Seattle Real Estate Bells

Washington State Adopts a New Statue that May Harm Distressed Homeowners

Home Foreclosures Reach an all time high in the US

It was reported this week by CNN Money that Home Foreclosures in the U.S. has toped 1,000,000 with Nevada, Arizona, California, and Florida accounting for 89% of the total of all Foreclosures. California, Nevada, Florida, Arizona and Michigan exhibited the greatest price depreciation in all transactions in the first quarter. While Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Texas and Alabama saw prices for all transactions increase the most. According to the NWMLS the Seattle market also saw a slight increase in sale prices as well over the last two months.

And as people were loosing their homes at the highest rate on record for the first three months of this year, there are new scams popping up everywhere to rip off and take advantage of stressed out, non English speaking, and unsuspecting homeowners that are willing to do almost anything to save their home. The worst of these scams is called Equity Skimming. The simplified version is : A Buyer will write an offer (below market value) for the home and then promises to rent the home back to the seller so they can stay in their home and when their fiances improve they can buy the home back. This Buyer then resells the home for a higher price and keeps all the equity that the seller had in the home and the seller has no place to live and has lost all their equity.

To help protect these vulnerable homeowners 17 States have passed new legislation pertaining to foreclosures and short sales. The State of Washington passed the new law that took effect Thursday June 12, 2008. And while the law has good intentions, many believe that it will end up hurting those it was intended to help. Apparently, Washington's new law was copied from the State of Wisconsin and there are many contradictions in this new law with our already existing Agency law. There is also so much vague language in the law that it’s impossible to interpret. Of the 17 states that passed a similar law, Washington is the only state that is holding Realtors responsible if something goes wrong. The law exempts financial institutions, mortgage brokers, mortgage loan servicers, credit counselors, and licensed attorneys, not real estate licensees. All the other state exempt real estate agents. The law also awards attorney fees and damages up to $100,000.

Now, I’m sure there are people out there that would say well those blank blank Realtors are a bunch of crooks and make too much money anyway so they deserve huge fines. And I agree…if we do something wrong or take advantage of some unsuspecting seller we should be responsible. And while I think that many Realtors don’t do that great of a job representing their clients best interests, I also don’t believe there are very many Realtors that are dishonest or would knowingly take advantage of someone or create an Equity Skimming scam of some sort.

But what this new law will do, in my opinion and many others, is force most Realtors to “stay the heck away” from Foreclosures and Short Sales. All a Realtor has to do to become a Distress Property Consultant and be subject to all the new laws and liabilities is to basically try to help sell that distressed property, as a Listing Agent of a Selling Agent. A Distressed Homeowner is the owner and occupant of a dwelling who is: 1. at risk of loosing the home for non-payment of taxes. 2. are in default under a mortgage. 3. are 30 days behind on a mortgage or 4. believes he or she "could" default on the mortgage within 4 months and tells a lawyer, real estate agent, lender, mortgage or credit counselor. But the Distressed Homeowner has NO duty to notify the real estate agent that they are a Distressed Homeowner, there doesn’t need to be a public notice of mortgage default to become Distressed, and the owners may not even know they are a Distressed Homeowner. Yikes! If they don’t know how are we supposed to know? Fortunately the NWMLS has just provided us with a new Listing Agreement that will hopefully cover this part somewhat.

Now the new law also defines what a dwelling is. A dwelling is a single, duplex, triplex, or four-unit family residential building. Condominiums in building more that 4 units are not subject to this statue…maybe they don’t have condos in Wisconsin. So if you don’t live in the home or if your unit is in a condo of 5 or more units this statue doesn’t apply to you. OK?

So how does a Realtor become a Distress Home Consultant? It’s pretty easy. They solicit or contact Distressed Homeowners and offer to perform any service that will:
• Stop or delay a foreclosure sale (try to sell the home)
• Assist a Distressed Homeowner to Obtain a loan (try to help refinance)
• Save the home from Foreclosure (sell the home)
• Close the sale within 20 days of the foreclosure (stay away from this one)
• Systematically contact distressed homeowners (mailings, phone calls, Blogs or ads)
• Draft a seller lease-back or an option to buy the home back

From what we have been told, one thing an agent should never do under any circumstances is draft or arrange a lease-back or buy-back for a distressed homeowner.

