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Old 08-21-2014, 02:02 AM
 
1,018 posts, read 3,366,267 times
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due to the economic boom of the seattle area, anything thats within 25 miles of the seattle/bellevue area is getting too expensive to a point where its not even worth it to sacrifice paying 300k for a home with a 2 hour commute.


but how about the areas thats even further out? to the point where people will not live there to commute 3 hrs each way with traffic to DT seattle?, such as Arlington, mt Vernon, graham, Lacey, cle elum? would these areas still be around the same price since no one with a good job in the city center would even think about doing that crazy commute? or would some folks who works and lives in auburn just move to graham, and folks who work and live in Everett will move to Arlington, and prices just spreads out all over?
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Old 08-21-2014, 07:06 AM
 
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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There was a recent article in the Seattle Times about the prices in the "second-tier" areas going up faster. In other words, those homes with a longer commute such as Maple Vally, Auburn and Covington are going up at a faster rate than Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah. The reason is that their comparative affordability has created more demand.
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Old 08-21-2014, 09:52 AM
 
Location: Woodinville
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Quote:
Originally Posted by civic94 View Post
What suburb will still be affordable in 10, 20 years?
Tacoma.
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Old 08-21-2014, 10:56 AM
 
Location: Seattle
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Everett
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Old 08-21-2014, 11:11 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140 View Post
There was a recent article in the Seattle Times about the prices in the "second-tier" areas going up faster. In other words, those homes with a longer commute such as Maple Vally, Auburn and Covington are going up at a faster rate than Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah. The reason is that their comparative affordability has created more demand.

how about 3rd tier areas? 50 to 80 minutes driving time from DT seattle without traffic.
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Old 08-21-2014, 11:26 AM
 
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Originally Posted by civic94 View Post
how about 3rd tier areas? 50 to 80 minutes driving time from DT seattle without traffic.
Monroe, Arlington, Enumclaw, maybe Sultan. You're talking about towns that are pretty small at that distance.
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Old 08-21-2014, 11:46 AM
 
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People will probably just turn to renting. I know we've given up on buying for the time being. Don't really want to saddle myself down with a $500-600K mortgage when I've got kids off to college in a few years.
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Old 08-21-2014, 12:17 PM
 
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"Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future."- Yogi Berra

In 1968, Seattle was booming, Boeing was hiring like crazy, and home prices were going up like crazy. A couple of years later, after the Boeing bust, houses were practically being given away, and people were fleeing the city.
In 2006, Seattle was booming. Housing prices were declining in many other parts of the United States, but were continuing to go up in Seattle. people were saying that Seattle was different, that we were immune from a housing price decline, because we had Microsoft, we had Boeing, we had Amazon. Four years later, prices in south King County areas like Kent and Federal Way were down 40%+, and even the highly sought after places like Greenlake or Kirkland were down 15-20%.
So the assumption here is that things are going to keep growing like gangbusters. That might not happen. If it does, I anticipate that they will be continuing to build apartment buildings and low end condos. In LA, people commute 90 minutes for fairly low paying jobs because that's where the jobs are. In the Seattle area, places like Centralia will always remain relatively inexpensive. But what about places like Skyway, White Center, Rainier Beach? They're considered cheap now, thought of as ghetto. But they're also 15-20 minutes from downtown Seattle. What's going to happen to these places? Are richer people going to move there, because of their proximity to jobs? and if that happens, where are the people going to go who currently live there?
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Old 08-21-2014, 01:00 PM
 
5,075 posts, read 11,002,933 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140 View Post
There was a recent article in the Seattle Times about the prices in the "second-tier" areas going up faster. In other words, those homes with a longer commute such as Maple Vally, Auburn and Covington are going up at a faster rate than Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah. The reason is that their comparative affordability has created more demand.
The Times article included this bit:

Some real-estate experts caution that the annual gain in home prices based on sales may be a poor gauge of the true appreciation rate because the mix of houses selling in each period could vary significantly: For example, if there are more low-priced homes sold during one year and more high-priced homes sold the following year, the gain in median price will be inflated.

Which is probably the case since most of the areas highlighted as 'fastest appreciating' were also the ones with the lions share of distress sales, as well as investor buying. The article drew its conclusions based on average prices not resales, so there was no effort to differentiate between an regular resale and an investor that repaired a foreclosure and resold it at market rate causing a substantial gain in price.

As a result, I don't think it's possible to draw the conclusion that affordability is driving demand. Otherwise you'd expect more competition in the low end markets like Maple Valley to be comparatively greater.

Overview of 98038 Real Estate Trends (Maple Valley)

Median List Price $390K
Median List $/Sq Ft $173
Median Sale Price $344K
Median Sale $/Sq Ft $160
Median Sale / List 99.5%
Avg. Number of Offers 1.3

Avg. Down Payment 17.4%
Number of Homes Sold 178
Calculated using the last 90 days


Overview of 98117 Real Estate Trends (North Ballard)

Median List Price $570K
Median List $/Sq Ft $330
Median Sale Price $555K
Median Sale $/Sq Ft $365
Median Sale / List 103.8%
Avg. Number of Offers 2.7

Avg. Down Payment 29.0%
Number of Homes Sold 158
Calculated using the last 90 days

Although both zip codes had a similar number of closed sales, 98117 has more competition despite a median sale price over $200K (61%) higher on houses a lot older and smaller on average. I think it's fair to say that those outlying areas with poor access are acting as a relief from closer in higher priced areas. However less people overall are willing to put up with the commute.
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Old 08-21-2014, 02:26 PM
 
1,018 posts, read 3,366,267 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ira500 View Post
In the Seattle area, places like Centralia will always remain relatively inexpensive. But what about places like Skyway, White Center, Rainier Beach? They're considered cheap now, thought of as ghetto. But they're also 15-20 minutes from downtown Seattle. What's going to happen to these places? Are richer people going to move there, because of their proximity to jobs? and if that happens, where are the people going to go who currently live there?

In other cities places like these places slowly get gentrified, all it takes is 1 person to live there, and slowly others will follow. the folks who live there will move to a cheap suburb and then that suburb will become a "bad area".

I can see that the CD will become expensive sooner or later, its just too close to DT for it to remain the way it is.
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