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.
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