Let’s talk about another huge flaw in this statue. If a transaction to purchase a distressed property closes within 20 days of the foreclosure date then both the selling agent (that's the buyers agent) and the actual buyer become Distressed Home Consultants and owe fiduciary duties to the seller that are above their own. WOW! You have to be kidding me. If a buyer makes an offer on a home that will close within 20 days of the foreclosure date they have to put the sellers interest above their own or they can be held responsible for non-compliance and if found that they “got too good of a deal say” they can be sued for actual damages, plus double or triple damages of up to $100,000 and attorney and court costs. That’s has to be a pretty good home to buy. Under those circumstances we certainly wouldn’t want to be that selling agent and we would most likely advise our buyer client not to buy the home.

So how does a smart Realtor avoid all this? They don’t get involved with distressed home sales at all. This law was written to help protect the homeowner but instead we believe it will greatly hurt the homeowner because most realtors will not be willing to take on such risks. These Distressed Homeowners really need our help. Their best chance of getting out of all this is to sell the home before foreclosure. Maybe the credit counselors or attorneys can market and sell their homes? Do you think we need a revision to this law? Do you think we need a totally new law? But that can’t happen until about this time next year! So instead of getting many of these homes sold the banks will be taking them back and then selling them most likely in bulk, flooding the market and eroding home prices even more. Do you really think it matters whom we vote for?

Seattle/Bellevue Luxury Home Sales Have Increase Every Year Since 2001

Luxury Home sales in the Greater Seattle Area from 2001 to 2007

A Luxury home is valued at 1 million or more
*Source: NWMLS

Year........................Number of Sales..............................*Average Sales Price

2001..................................291.........................................$1,557,002
2002..................................453.........................................$1,508,945
2003..................................598.........................................$1,511,012
2004..................................933.........................................$1,642,545
2005................................1,601.........................................$1,619,431
2006................................2,093.........................................$1,585,985
2007................................2,290.........................................$1,616,722

Top 10 Luxury Real Estate Markets in the US
According to the U.S. Census, the number of homes in the U.S. valued at 1 million or more have increased 470% between 2000 to 2005.

State.............................# of Luxury Homes...................% of Total Homes

1. California...............................619,170................................8.76%
2. New York...............................165,641................................4.21%
3. Florida...................................102,010................................2.08%
4. New Jersey.............................61,523.................................2.91%
5. Massachusetts.........................54,156.................................3.45%
6. Illinois....................................43,533.................................1.33%
7. Connecticut.............................40,578.................................4.41%
8. Virginia...................................38,725.................................1.92%
9. Maryland.................................35,835.................................2.49%
10. Washington..............................28,704................................1.81%

Between 2000 and 2007 housing prices in the greater Seattle area increased by close to 100% in some areas, while some waterfront and high-end trophy homes increased by even more, 200% to 300% in some cases. In some areas in the U.S. like the wealthiest parts of Manhattan, along with parts of Boston, San Francisco, and parts of Florida for example, some properties have increased by as much as about 500% over that 7-year period. And still, in 2008, the condo and co-op prices in Manhattan have continue to appreciate by about 5%.

In the Seattle/Eastside markets the high end market has been affected much less than the rest of the market. Prices have not really fallen and the number of sales actually went up a little over 9% from 2006 or an additional 197 homes were sold in the over 1 million price range in 2007.

The Seattle area has the same characteristics as other strong high end markets. We have a scarcity of land close to the city. We have a robust population growth, a strong and diverse economy, and good income growth by the highest earners.

Almost 80% of the high end homes in Washington that have sold over the past few years have been in King County, with about 60% of those sales being on the Eastside, Bellevue, Kirkland, and Mercer Island. We think there could be a shift in demand over the next couple of years however, to more close-in Seattle city properties. Raising fuel prices and of course traffic congestion will continue to temp homebuyers to live closer in to the city placing higher demand for those properties as well. While many areas of this country are really hard hit with Foreclosures and falling prices, Seattle is one of the few that is holding it’s own. This is one of the best times we have had in Seattle for Byers in many years and there are some great deals to be had on many high-end homes right now.

