Windermere Real Estate recently announced they have established a No Fee, No Interest Bridge Loan for their buyer clients.  Borrowers will have up to 6 months of no interest payments.  Closing costs for fixed expenses such as Title Insurance and Recording Fees will apply.  Please contact Betsy directly for further details.  Limitations do apply.

October 8, 2009

Seattle has tied with Washington D.C. as the Next, Hot Youth-Magnet City; according to a report issued by The Wall Street Journal.    The Journal notes that the city has a relatively low unemployment rate and the perfect combination of city life and nature.   But we already knew that.

Employment growth in the areas of music, biotech and interactive media lead the way in interesting young job seekers.

October 5, 2009

As a longtime Habitat for Humanity volunteer, I was pleased to see that Habitat is now the Number One volume private builder in the U.S.  Habitat ranks Number 11 nationally, when considering both private and publicly traded homebuilders.

September 23, 2009

Pending sales in the 4 County Puget Sound area increased 25.7% over 2008 numbers.  Overall, NWMLS Pending sales rose nearly 21% over August 2008.  Inventory of available homes has dropped 18% over last year.  Increasing sales and reduced inventory indicate a stabilization of prices is occuring.

August is usually an extremely slow Real Estate sales month, but this year looks like a welcome aberration!  The term "Multiple Offer" is even being heard again.  I can attest to that, as my listing at 14316 NE 12th Pl in Bellevue received 2 strong offers last week and is now Pending.

Sep 11, 2009

King County home sales continue to improve in August, a usually slow home sales month.  The NWMLS reports that sales increased 5% over August 2008.  This is the 3rd consecutive month that sales increases have been reported.  Not only entry level buyers are closing on home purchases.  The area with the greatest increase in sales volume was West Bellevue/Medina with a 169% increase and Queen Anne/Magnolia with a 74 % increase.  The Greater Eastside saw the number of sales hold almost identical, although with a 10.3% drop in prices.  This is an improvement over the 15% drops seen earlier this year. 

Sep 6, 2009

Washington State's Chief Economist, Arun Raha, says that although the recovery is still quite fragile, the current recession appears to have ended; both for Washington Stae and the nation.  Raha's latest quarterly report says indicators are moving upward; after drops reported in March and level rates in June.  Raha also mentions unexpected strength in Western Europe and East Asia as factors in his proclamation.

Sep 5, 2009

You saw it here first.  Several economists pronounced that the most severe economic recession since the Great Depression is now history.  This followed key early data for August, which showed stronger than expected information.   John Ryding at RDQ Econimics and Milan Mulraine at TD Securities are two of the pronouncing specialists. 

Sep 2, 2009

The Standard & Poor/Case-Schiller US National Home Price Index was released today and showed that 2nd quarter home prices increased 3% over the first quarter of 2009.  Those prices are still down over last year.  This index sets home values in the year 2000 at an index of 100.  That index stands at 133 for National 2nd quarter numbers.  Monthly numbers are reported with a two month lag.

In Seattle, the index sits at 149.53 for the month of June; holding steady with a slight up and down for the last 4 months.  March 149.03/April 149.38/May 148.96/June 149.53.  The last time Seattle was as high as 149.53 was June 2005 at 151.79.

August 25, 2009

For the first time since 2004, the typical King County Family can again afford the typical King County House.  The Washington Center for Real Estate Research's Housing Affordability Index is over 100%.  That means the typical family earns 2.4% more than they would need to buy that typical house; currently valued at $387,500.  The double digit reduction of home prices over the last few years covers the levelling out of incomes in this slow economy.

August 26, 2009

Time is running out to take advantage of the First Time Homebuyer's Credit of $8000.  Home purchases must be closed by November 30.  With (non-Short Sale) purchases taking 30-60 days to close, buyers only have about 40 days left to negotiate a contract to purchase the right home for them

Further details are available at Realtor.com.

 http://www.realtor.org/home_buyers_and_sellers/2009_first_time_home_buyer_tax_credit

August 20, 2009

S & P/Case-Shiller reported their latest housing index information on July 28, 2009.  For the Seattle metropolitan area, the index value (based at 100 in 2000) was 148.96; nearly level with the last two reported months index of 149.38 and 149.03  The index numbers have a two month lag, so the latest information released was for May 2009.

