Seattle Housing Slowing?? (Redmond, Pacific: for sale, real estate market, foreclosures)

[sunnyforever]

What is the general view on on how housign is in Seattle? We are selling how home and looking to take 30% less than what it could sell for last year. Is that the general trend? I hoem seen already any traffic last month. Our reatlor thinks it was a bad month becuase of the weather. Any thoughts? I hate to drop lower than we risking going below what we could afford to except.

[Meerteekah]

Depends who you ask. Might want to check out the blog called Seattle Bubble (Seattle Bubble — News & discussion about real estate & the housing bubble in the Seattle area.) and the one called The Housing Bubble (The Housing Bubble Blog). Both have been tracking home prices, the former in the PNW and the latter nationally, as well as the progression of the "bust." For another site with good round-up of links (done on a daily basis), see the right sidebar of this one: Housing Crash Continues, Bubble Pops

I know that with the chance of our moving to the Eastside this summer, I've been keeping watch on prices on homes and on rentals for a month now. Home prices are going down and, oddly, I've noticed more homes for rent this past week at a lower price than I'd been expecting (ie 3+ bedroomss and 2 bath homes, Eastside). Maybe folks who had thought to sell now are gonna rent and wait and see what happens?

In either case, if the ones predicting that bottom has more or less been reached and prices will start to rise again latter 08 to early 09 are right, the wait is a good idea. If the ones predicting a lower bottom is coming for Seattle (as the city trend lags national graphs for descent), then selling now may be better (even taking less), unless one can wait years to sell.

I figure the RE folks on this forum will have some good advice, but do your homework. Spend a few hours googling RE and economic blogs and sites and see what the national and local pictures are saying.

Me, I'm gonna wait to buy. If there is still a bigger bottom coming, I wanna take advantage.

I will note that my area is one of the hardest hit. I'm seeing home prices at 2003 levels in places where we'd gone house-hunting years ago, but didn't buy. I'm talking easily losses of 50-100K in price. And for more than a month, I've seen new condos and townhomes STARTING at 90K, and SFH starting around 200K. That was unheard of just a year ago. We didn't buy simply because by 2004, the prices were more than we were prepared to pay, even with 70K down that we had in cash. I simply refused to have a high mortgage on top of the insurance (which is crazy in FL) and taxes (argh). We assumed we'd just stay in our humble, paid-off abode and be satisfied. Now, I'm very, very glad we didn't buy a house with an inflated price. We can get, easily, what we'd wanted in 2004 for LESS than they were selling for back then. (If we stay in So FL that is and not move to more expensive Seattle area.)

For the first time in 34 years, I will be living in a rental if we move to Seattle...and wait to see if the housing $$$ become friendlier to the middle class wallet. We'll keep our 70K down payment in the bank, earning interest, until we sell our home here (bad, bad, bad time to sell in FL) and then have a good chunk for a home.

As far as buyers being scarce--I think lots of buyers, like us, are in the "waiting to see if we can get bargains" mode. And some of us are stuck--until we can sell our homes (and many of us just can't right now due to market conditions unless we cut the price down to be competitive with hundreds of foreclosures and auction sales), we cant' buy. It's wait and see, wait and see.

Then there's the credit "crunch." We have superb credit. We have 20% down at hand (for a home up to350K, which is still more than I wanna spend, frankly, unless it's fabulous). I think we could get a 30 yr loan. But lots of folks are currently having trouble coming up with the down payment (becoming more and more required by banks) and even if they have the D.P., do they have excellent credit? Without that, even if they love your house and want it, they are not gonna be able to buy. Plus, 30 yr mortgate interest rates are going UP, not down (despite Fed slashes).

It's a terrible time for sellers, because there's a house glut in many areas. (The Wall Street Journal says expect more "pain" till next year, at least: Another Full Year Of Housing Pain? - WSJ.com)

It's a so-so time for most buyers, I think (cause of uncertainty and credit crunch). And no one really knows what's gonna happen in the near-term. Long, long terms, real estate is always gonna trend up, I think. In the short term, it's diving. (As it should. The correction is way overdue. The housing inflation was insane, and we are paying for the insanity.) It's wild out there.

We're all losing home value (those of us who were prudent, and those of us who weren't are in the boat.) But the way to compare your home is not what it was worth at the peak of the insane boom. It's what it's worth compared to when you bought it, if you bought it pre-boom. I'm guessing you still gained.



Mirtika<--hoping I don't have to move, cause I dont' want to deal with the real estate market right now

PS--for a humorous-satirical take on the terrible situation now: WaMu Walks Away From Mortgage on Downtown Headquarters | The Naked Loon

[CityGirl72]

My post is not as long and informative as Meerteekah

The house next to ours went up for sale in Oct for 540K, 4 bedroom 2 bath nothing fancy...

They brought it down to 520K, then 499K...6 months later no bite...wannaknow something?? Even that TV Show "House Hunters" was in Seattle and my next door neighbors house was one of the choices!! Even they didn't choose it

But when you see the show you'll see my house on the side

So it's a rental now...a 500K house is a rental for college students!