PART 2 - How David & Karen Bell Work with Buyers to Purchase Good Homes in the Seattle Real Estate Market

This is Part 2 to our Post of June 9 on what we do to help people buy good homes in Seattle

We also go back and look at all the Expired and Cancelled Listings that fit our client’s requirements. At some point these people wanted to sell their homes. The home didn’t sell for some reason; usually it was priced too high. We talk with these homeowners and let them know that we may have a client that could be interested in their home and would they be interested in letting us take a look at it. If they are interested we’ll go and look at the home and at that time talk to them about why they thought it didn’t sell and try to determine how motivated they might be to sell. By looking at it we would then also know ourselves why it didn’t sell. If they are still interested is selling it and are motivated and realistic about the price and it’s a good home in a good location then we would set up a time to show it to our client. We would also expect to buy the home for a little under market value as well, and one of the incentives to the seller would be that only one real estate commission would have to be paid so that additional saving should be passed on to our client, the Buyer.

The next thing that we do for our clients is to call other homeowners in various neighborhoods that our buyers would be interested in. We ask them if they know of anyone in the neighborhood thinking of selling. We often find very good homes for our clients this way. We just don’t sit and wait for homes to come on the market and show up the NWMLS. We believe that we need to be very proactive to fully help our clients. But it just doesn’t stop here either.

We think it’s very important to look at the big picture when buying a home. We are very concerned with good resale value and that is determined by several factors. First of all, are you paying the right price for the home? Is the style, location, and quality of home such that when you go to sell, will it sell for a good price and sell quickly given the current market conditions? One of the “tests” we use is how many buyers out of 10 potential buyers would be interested in the home if it were on the market? If the home would only appeal to 2 or 3 out of 10 then it may not be the right home to buy, but if 7 or 8 out of the 10 would buy the home, then it’s usually a good home to buy. What we have found over the past 20 years however is that only about 2 or 3 homes out of every 20 listed homes are in fact good homes to buy in the Seattle Real Estate market.

We analyze the appreciation potential of a home and that’s a function of several things as well. There are homes with good bones (quality of original construction) and homes with OK bones, and then homes with just plain bad bones, chicken bones. Original building quality is very important. Many homes that were built at the turn of the century (1900’s) were really good and some were really bad, with pillar and post foundations for example. The good homes hold up very well but the bad ones are very expensive to fix and consequently worth a lot less. When the market slows people just won’t buy homes with bad bones. Homes that were built in the 1920’s to 1950’s in many cases have very good bones. Quality of materials used, the finish work, the plumbing and electrical systems all have their differences and challenges, but some are much easier to fix than other. We understand building quality and what the ramifications and cost might be for fixing poor construction or bad plumbing and every situation is different.

Finally, we look very closely at the location of a home. Remember what they say…the three most important things is buying real estate is location, location and location. It’s true! There are good parts of good neighborhoods and bad parts of that same good neighborhood. If the home is in the good part of that good neighborhood it will appreciate faster than if it is in the bad section of the good neighborhood. Now if it’s in the better section of a bad location it may not be as good as the bad part of a good area. Here is when it can get complicated and we have to take every case individually but an informed buyer should have an agent that knows how to evaluate all this. The agent really need to know the city and the all the neighborhoods. They need to know the history of the neighborhoods and where that neighborhood is going. Many of the people that are upside down today with their home is a direct result of making a poor buying decision. Getting caught up in a “hot sellers” market and paying way too much for a home in a bidding war or buying a home in a bad location that will only sell in a white hot market. Buying a home can be very emotional for many people but we make sure our clients have at least one foot firmly planted in Reality!

So in conclusion, experience, knowledge, and honesty are critical attributes in any Seattle Real Estate Agent you may hire. If your not are represented and represented well you could make a buying decision that could cost you 10’s or even 100’s of thousand of dollars in just a few years. One of the main reasons so many people are in financial problems today and can’t sell their home for what they paid for it is a bad buying decision…don’t let that happen to you!

For more information, email us!

Those greedy lenders - they are the reason I can't afford my house payments

Some say that lenders may be at fault for our tight Mortgage Credit crunch right now, and for all those poor people that got loans that were interest only or zero down, and are now underwater on the property because prices have fallen so much they can’t sell the home for what they bought it for.

