<p>My bad, dstark. I’m in Sacramento and yes, the real estate market sucks out here, and probably will for some time to come.</p>
<p>LasMa…a guy I work with bought a few homes in Elk Grove and is renting them out…</p>
<p>He is getting positive cash flow.</p>
<p>He does say the market sucks. Many foreclosures.</p>
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<p>Actually, the forecasts for Seattle aren’t looking so hot. It’s one of the few cities singled out on every recent housing prediction I have read as a market that has not hit bottom.</p>
<p>[NYT:</a> For Crashing House Prices, Seattle Is the New Las Vegas - Seattle News - The Daily Weekly](<a href=“http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/02/nyt_seattle_is_the_new_las_veg.php]NYT:”>http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/02/nyt_seattle_is_the_new_las_veg.php)</p>
<p>[House</a> Prices Continue Sharp Decline | Housing Market Monitor](<a href=“http://www.cepr.net/index.php/data-bytes/housing-market-monitor/2011-02]House”>http://www.cepr.net/index.php/data-bytes/housing-market-monitor/2011-02)</p>
<p>" The situation in Seattle is interesting since Seattle, like Portland, had previously been shielded from the worst effects of the housing bust. It seems that this is no longer the case as prices in both cities are now falling rapidly." - Feb 2011</p>
<p>Here’s one for Hawaii, HIMom: </p>
<p>[Kauai</a>, Big Isle struggle with housing - Hawaii Business - Staradvertiser.com](<a href=“http://www.staradvertiser.com/business/20110106_Kauai_Big_Isle_struggle_with_housing.html]Kauai”>http://www.staradvertiser.com/business/20110106_Kauai_Big_Isle_struggle_with_housing.html)</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that housing sales were being artificially propped up by the tax credit until last June. That spurred a lot of activity during that time period. Home sales have continued to decline in most areas since the expiration of that tax credit, which means prices will continue to fall especially since there are supposedly a lot of foreclosed houses that haven’t been put on the market yet. The banks aren’t going to be able to put that off forever.</p>
<p>I think the only way to really gauge what is going on in your own market is to ask a high volume realtor who is willing to be honest (i.e., they’re not just trying to get a listing) and to track what homes in your immediate area were originally listed for and then what they ultimately sold for in the last six months. I think people would be shocked at what things are actually selling for. Listing price means nothing. We have a house down the street that was listed at $899K last year and is now at $675K. We sold a house for $500k five years in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the area. It was on the low end of the home prices in that neighborhood. Yesterday, I saw three houses listed in that neighborhood for under $400k. And I’m not in an area that had huge amounts of appreciation during the bubble.</p>
<p>This spring and summer will be very telling. It will be interesting to see what happens to home sales and prices without the artificial support of a tax credit. Last year, my realtor told me that she thought it was the only thing propping up sales in this area.</p>
<p>dstark - love reading about your move.</p>
<p>H and I own a real estate office and I enjoy reading all the anecdotal data. Much more helpful than the media which looks at it on such a large scale. As most of you have noted, most real estate is local. What hurt so much last year were the lending/appraisal practices. Went from WAY TOO loose to TOO tight. Gotta find the right mix again.</p>
<p>rom828, thanks.</p>
<p>You don’t have to get too specific…but where is your office?</p>
<p>Are there plenty of would be sellers waiting for the market to improve before they put their homes on the market?</p>
<p>Looks like there are buyers if the financing market improves…</p>
<p>Or are most people shell-shocked?</p>
<p>According to Zillow, my home price is down 38 percent from the 2006 peak. Using their 10 year history, this house was worth about 10K more 10 years ago than it is today. The 10 year hill-shaped graph of price over time shows an ongoing plunge, not a bottom.</p>
<p>We will have been in this house 30 years this summer. The Zillow stated value is 2.6 times what we paid. Someday I’d like to add up taxes and finance charges and improvements (past and future!) to see what if anything we will gain in the end.</p>
<p>Years ago, common wisdom was to buy the absolute most house that you could assuming you’d grow into the payments. We could not do this - we were constrained by the 20% down payment required at the time. We chose to stay in this relatively modest home and invest our spare cash. I have no regrets about that choice today.</p>
<p>It’s got to be really hard on those who overbought (following common wisdom) and those who are jobless.</p>
<p>Though there are still plenty of foreclosures in the mix, Coastal Carolina is seeing a bit of a rebound. Prices have come down considerably and properties are starting to move. I’m seeing building again which is great for the economy. Though most ‘right on the ocean’ homes remain over 1.2 mill, even there I’ve seen properties well under the 1M mark. </p>
