Off to see K.D. Lang in Tacoma!
First a quick trip to The Museum of Glass in Tacoma.
It’s Tacoma night 🙂
Sunday Night Stats – not
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Author Archives: ARDELL
Seattle Sounders and the Space Needle
When I first saw the pictures below taken by Damon Cortesi who I know as @dacort on Twitter, it was St. Patrick’s Day. I thought the green “hat” on the space needle was a Lepruchan’s hat 🙂 I didn’t know why it wasn’t all green.
Kim told me that the blue and green colors on the Space Needle are for the Seattle Sounders Football Club. Tickets for their inaugural game were sold out well ahead of time, and they WON!
But this is a post about the fabulous night shots taken by Damon, and I appreciate his permission to post them here for everyone’s enjoyment. Thanks @dacort !
A Little Beauty
Savannah Jane
This one was a born thinker 🙂 My Grandaughter. I had the privelege of holding her minutes after she was born, and I could see the wheels turning. Wouldn’t you love to know what she’s thinking about?
Sunday Night Stats – Prices Improving?
We all know that prices can’t go up in large leaps the same way that they can drop significantly in a short time. It takes a lot longer to go up than down, due to appraisal issues.
It will take many weeks to build up enough data post Obama $8,000 Stimulus Credit to form any conclusions. But you have to start somewhere 🙂 Stats prior to the credit are somewhat irrelevant at the moment except to later see if in hindsight pre-credit was “bottom”. We won’t know that until next 4th Quarter and January of 2010. Until then, we’ll track week to week until we build up enough data to do larger market segments.
I am using MPPSF Pending Inspection King County SFH, as these are the most recent “went under contract” homes. The green columns are properties that went under contract pending inspection Monday March 2nd through Sunday the 8th. The purple columns went under contract pending inspection Monday the 9th through Sunday the 15th.
I broke the stats down into under $500,000 (2 columns on the left) and $500,000 to $1M (2 columns on the right). The lower priced segment is doing better, but both show slight improvements. These are asking prices, so all this is telling us at the moment is that buyers seem to be making offers on houses that are not priced quite as low on a median price per square foot basis, as they were pre-homebuyer credit. We won’t know if actual prices close higher until we get at least 45 to 60 days in front of the credit passing.
Data is not compiled or posted by NWMLS (required disclosure)
King County Home Prices inching Upward?
What a difference a day makes
It was a gorgeous, sunny, blue sky day today! The forecast looks like three days of sunshine and 50 plus degrees on Thursday.
Yesterday…taken at Sixty-01 in Redmond, WA. did someone say only 10 days until Spring? We almost put the Christmas Tree back up for the day.
Taken March 9, 2009 at Sixty-01 in Redmond, WA
Sunday Night Stats – Housing Market is “Stimulated”
As you can see from the graphs below, there has been a 50% increase in the number of properties going pending in the last 7 days, compared to the week of 2/7 to 2/14 before the $8,000 “first time” homebuyer credit passed.
427 sales went pending in the first week in March. That’s a 50% increase over the 286 that went pending in the 2nd week in February.
The second graph shows the increase in the number of homes that are selling in 30 days or less. Not sure if that increase is “normal” for January through the first week in March though. Still, worth reporting the positive trend upward.
I combined condos with single family homes in King County. I think it’s fair to say that the credit stimulated home sales. It’s also fair to say that people waiting for the credit, depressed home sales in the previous period. So the real stimulus may lie somewhere in between.
On a side note, I am hearing of a few pending sales falling out, because the owner/seller is now eligible for the new assistance that came out on 3/4, and may not “have to” sell after all.
King County Condo and Home Sales Improved by 50%
% of homes and condos sold in 30 days or less improving
Statistics are not compiled or posted by NWMLS
Homebuyer Credit – Simplified
Pretty simple stuff. For most people it’s just A,B,C + 1,2,3
A. Address of New Home
B. Date you bought it
C. IF claiming 2009 purchase on this 2008 form, check here
+
1. Enter $7,500 or $8,000 unless married filing separately
2. Enter modified adjusted gross income
3. If 2 is not more than $75,000 ($150,000 if filing jointly), skip to line 6 and put amount on line 1 on line 6. Ta-dah!