It’s a lot more completed than that!

Let’s take a look at this from the perspective of two Realtors that have been doing business in the Seattle real estate market for about 20 years. First of all, a little over half of our business is working as Buyers Agents in the Seattle area. On average, we help about 25 buyers a year buy homes that amount to about $12 million in home sales a year. We also work with many sellers as well, and that balance helps us understand both the buying side and the listing side of the market. For the past several years the Seattle real estate market has been a very strong sellers market, but that all changed in September of 2007. The interesting thing however, is that Seattle home sales stayed strong despite a turndown in home sales and home prices in most all of the rest of the country starting about two years ago. The Seattle economy is strong, people are moving here, businesses are expanding and hiring, there is a short supply of good homes in the close-in Seattle neighborhoods, but the national news and uncertainty has finally affected our housing market here is Seattle. Recent numbers from the NWMLS have stated that prices in the Seattle area have fallen by less than 5% on average, and that the number of new sales has recently increased by about 2.5% over the past couple of months. This is all good news for our market but then why are people unable to sell their homes for what they paid for them?

In the words of our 15 year old daughter, Dah! They paid too much when they bought the home. Here is what we think has happened mainly since 2005 (well, it happened in 1989, 1995 and 1999 as well) in the Seattle real estate market: In the early spring of 2005 Seattle was in another “White Hot” sellers market. Inventories were very low and there were lot of new buyers in the market and some of these buyers were in the market for the first time because on new creative loan programs, others had moved here and many were being relocated here of a new job in one of those high paying high-tech businesses.

Now, with regards to home inventories, we think that about 3 to 4 out of every 20 new listings are actually good homes to buy. The rest maybe OK, but only if you can buy them at much reduced price. So what happened was we would see 7 to 10 offers on a really good home that was priced at say $500,000. Only one buyer would get that home and usually they had an escalation clause saying that they would pay about $1000 over what the highest offer was, up to a limit of say $510,000. OK, know you have 6 to 9 buyers that lost out on the house and they would then go after the next best house, but this time some one would increase their limit to $515,000 (because they don’t want to loose another home for just $5000). On and on this would go and then after about 3 or 4 times that "not to exceed" went form an extra $10,000 to $15,000 to $20,000 to $30,000 to $50,000 and sometime even $75,000 over the asking price. Then to compound the matter the new homes that came on the market were coming on at even higher prices because “the home down the street sold for $540,000", but it was actually only worth $500,000. Buyers just got completely carried away and unfortunately their real estate agent didn’t help keep them very realistic in many cases.
The next thing that was happening was that buyers would not want to get caught up in bidding wars anymore so they would buy homes that came on the market that were not holding offers to a specific date to encourage a bidding war. They would buy homes that were in bad locations and they would buy homes that were of poor building quality and design. These homes are usually very hard sell even in an average market. This is a huge problem when they go to sell. Some homes only sell during a “white hot sellers market” so if you are not in that “hot” market condition when you need to sell then you most likely can’t sell the house unless it’s a total bargain.

Now some of these people are really paying the price for making all these poor buying decision. If you paid $550,000 for a home that’s only worth $500,000 in 2006, and the market went up by only 3% in the first half of 2007, and then back down by 5% by mid June 2008, you are underwater, and again, we don’t think it was these new creative loan programs that caused all of our current home and credit problems.

Sure people shouldn’t get low introductory loans that will adjust upwards in two years especially when the current interest rates are at all time lows and they only get cost of living increases at work. But if they paid the correct price for the home they would most likely be able to sell it two years later and come out at least close to break even. But if they paid $50,000 too much to begin with, Gad Zooks…we have a problem!

Now the lenders made some very bad decision as well and some were based on greed, but most were based on helping the average person buy the American Dream! Lenders relaxed their standards of debt to income ratios, they opened up a lot of new products for zero down buyers, and to avoid PMI (private mortgage insurance) the came up with second mortgages that would cover the 20% down payment requirements to avoid PMI. Should lenders go back to requiring the same debt to income ratios they years ago? Yes and No, it depend on the people and their situation.