I fear the same will happen to our when we move

[Meerteekah]

CityGirl, there's more than one 'House Hunters" listed for Seattle.

Is it this one: Shows A - Z : House Hunters : Busting the Seams in Seattle : Home & Garden Television

Or this one: House Hunters - Settling in Seattle - Yahoo! TV

Sounds like it was this one (mentions a four bedroomer): At Home : Buying Homes : The Hunt : Home & Garden Television (http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/ah_real_estate_buying/article/0,,HGTV_3159_2331381,00.html - broken link)

[CityGirl72]

Nope - they were just here,

I don't think it's out yet (I saw that one with the guy taking pictures I know it's not that episode)

Maybe it's that one showing in June - it looked like a newleywed couple - here are picture my husband took from our window (we were on maternity leave)

http://tinyurl.com/2og4cd (broken link)


http://tinyurl.com/3ywkzt (broken link)

[ST CRoix To Seattle]

We recently moved hoping to buy a Home in Alki Beach,we have a house in Illahee that we stay in now..The prices in Alki Beach has started dropping since Feb when we got here.I long believed Seattle would miss the downturn as jobs seem to be plentiful,but now I have my eye on a house and with the way things are going It might be around in late 08/early 09 when we get back to seriously looking...

[Meerteekah]

I hope you get a nice house at a good price. I like some of the neighborhoods I've researched in West Seattle. A Sound view is nice, huh?

Thanks for the pics, CityGirl. I want to see that episode! (I'm guessing hubby will need to make a decision on whether we go to Seattle within 2 weeks. Sigh. I hate upheavals.)

I know I wouldn't buy unless it was under 350. That sounds unrealistic, I know, given we want a house, not a condo or townhome (hubby drums and writes music in spare time, so I doubt adjoining walls is a good idea!). But, ya never know. I've seen prices plunge here, and in researching So Calif, I've seen prices plunging there (though, granted, California has a stratospheric market and needed to plunge bigtime).

If I saw a cool, suitable house in a good neighborhood under 350K--the dream is not dead!-- the temptation would be huge to buy. Huge. If it was 300K, I would run like a madwoman to buy, prolly. I think maybe I dream too big, but..hey...why not?

We could find a great house for 290K here now--3 to four bedrooms, some with water views, yards, some with pools!--and it's been my arguing point with hubby to take a job with soemone other than the Redmond Giant (MSFT). We'd be able to really have the kind of house we want, even if he took a smaller salary and we could RENT this one and be nearby.

Alas, it's not all up to moi.

On the plus side, if we moved to Seattle and rented, we'd have to learn to simplify (ie, get rid of all the stuff we've accumulated in 25 years of marriage) and I might attend Seattle-Pacific U for my master's, a u whose lit journal I've been reading for a decade.

M.

[Ira500]

House prices started dropping in most parts of the country before they started dropping in Seattle. In most of the US, the peak was reached in late '05-early'06, where here it was July '07. We have a seen a decline in prices just about every month since then, and there's no reason the decline is going to let up anytime soon.
So, since our decline started later, we haven't dropped as much as other cities. We're down about 8% since the peak, as opposed to 20-25% in other areas.
There are a variety of opinions both amongst the general public and those in the real estate industry. Many folks in the real estate industry believe that Seattle's decline will be much shallower and shorter lasting than elsewhere because of our strong economy...I'm in the minority on this one. There is a huge inventory of homes for sale, and the rate of sales have slowed considerably. Yes, there are some bargains to be had, but for now many prospective buyers are wisely waiting for further price drops at the same time that some sellers are stubbornly refusing to lower prices, thinking that if they just hold out, all this bad news will go away.
I'll also second Merkeetah's recommendation of Seattle Bubble.
It's got a lot of hard stats, but also a wide range of opinions, including my own. I post there fairly regularly.

[woodinvilleguy]

Well, we just sold our house. The starting price was 640, ended up selling at 560. IMHO, they got a great deal. The house was on the market exactly 6 months. Nothing else in our neighbrhood has moved in the last 3 months.

The housing prices are all relative. They have come down here as well so it all works out. At some point in time, the prices will swing up and then you just don't want to be in between. Sell Low, buy low is better than Sell High Buy high, since the price gap is larger. Much much better than Sell Low buy High.......

[CityGirl72]

Our problem is we need a certain amount out of it, I don't know how to price the house. I know what we "need" and it's actually a comparable price to the homes in the neighborhood. But I don't want to be so underbid it hurts us.

Do you start higher and then take our "needed price"? Example - the house could have sold for 580K in January, but it needs to be priced to sell right? We could handle 540K...to live on

So do I price it higher then 540K and let people bid less? Or price it at 540K and then people are STILL going to want less right???

540K is what we need. My husband thinks the market will give us 490K...which we could not re-buy a house for that amount (we have to give the majority of money we get to my MIL it's not for us)