Elizabeth Rhodes' Advice / Cheerleading Column No More
Elizabeth Rhodes' "Home Forum" column, home to a number of Seattle Bubble classics is coming to a close after 14 years of cheerleading:
Home Forum ends 14-year run
Home Forum ends 14-year run
For more than 14 years, Seattle Times reporter Elizabeth Rhodes has written the Home Forum column, answering some 2,000 of your questions about real estate.
When the column started, question-and-answer features were extremely popular. But readers' habits have changed, and interest in broader real-estate issues has never been stronger.
To reflect those changes, Rhodes will devote her time and expertise to coverage of one of the most challenging real-estate markets we have experienced.
This will be the last Home Forum column in print and the last Home Forum Extra online.
Thanks for your support over the years. Watch for more of Rhodes' work in the news pages of The Seattle Times.
Comments
It was fun taking a walk down memory lane reading those threads. My favorite part however was the comments. Especially where Tai adamantly stated that "Vuecrest" wouldn't be affected as there is a line of people trying to get in and you can't get in for under $1MM.
Let's see how that theory is holding up...
For starters...we have a home purchase for $1.675MM on Sept, 07, 2007
One year later...on the market for $1.498MM
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellevue/9663- ... ome/251209
another loser...
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellevue/9628- ... ome/250730
and a short sale here...bought in 3/2006 for 930k currently listed at $799k
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellevue/9671- ... ome/252160
Flip gone bad...
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellevue/9838- ... ome/506359
2 homes have sold in the last 6 months. One just squeaked out and one was sold at a loss
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellevue/733-9 ... ome/251973
So much for the "good neighborhood" theory.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2008/11/14/sign_of_the_times
Who will write about real estate now?
Maybe no one. If real-estate advertising has crashed then there is little reason to keep employing journalists to write about the industry. After all, journalists exist solely to create articles that generate advertising revenue.
It also doesn't help that few people are interested in reading depressing articles about real-estate. During the bubble years, stories about the riches to be made in home-ownership were lapped right up. By contrast, stories that keep reminding people how much money they are losing just don't have much appeal.
The same phenomena occurs in the business media. CNBC does just TERRIBLY in bear markets. There is a direct correlation to increases in stock prices and CNBC viewership.