I bought my first home in Madison Park about 37 years ago( I was really young). To qualify I had to have a total debt to income ratio of 32% and my mortgage had to be 28% of my gross income or less and they required a 20% down payment. Here is deal though…that great bungalow I bought in Madison Park only cost $39,000 then so a 20% down payment was only $7,800. Today that very same home in Madison Park would cost $650,000 and 20% down would be $130,000. That’s tough for a young couple or single person buying their first home to come up with. Or maybe they shouldn’t even think of buying anything? We don’t think that’s right either.

Should the lenders require a maximum of 38% total debt to income like I had to have back in 1971? I think I was making about $30,000 a year then so that would be about $950 a month for bills, school loans, and a mortgage payment. My mortgage was $473 (I remember thinking I’d never be able to make the payments) a month and boy would I love to have payment amount again today! So it worked, I was able to get into a home, save a little money, and then 4 years later when I sold that home for $92,500 I was happy. Today if a person is making under say $60,000 a year, having a conservative debt to income ratio makes more sense, but if they are making $600,000 a year having a 38% ratio is silly, because they have so much disposable income it may make better financial sense to invest that additional income elsewhere, not in a down payment for a home. So maybe their debt ratio should be 50% or even 60%. Now, most all zero down loan programs are gone, kaput, extinct. But what about all those people that have good stable jobs, have been working in the same place for a longtime and want to use their money for something other than putting it down on a house. Maybe they own their own business and want to invest in their business to grow it, to expand it, to hire new people, you know the things that help the overall economy grow. If they have excellent credit and have not just changed jobs going from an ice-cream scooper (OK, I’ll get letters on this one) to a Nuclear Physicist they should have the option to buy something they can afford with no money down. Will bad things happen? Sure, sometimes they do, and they are out of our control sometimes, but the majority of people I don’t buy a home so they be foreclosed on.

Why do we always have to make such drastic swings when something bad happens? Sure the credit industry has been hit hard but it’s partly their fault. They sent out their appraisers to these homes that people paid way too much for, and somehow the appraisal came in on value. So now they are hurting and in some case hurting bad. It’s affected our economy seriously, but why swing so far to the opposite side? Making those extreme swings in credit policy will also have long term effects in slowing our housing market to the point that the whole economy is negatively effected, and so on and so on. Soon, hopefully, the lenders will see that they aren’t making as much money as they “should be” in the home mortgage market and they’ll start to relax the credit standards but how much more harm will they cause in the mean time?
And you home buyers out there…work with an Agent that’s knows what they are doing and won’t let you make bad buying decision because no loan program can compensate for that!

How to Buy a Good Home In Seattle Today For the Right Price

Part 1 of 2

The majority of people believe that all a Realtor does to find homes to sell is look in the Northwest Multiple Listing Service and when new listings come on the market the Realtor sees it, and if it’s close to what the buyers want, the Realtor shows it to them. To be successful in helping Buyers buy homes today in the Seattle Real Estate Market you need to do a lot more than that.

When we work with a new buyer first of all we spend as much time as necessary to really define and refine what a buyer wants to buy. We understand that in “all” price ranges there will be compromises a buyer usually has to make. Even if someone designs and builds their own custom home by the end they will wish that they did this differently or included that. When you are buying a home you have to get everything you need but like what Mick Jaeger said, “you can’t always get what you want, but… you’ll get what you need”. Understanding the total picture when buying a home is very important. We work very hard with our clients to make smart buying decisions by understanding the total Seattle Real Estate Market.

After we have a very good understanding of what our client’s wants and needs are, we then take them out to look at several different homes with different styles and in various locations. From this we gain a much deeper understanding of what our clients are looking for and what will actually satisfy their needs. Often times what people verbalize in the conference room is much different from they actually want after seeing different types and styles of homes. It’s not until we get them in different types of homes that they can truly evaluate and understand what they really like and don’t like. This is especially true and normal for first time homebuyers.

