Yesterday I was interviewed by a KING-5 reporter, Kim Holcomb, and which I had written about on my blog at this post. I had jokingly referred to taking on King Kong but only because the news segment was shown on KING-5 and KONG-6 last night.
The news story was about how the market here is changing just a bit to more of a stabilized market. At the beginning of the report a seller talks about it being a “buyer’s market” but I wouldn’t necessarily agree with him completely. We’ve still got room to move before that happens and if anything we’re more balanced than the past 5 years. The segment did run on both KING and KONG stations and, from what my business partner tells me, it is one of the most viewed and forwarded links from the KING-5 website today. Here is a link the actual news story about the Seattle real estate marketplace along with pieces of my interview.
It seems we’re (Team Reba) getting a lot of press lately. I was interviewed in July for a story on blogging for the RE/MAX Times back in July (released in September) and just last week I was interviewed for a real estate investment magazine which will be printed in the November/December time frame. Now, if I could just get the interviewers to pronounce my name correctly…. 🙂
Brian Brady asked: “Off topic but I wanted to ask you a question, Ardell. Has Seattle been a rising market from Feb, 2005 through today?”
It would have been a lot easier to answer if you hadn’t said February 2005 🙂 I could have just said yes. But I remember the day. It was June 15, 2005. I could feel it. I could taste it. I could smell it. The ground was swelling. You could put your ear on the ground and hear it coming! LOL I happened to be in a complex called Sixty-01, which has its own idiosyncrases that I won’t go into since you are out of State, Brian. But here’s some stats to prove my blood boiling was on target. Hindsight is easy. Feeling it coming is an artform. I’m using Sixty-01 because I was there that day and also because it has a lot of “same product”/apples to apples for straight appreciation comparisons. They are all practically identical 2 bedroom – 1.5 bath townhomes in the stats below.
07/09/03 – $100,000
11/24/03 – $ 95,000
08/12/04 – $128,950
08/24/04 – $129,500
02/18/05 – $128,950
05/03/05 – $123,000
06/20/05 – $131,450
07/07/05 – $127,000
All of those were in contract before June 15. On June 15th one came on market with an asking price of $137,950. I practically begged a poor woman to get an offer in within an hour of it hitting the market, to grab it at full price. I could feel it in my bones! The prices were going to move right now! She could get it at full price today! But she couldn’t get her brain around it. She wanted to make an offer based on the average of the comps at $127,000. I was beside myself. I knew getting that townhome at $137,950 on that first day was going to be the best move she ever made. But I couldn’t convince her. Five days later it bid out and sold at $148,000. And here’s what happened after that.
07/19/05 – $148,000
07/22/05 – $167,950
07/29/05 – $166,000
11/29/05 – $178,950
03/30/06 – $177,000
06/07/06 – $205,450 (list at $199,900)
07/11/06 – $205,000
08/25/06 – $227,500
09/13/06 – $235,000
11/01/06 – $245,000
01/17/07 – $252,500
New on Market $269,900
So Brian, rephrase the question and ask me if it has been going up since 6/15/05, and I can answer yes. February 05 through June 05, not as much. I’ll have to do a new townhome comparison in Ballard to confirm Eastside vs. Seattle proper. Hard to find “like kind” in Seattle as there are very few “like kind” comparisons except splits and townhomes. Many of the homes were built in the early 1900s through 1930, and are all unique structures with massive modifications since 1905. But I’m pretty sure the stats will be about the same. Kirkland Condos…same story but harder to find “like kind” these days as newer equals higher ceilings, so “like kind” harder to track.
Every New Year, my husband’s family makes a trip to Ocean Shores with most of his brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. It is a tradition that we look forward to which includes as much bowl games you can cram into a weekend, razor clamming, go karts and I get to read the newspaper from front to back while everyone else in our hotel room is still sleeping.
I’d like to open this thread up to a conversation on the health of the Seattle market…
but there is a catch. I will not allow it to dissolve into a conversation about racism, liberals, RCG, or faith. If you’d like to have a reasonable intellectual conversation, you are more than welcome to participate. If you attack me, RCG, or any contributor, then I’ll happily delete your comment.
By the way, please consider this post the “anti-linkbating” post. Not only will I quickly delete any off topic comments, but more importantly, I will mark those comments as “spam”. That will allow me to ban your email, name, IP, etc. from the site after only a few off-topic comments.
Two days ago, Michael Lindekugel of Team Reba made a very interesting comment. No one ever challenged him on the merits of his argument, so I think it makes an appropriate starting point into a discussion on the health of the Seattle market:
It’s the hot topic at most cocktail parties. Is Seattle going to experience a bubble and burst? The short answer is no…..the long answer follows:
We experienced a busy market with a shortage of supply and increasing demand resulting in four or five offers and short “Days On Market