<p>It is true you only see ‘the bottom’ in hindsight. I think we just passed it. Six properties have sold in my tiny town in the past 2 months…summer is the big buying season here as all the tourist come to town and decide they’d quite like to stay. (Can’t complain…it’s how I came here, more or less.) </p>
<p>Psychologically, I think people are like folks emerging from a storm cellar. They are looking about themselves, assessing the damage. Those with a little extra money may decide that now is the time to buy something they’ve always wanted…esp. if it seems a bargain compared with a few years ago. But then…I’m an optimist!</p>
<p>Do those of you who look at Zillow feel their “zestimates” are accurate for your area? Where I live they seem to undervalue; properties always sell for quite a bit more, sometimes 50% more. I also recently noticed that they value my home higher than a spectacular place down the street, which is easily worth twice as much as mine.</p>
<p>The housing market is suprisingly good here still. We’re in DC suburbs of northern VA, so due the nature of the area (every 2-4 years families come and go with the “changing of the guard”). Houses sell very quickly, even bidding wars still.</p>
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<p>It was horribly inaccurate for the house we just sold. They had the value listed at almost $100,000 more than we got for it.</p>
<p>zillow is more accurate where this is a lot of turnover …but how accurate can zillow be?</p>
<p>zillow doesn’t look inside a house…</p>
<p>and sometimes zillow is way off…</p>
<p>I use zillow as a guide…</p>
<p>I truly hope Zillow is low for this house…oy!</p>
<p>^ It could be too low. I wouldn’t put much stock in Zillow’s estimates. They only look at sq footage and what other houses in the area recently sold for. There are many things that factor into the valuation of a house. You might be able to look at tax records for houses in your immediate area and see what they sold for to get a better idea. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, a house is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. And even that’s not true as much today. Have heard many, many stories recently of houses appraising at less than the sales price - which puts the seller in a bad position.</p>
<p>Seattle is a very large market with good and bad areas. General statements are useless. Most of the big problems are in areas no upper middleclass professional family would even consider. The better areas of MI, The Eastside, and good intown locations have far fewer negatives than the areas where marginal income people got in over their heads. No they are not going up today but right now is the time to get in before they do. With the jobs expansion just around the corner the timing is now to still get a good deal. </p>
<p>[How</a> Badly is Seattle’s Eastside Real Estate Affected by Distressed Sales Eastside Real Estate Buzz](<a href=“http://eastsiderealestatebuzz.com/2011/03/04/how-badly-is-seattles-eastside-real-estate-affected-by-distressed-sales/]How”>http://eastsiderealestatebuzz.com/2011/03/04/how-badly-is-seattles-eastside-real-estate-affected-by-distressed-sales/)</p>
<p>Just looked at Zillow for my neighborhood. It is way off. Some priced high and some way low. Our neighborhood has various lot sizes and various house sizes. Some are old ranch style houses that haven’t ever been updated and some are huge mansions built in the last 10 yrs. Don’t know if that makes a difference.
I know on our house we have had 2 appraisals done in the last 6 months. One for refinancing and the other for a line of credit. Both done by different people. Both came in fairly close. The Zillow value listed is significantly lower.</p>
<p>dstark - we are in large metro area of NC</p>
<p>rom828…thanks</p>
<p>Zillow is way off for our area, a few years ago a home sold for $1MM more than the zillow estimate.</p>
<p>Though for my parents home in the Gold Country of NorCal, the numbers seem pretty accurate. They bought 20 years ago, in a very down market, for X, in 2005 their neighbor sold for $2.5x, now they MIGHT be able to sell for 1.25x. I am renting their home out and giving it a couple of years as they had it for sale 2006-2009 with no buyers.</p>
<p>It makes sense to me that Seattle is behind the trend, back in 2006 when SoCal was crashing, I read articles about how the rest of the country was crashing, but Seattle was magically NOT going down. Like somehow no one figured out that the market begins in SoCal and moves north slowly??? The lows hit CA 1st and so do the highs.</p>
<p>Flash:
OregonLive.com and NBC nightly news.
Oregon judge says that 950 of 1000 foreclosures are faulty. Apparently the clearing house for the ‘banks’ didn’t or improperly record transactions at the county recorder level. </p>
<p>Title companies are refusing to underwrite and honor work done. </p>
<p>Counties are missing out on a lot of fees :)</p>
<p>Zillow had my house at about 175k when I bought it two years ago. It appraised at 170k. I paid about 150k for it. Zillow now has it at 167k</p>