You can get Form 5405 and Instructions here:
and it looks like this:
Dow dips below 7,000
It’s an historic event that takes us back to 1997. Below is a chart showing the history of the DJIA from 1929 to present, courtesy of msn money central. the first thing I look at every morning when I wake up.
When I started working in 1972, the Dow was at about 950. When I switched to real estate in 1990, the Dow was just under 3,000. It’s interesting to read some of the rationalizations of the 2002 low point.
Dow Jones Industrial Average History
Dow Jones Industrial Average 10 year
“The ‘game changer’ will be the housing market, and whether (or not) it can stablilize”
Microsoft’s “Elevate America” Program
“Microsoft (announces) a job training effort aimed at giving technical skills to as many as 2 million Americans over the next three years…Microsoft is offering free certification and other technical training…starting with Washington State.”
A big wOOt to Microsoft!
Sellers are “leaving money on the table”
If you have been out looking at homes for sale since the first of the year, you will clearly see that sellers are NOT all on the same page.
I deal primarily in property North and East of Downtown Seattle, so I do not speak for Tacoma, Renton, Auburn, Federal Way, Kent or South Seattle. The lower priced single family homes I am seeing are in Kenmore, Bothell parts of Kirkland, Lake Forest Park , Shoreline and the lower part of Snohomish County.
I am seeing two groups of “seller thinking”:
1) The first group of sellers are over-priced with meticulously maintained, clean, “updated” and sometimes staged homes.
2) The second group of sellers have more realistic asking prices, but they are not even bothering to clean up the dishes in the sink for a showing.
Many of the sellers who are bothering to clean and stage their homes, are also asking more for their homes than they should be in today’s market. By the time a seller gets to the price where they feel they are “giving the home away”, they don’t want to put any effort into its condition. They are thinking that at THIS ridiculously low price (in their opinion) the buyer should “suck up” much, but that is NOT the case.
It’s a buyer’s market, and buyers want it ALL. They want a good price, a home they can move into without much work, AND they want a cleaner inspection at the end of the day than they expected in the higher priced hot market.
“Fair Market Value is the price at which neither party is exceedingly happy.”
There is always a lot of crying and whining in a Buyer’s Market. Sellers aren’t happy at the prices they are getting. Buyers are walking away from the home inspection because there is a squeak in the floor, or because the bathtub needs some caulk.
Sellers, remember that people who are choosing to buy right now are very afraid of the future. Pulling the trigger on a purchase is terrifying, even if they are getting “a screaming deal”. The reality is that you have to do ALL the things you would be doing to get a great price. Forking out money for professional staging may not be in the picture for many sellers, but do the best you can with what you have to work with.
1) Dirty homes with pet odors sell for less, always. It doesn’t matter that you “reduced your price by 20% from peak”. A dirty, smelly house is going to sell for less…in any market.
2) Stacking all of your belongings into the garage, because you don’t want to pay for storage in this economy, is not the way to go. See if your friends can each take a portion of the items you want to store. Better yet, get rid of things you know you won’t be moving with you when your home does sell. Not being able to go into the garage because it is filled to the brim with crap, is not going to help your home sell.
3) Thinking you are NOT going to address ANY items that come up in the home inspection, because you were pinned to the mat on sale price, makes NO sense. Just because you accepted a lower price than you wanted, does not make the inspection phase any different. You can scream “AS-IS” all day long…that won’t keep a buyer in escrow if the home inspection reveals items that need to be addressed. Staying in escrow is just as important as getting into escrow. Refusing to address minor repair items could cost you dearly in the long run, when you later sell your home for even less.
You have to work at least as hard, and sometimes even harder, in a difficult economy. This is true of both workers generally, and sellers of homes. Getting less doesn’t cut you any slack in terms of the effort you must expend.