-estate. Still since this isn't purely an investment decision we might try and find a foreclosure we can partner up in to fix. (We don't flip houses so it would be a minimum 5-10 year outlook on ownership.)
BTW I know it's hard to consider ever leaving the beautiful northwest, but even with the deflation in housing prices some of ya'll (<--- see southern influences) could live like land barons down here in the south. Atlanta has about 2000-5000 foreclosures a month so it really is a buyer's market and a $100-125k will get you a nice 20 year old home, ~2000-3000sqft on an acre of land or so on a foreclosure.
I've always looked at months unsold as one of several gauges to determine where the market is going, nation wide I think it was 3 months unsold during the height of the bubble, now it's 10months. Personally I'm queasy anytime it gets above 6months because that level of accumulating inventory seems a good forecaster of bad things to come.
I've been trying in vain to find out what the current unsold inventory is in Seattle - is it close to the national average of 10months or lower? Is it lower than 6 months (I'd be suprised but hey you never know). I just can't get out of my mind that a dollar spent in Seattle gets me far less than a dollar spent nearly anywhere else in the country for real-estate. Still since this isn't purely an investment decision we might try and find a foreclosure we can partner up in to fix. (We don't flip houses so it would be a minimum 5-10 year outlook on ownership.)
BTW I know it's hard to consider ever leaving the beautiful northwest, but even with the deflation in housing prices some of ya'll (<--- see southern influences) could live like land barons down here in the south. Atlanta has about 2000-5000 foreclosures a month so it really is a buyer's market and a $100-125k will get you a nice 20 year old home, ~2000-3000sqft on an acre of land or so on a foreclosure.
Comments
King county has less supply than the nation, but we are at around 7 months, which even the Realtors claim is a buyer's market. Now they just have to convince the sellers.
We don't have a lot of foreclosures yet, but I'm seeing more and more. I probably wouldn't go that route unless you have experience with it.
But there are pre-foreclosure short sales, where the lender has agreed to accept less than the amount owed, and some of those are baragains, but they are not for the impatient.
Also, if a property does not sell at the foreclosure auction, it becomes an REO ( bank owned) property, and then becomes a bit less risky than at the auction.
Every property we've bought has been a fixer-upper REO, fortunately my wife manages the fix-up process and can do most activities herself to code, or know what it takes to manage the subcontractors. I'm not too worried about the rebuilding issues - mainly about which neighorhoods are "nice" these days, all my information is dated pre-Kingdom implosion. I.e., I see some nice deals in Beacon Hill near Boeing Field -has that area improved since 1998? Used to be that you avoided south of I90 as a general rule of thumb but on a recent trip back West Seattle was looking much better.
Years.
Many Many Years.
Thanks very much for the link - looking at the trends it still looks like it's going the wrong way for what we might be interested in. I'll keep an eye open though to see if it changes over time.
I assume as Seattle goes, so Washington goes? Bellingham, Olympia, Tri-Cities - are they slumping as well?
Condos in some are at 11 months supply while single family non-condo homes are at 4.