With this understanding we then search the entire Seattle Real Estate Market starting with NWMLS (Northwest Multiple Listing Service). We look for homes that fit within a specific criteria and price range. But we also expand that search with regards to price range because so many homes are overpriced in the Seattle Real Estate Market. We really evaluate a Buyers situation and goals and set up a plan that works. Here is a good example: A first time home buyer with no children tells us they want to spend up to $500,000, and they want a 3 bedroom 2 bath home with a garage in a good neighborhood location with convenient shopping and a bus line close by that will give them an easy commute to downtown Seattle. We, as Buyers Agents, really need to understand several things here first. First, why do they want a 3-bedroom home? Are they planning to have children soon, do they need a home office? Do they have out of town guests on a regular basis? Then very importantly what are their plans for the next 5 to 6 years? There are as many different circumstances as there are people and an effective Realtor in the Seattle Real Estate Market needs to have a full and complete understanding of their client’s situation to be as effective as possible. And sometimes the clients haven’t even thought about all this and how their situation and 4 to 6 year plans can effect their buying decisions.

Here’s the deal…if they really need a 3 bedroom 2 bath home and can spend up to $500,000 then the location of the home may be compromised somewhat. If they really only need 2 bedrooms and 1.75 baths, and they can use the Rec Room downstairs for guests when they come and they are not thinking about having a baby in the next three years, then maybe they would be making a better buying decision if they looked for 2 bedroom 1.75 baths homes in a better location. As a result they would most likely be able to buy a better home in a better location for $500,000 so, in the long run, they would be ahead because homes in better locations appreciate more over time and would be much easier to sell if we have a slow market at the time they would want to sell. If they truly need a 3-bedroom home, then we need to look for the best home in the best location and one that will have the best appreciation rate.

Just because someone is asking $600,000 it may not be close to the right price. If someone is approved to spend $500,000 for a home we will look between about $450,000 to as high as $600,000. We do that because there are many, many homes in the Seattle Real Estate Market that are overpriced. Agents overprice homes in a hot market and agents overprice homes in a slow market. We often walk into a home that we are previewing and say to ourselves “boy, they must have had some good drugs when they priced this one!” Yes, there are several homes that are way over priced but in a hot market it doesn’t matter that much because unsuspecting buyers buy them anyway. Believe it or not, there are many Realtors in Seattle that don’t have a clue on how to price a home in any market condition but especially in today’s market. The so-called “Comps” are difficult to analyze and many home sellers end up dictating the price anyway, and we all know how objective the homeowner is when it comes to the price of their homes. Pricing in the close-in Seattle neighborhoods is an art! There are not really good comps like there are in the suburbs for example. In the suburbs a developer will buy a large partial of land and build several homes. These homes are pretty much alike except they will flip the floor plan and put upgraded counter tops in the Model homes and they paint every other home a different color. These home are very easy to comp out based on what else has sold in the neighborhood in the past 3 months. You just look at what the 3 most recent sales were, then figure a price per square foot and you’ve got it…done deal. It just doesn’t work like this in the city so the Realtor has to have many years of selling experience and a track record showing that their listings have sold for very close to the asking price (our last 52 listings have sold for 99.8% of the asking price and our Buyers have purchased for 94.5 of asking price). We know property value in the Seattle Real Estate Market and our clients make well-informed buying decisions. Over the past 20 years not one of our clients has lost a penny when they have sold their house.

When we find a home that fits our clients needs, but is over their price range, we track that home. If that home doesn’t sell in about 30 days then we take a closer look at it. We will go out and physically look at it if we haven't seen it already. Say it’s priced at $625,000 and we don’t know the Listing Agent. We’ll look up what that Listing Agent has listed over the past year or two to see if there is a pattern of overpricing. Karen and I will then independently come up with what we each think the property is worth. If we both think it would eventually sell close to $500,000 then we’ll let our client know that there is a home that fits their criteria but it’s way over priced so we need to wait and watch to see what happens with that house. After about 60 days if there hasn’t been any price reductions we’ll talk with that Listing Agent to try to find out how motivated the sellers are, etc. If that property has had price reductions all along and has now been on the market for at least 60 to 90 days then we may be in a position to write an offer well below their asking price, but more importantly, below market value. What is usually the case is that homes sell for the most amount of money in the first two to three weeks. After about 30 days on the market you should expect about a 3% to 5% price reduction every 30 to 60 days. So for example, that $600,000 home that’s been on the market for about 60 days now, and we think that the home would have sold for about $525,000 if they had priced it there to begin with, we would now recommend making an offer on it for under $500,000, say $480,000 and hopefully settling at $485,000 or a maximum of $490,000. We should be able to save our clients between $30,000 and $50,000 on an overpriced home in the $500,000 to $700,000 price range and that's not $30,000 to $50,000 under the asking price that's $30,00 to $50,00 under market value. But stay tuned…that’s not all we do, more to come in Part 2.

