Buy quickly this spring?
Hi everyone- Someone wrote on the blog yesterday something along the lines of "make your offfers quickly this spring because lots of people will be making offers when the weather changes" (I'm paraphrasing, can't remember exactly how it was worded). I didn't think much of this comment yesterday, but woke up this morning thinking "wait, what?" The comment is now gone because the thread was cleaned up -- rightly so as the thread was starting to go off topic. Would the person who wrote this comment mind elaborating? I thought we were all waiting for the "bloodbath" in the spring so we have more to choose from and pay less? Merci!
Comments
We are years away from a point where any sane person would "invest" in an asset that is 100% guaranteed to lose value.
Combine that with a job environment where there is also a 100% probability that many jobs in our area will be lost and you have the "perfect storm" to knock prices back to where they should have been all along plus some "undershoot".
So is next spring a good time to buy or make an offer? :twisted:
I doubt there will be a net loss of jobs, given all the new office space being built.
My neighborhood has more sales signs and no sales. Guess your neighborhood is moving faster or your neighbor was lucky. Must be a better locale or pink ponies, take your pick.
I know I've written this before and I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but we are looking at close-in city (you know, the three areas that experienced >15%, >5%, and >5% YOY appreciation for Nov despite the overall 0% YOY for the county), with a $200K down payment and looking to own for at least ten years. I'm not in Bellevue or other outlying areas, and I'm not looking at short-term flipper investments. Not everyone fits that bill. My husband and friends think I'm nuts for continuing to wait it out while the prices keep going up up up in Wallingford/GreenLake/Phinney/QA, and after seeing the numbers in the paper this morning, I'm starting to believe that maybe I am nuts for insisting on waiting. It ain't happening north of the cut yet still, no signs whatsoever for those not interested in townhouses, and I'm sorry, but being a renter in North Seattle really really bites.
Perhaps the person who posted the comment does not read the forum, so we should just forget I asked. Thanks anyways-
I'm thinking you may have misread the comment, because Tim doesn't generally delete any comments unless they are really inappropriate - and the only comment close to that I read were in this thread
I wouldn't get too stressed about changes in the median at that level of granularity. 700/705/710 were up - but 390 was down by 10%. Madison Park and North Capital Hill are still pretty desirable close in neighborhoods - I doubt they are moving that differently than those other areas. You are dealing with small samples and a measure with an inherently high degree of volatility.
As to the "spring bounce", it could happen, who knows. I'd say make your own call on the market fundamentals: cost and availability of credit, inventory, economic strength; and decide for yourself if you think that the current trend of 4 months of falling prices is going to turn around based on that info - especially in light of a national market that is pretty consistently horrible.
I wish I had bought on QA myself, but then I couldn't afford it there even 10 years ago. One thing you get when you buy in places like that is high liquidity when you sell, including some imperviousness to bubbles. That's what you're seeing in the paper. You pay a premium to get in, you get it rebated when you get out.
If you have/will have kids, keep in mind that the most popular/expensive places are increasingly lacking children. For example, look at the playgrounds on QA. The park at Greenlake still packs them in though.
As I've said here before, the unofficial word on the inside is this expansion is mostly to accommodate existing employees, not a tidal wave of new hires. Lord knows employees are crammed into main campus like sardines. Five years of employment gets you doubled up without a window office in my product right now. I've heard we're at 50% over occupancy in my building.
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I know that this home is of very good quality and 50K reduction overall from original listed (bubble) price should be good enough.
I'm very eager to close the deal before Christmas. But there is something bothering me on whether I should wait longer for more negotiation. Already I have seen increased number of people visiting the open houses and that is also a negative sign for buying.
Please help!
Clarification: it is a negative sign for waiting.
You are correct, the Microsoft leases in Downtown Bellevue and SLU are for existing employees only...this is not an expansion. Also, a large portion of new construction in Redmond is to house server areas and lab space...not offices for new employees.
My girlfriend works for MSN and they are crammed four to what would traditionally be a double office...not pretty.
The only quote I read that was similar to that was when Markor said the following: However, Markor said earlier that the way you paraphrased it wasn't anything he said, so I'm guessing you misinterpreted the comment.
Also, Deejayoh is correct in that I don't delete comments. The only exceptions to this are overtly inflammatory, excessively foul, or spam comments.
Some new hires in my building are crammed 4 people into a single, and those are FTEs. They've also turned most of the informal lounge spaces into cube farms, and actually cut the copy room in half on each floor to squeeze one extra office out of them. I know several people that have transferred to other products because of the lack of office space. It's not pretty at all.
Microsoft continuously needs ambitious new talent, to offset the existing work force that gets one year older & lazier every year and is tough to cull.
and to make up for the ones that spend all day posting on seattle bubble
Here's why I worry about all those cranes. Lenders may not be so lucky this time...
That's easy! You appraise it base on the year it completes construction.