The value of 148.96 was at the same level in May 2005.

July 29, 2009

While previewing homes for a listing appointment in Snoqualmie Ridge, I was able to chat with a site agent for Murray Franklyn; a well-respected local builder.  The site agent did state that listings in the neighborhood were down by about 30% and that she had seen several offers for her inventory over the last 2 weeks.

Quadrant Homes, which specializes in affordable homes and is the state's top volume homebuilder; increased local production by 50% last month.  They are completing 3 homes a day now, but still down from a high of 7 per day in 2007.  That's a move in the right direction, for sure.

National new home sales production rose 11%, as reported yesterday by the Department of Commerce.

July 28, 2009

Based on how often this stament is apearing in both local and national sources regarding Real Estate,  it seems it just may be the case.  Today in the Seattle Times Business TimesWatch:

"Housing: Sales up, prices low and flat-are we at the bottom?"

July 26, 2009

Second quarter single family home sales in the West Bellevue area improved 124% in Volume and 27% in Median Closed Sales Prices; over the first quarter of 2009.  The  Median Sales Price is $1,080,000; which is back to slightly higher than the Second Quarter 2005 Median of $955,000.

For all of King County; Volume improved 85% and Median Closed Sales Prices improved 3.9%.  The Median price of $387,500 is also slightly higher than the Second Quarter 2005 Median of $370,000.

July 24, 2009

The Dow Jones closed up 187 points on July 23, 2009.  Analysts gave credit to the improving national Real Estate Market.  Alan Zibel of the Associated Press, states that "The housing market is finally emerging from the 3 year crisis that pushed the nation into the the longest recession since the Great Depression". For the first time in 5 years, sales of previously occupied homes rose for the 3rd month in a row.

Check this blog shortly for King County specific information.

July 24, 2009

I showed condominium homes to a client of mine about a month back.  We looked at Seattle buildings and Eastside buildings.  Because he was interested in a larger unit, most of the possibilities were in new buildings in Bellevue.  He and I were both impressed with Bellevue Towers, on the site of the old Puget Power building.

The units were well-designed, as were the common spaces.  The park between the two towers is quite amazing.  My client was fairly interested but concerned  about falling values; especially since so few of the units were sold and the site agent indicated flexibility of 10-15% of the listed prices.  Now I see in The Times and the Multiple that prices have been reduced 20%.  Seems like it might be a good time to make a deal on a new condo.

Not sure how long it will take, but the Times article alludes to a future condo shortage; because so few units (none?) are currently under construction.  Seems to me like we are set for a while; it will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few years.

July 17, 2009

June's low interest rates, high inventory and motivated buyers led to the highest King County sales since October 2007.   Mercer Island, West, South & East Bellevue; along with Issaquah all posted year over year increases.  It looks like all the first time buyer activity, which has been spurred by low interest rates and the $8000 government credit is leading to an increase in those sellers becoming move-up buyers.

Pending sales (sold but not closed) are up 25% over 2008.  We'll have to wait and see how that relates to closings as many of these Pendings are Short Sales awaiting approval from the lenders.  There could be a negative effect on overall values when these sales close.

July 15, 2009

The Case-Schiller home price index for the Seattle area rose for the first time in a year, from March to April.  The uptick for the Seattle area was slight (.23%).  The index still dropped 16.8% over April 2008; which marks Seattle as the 9th best-performing major real estate market in the country.  The average 12 month drop was 18.1%. 

July 1, 2009

Windermere Real Estate has just made it a lot easier to search for Sunday Open Houses.   Starting on July 1, 2009; Windermere will be sweeping the NorthWest Multiple Listing Service for Open Houses on all listings, whether Windermere listings or those of another agency.  As of July 1, you can  go to www.Windermere.com and search for Open Houses.  All Open houses, regardless of listing agency, will show up here.  By having all Open Houses on the Windermere site, we hope to make our website even more useful to the public.  As always, I would love to hear your feedback about the Windermere website.

June 29, 2009

For the first time in 20 weeks, the jobless benefit rolls have dropped.  The tally of new jobless claims also dipped, the Labor Department stated today.  This is a glimmer of good news as the drops were small and both rates are still above the levels of a healthy economy.