Want Fresh Fish Everyday?

Want to live just a few steps from the Pike Place Market? Would you like to be able to buy fresh fish and groceries everyday buy walking just 3 minutes? Want to have a wonderful view of Elliott Bay and a large deck to enjoy the Sunsets and watch the Ferry Boats? Would you want to live in one of the most exciting areas of Seattle? Market Place North Condominium is recognized as one of Seattle finest building and arguably in one of the very best locations in all of Belltown. This high-end well-established building is virtually just steps from the Pike Place Market and all the exciting things the Market and Downtown Seattle has to offer. This huge one bedroom one bath unit is 1,306 square feet, with all new Bamboo Flooring throughout. It’s a Corner Unit so you have windows on two sides letting in tons of light. The unit has an almost new Kitchen with new Granite Counters and new Stainless Steel appliances and a Remodeled Bath. The layout is a Great Room concept with 13-foot ceilings and a wall of windows letting in the Western Light and showing off the Great Views of Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains. This is truly a special place to live. To arrange a private showing or any questions please call or email us, David & Karen Bell RE/MAX Metro 206.283.9100. $729,000 for more information click here.

The Current Seattle Real Estate Market as of June 2008

The Current Real Estate Market In Seattle Offers Never Seen Before Risks and Opportunities. We are in a challenging time to buy or sell real estate in Seattle right now. And although the market can be difficult, we continue to see incredible opportunities in our current real estate market. However there are some pitfalls that everyone needs to be aware of.

Pricing is key in this market. Homes that are overpriced, and there are a lot of them right now, will not sell unless the buyer is working with an agent that’s new, that don't fully understand the local market, or are not from the Seattle market. It’s rare that a home will sell for full price today, but that does still happen on really special homes that are priced correctly. Understanding home prices in Seattle is more of an Art than a Science and an Agents proven tract record is essential in buying a home for the very best and correct price.

Things today are not like they were between 2000 and mid 2007. In September of 2007 the Seattle Real Estate Market finally started showing signs of a correction. The mortgage problems and the downturn in the rest of the country finally got to the Seattle buyer. People here just kept hearing all the bad news from around the country and WHAMOO, it finally effected Seattle Real Estate. Money became a lot harder to get and people actually had to now qualify for a mortgage in order to get one. People that were planning on relocating here were not able to sell their homes in other parts of the country so they could not buy here. By late 2007 Seattle’s robust Real Estate Market had a pretty bad cold...but not the flu! Inventories had grown by two to three times, but inventories had been extremely low for several years. Marketing times have increased from about 30 days to 90 to 120 days and prices have actually fallen by almost 10% in “all” price ranges. By late Spring of 2008 however, we believe that we have pretty much bottomed out in Seattle and we are seeing more sales, and we are seeing more buyers out looking to buy. There is even the occasional multiple bid, but those are very rare today.

What an incredible time to buy however if you are a move up buyer. If your $450,000 home has gone down by about 7% but that $750,000 home has gone down by about 9%, most likely...and, best of all, you can now write an offer contingent on selling your home. Using the number here your $450,000 (as of March 2007) home would now sell for about $31,000 less or about $419,000 but that $800,000 home (as of March 2007) would sell for about $729,000 so you would be saving about $72,000 or twice what you loose ($31,000) on selling your home...a great time to sell if you are buying up and in this case you save about $31,000.

First time home buyers can be in for a treat as well. Inventory levels are at all time highs and prices are back to what they were in 2006. Just in one Seattle neighborhood where the average price of a 3 bedroom 1.75 bath home last year was $750,000, today it will most likely be purchased for between $650,000 and $675,000. If you understand true market value today you can really get a great deal and could see almost instant equity in just a year or two. We believe that the Seattle Real Estate Market is pretty much at the bottom, however you never really know that until your past the bottom, but sales are picking up and the Northwest Multiple have reported about a 4% increase in home sale in May of 2008. Like many things, timing is critical and we believe that this is a great time to buy.