Here are the October 2009 housing inventory supply numbers going back five years for selected Eastside areas.* Months of Inventory (MOI) refers to the number of months it would take the current housing supply to be completely sold if no new listings were added. (Lower numbers = more seller-friendly market.)
The geographical area is marked at the top left of each chart. You can also click here to view stats for all Seattle and Eastside areas (opens as a pdf.)
*All reports published October 2009 based on data available at the end of September 2009. This representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by the NWMLS. Neither the Board nor the MLS guarantees or is in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data supplied by the Board or the MLS may not reflect all real estate activity in the market. Report reflects all activity by brokers participating in the MLS.
I just listed a really nice top floor condo in Marymoor Heights (in Redmond near Marymoor Park.) It’s a 1 bedroom plus den, 1.75 baths and over 1,000 square feet*. The den is large and according to the homeowner association it appears that there’s good potential for someone to add a window and a closet and turn this into a true two-bedroom unit. As it is, it’s very usable as a two-bedroom, with a full main bath and a three-quarter master bath.
Other perks include vaulted ceilings in the living room, a kitchen with plenty of cupboard and counter space, a large master bedroom with access to the balcony, lots of closet space as well as two additional storage lockers, plus two parking spots – one garage bay and one dedicated open parking spot.
It’s a really private unit with a great balcony that looks over trees and has Cascade views in the fall through spring. Call your agent to go and see it, or if you’re not working with an agent call me at 206-335-3335 to arrange a showing.
Click here to see more photos and information about this Redmond condo for sale.
(* All info to be verified by buyer and/or selling agent. Square footage based on King County records.)
I’ve been passing out a resource list of my top recommended service providers for Seattle and the Eastside to my clients (if you’re a client and are wondering why you haven’t gotten one yet it’s just because I haven’t given them all out yet – you’ll get one soon!)
Anyway, it’s great to get feedback from people who use the list, and I thought it was worth mentioning that just in the past week I had clients use and give good reviews to the two electricians and the plumber I recommended. Here they are again:
Roger Hill, Hill Electric
(425) 485-4321
Eastside for sure, don’t know how much of Seattle he covers.
Brian McManis, Eagle Electric
(206) 271-3678
All of Seattle and Eastside.
Jeff Morelli, New Concepts Plumbing
(425) 418-3304 or (206) 948-1617
All of Seattle and Eastside.
If you’re shopping for new construction condominiums in Seattle in fall of 2009, here are a few things to keep in mind based on my recent experiences helping a condo buyer:
Expect large price drops for new Seattle condos and structure the offer accordingly.
You’re not guaranteed the result you want, but even with the general uptick in the Seattle housing market that we’re seeing right now the odds are still definitely in your favor.
Keep an ear out for ‘things in the works’.
Developers are using condo auctions as a way to sell large quantities of inventory and set a trend for pricing of remaining units at the same time. Current examples are Gallery in Belltown, and Brix Condos in Capitol Hill (both links now go directly to the auction website.)
Remember functionality and re-sale criteria when shopping for Seattle condos!
Regardless of how cool or famous the condo designer is, people need space to store their clothes, cook a meal, and fit a king sized bed comfortably into the master bedroom. These are the major issues I hear about from buyers when they’re deciding to not purchase a property.
My client and I did a massive tour of multiple units in five new Seattle condo buildings a couple of weeks ago, and out of all of the ones we saw (one-level, loft and brownstone styles) there were only four units total in two buildings that we thought were worth considering. Most of the rest ruled themselves out with a small master bedroom, and one highly touted building had a master closet the size of a broom closet, with a washer and dryer stuffed into it to boot.
I realize that you can get away with more funkiness in Seattle than you can on the Eastside, but as I told my client, if you buy a place like that you have to be OK with your future target market for re-sale being the itinerant artist who only needs space for a pair of pants and an easel in the master closet. (Rule out most couples, and even many singles.)
Home buyers typically have an eye for at least some of these things, but I’ve found that most of them still need someone to point out the things they don’t notice that affect functionality and re-sale, and to back them up when they have a feeling that something isn’t right but they think they might just be too picky – usually they’re on target.
Walking out of well over a thousand homes for sale over the past 10 years and hearing exactly why my client will or won’t buy it is the best training for coaching people on re-sale value that I can think of. You would think that building designers would be in tune to the same things, so it really surprises me to see new Seattle condo units with features that are deal-killers for many home buyers. Fortunately there are some good ones out there too – it just pays to be picky!
If you’re thinking of switching to FIOS in the Seattle area, here’s some feedback from one of my clients who recently had FIOS installed at his home in the Redmond area right near Microsoft. I thought it would be helpful to share, since so many people are curious about it.
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“Fios is actually working really well now. We had an initial snafu with the installation where basically it got installed into a switched outlet, and we didn’t realize. So every time we’d shut off the lights in the garage our TV and internet would go out. The package we got is $119/mo. (w/o taxes) and it includes unlimited domestic calls, not sure if it includes Canada or not, tons and tons of channels including over 80 HD ones, and super fast internet that I’ve been happy with so far.
We use the streaming Netflix service through the Xbox 360, and up until we got Fios we weren’t able to watch any of the streams as HD. Now any of them that have HD enabled stream as HD. It’s actually a bit cheaper than what we were paying before and we have more functionality (we had Comcast with Boost), but recently Comcast has released a $99/mo plan for similar services. However, I am now convinced that Fios internet is more reliably fast.
A couple gotchas that aren’t clear from the marketing material:
The bundled deal doesn’t include any set top box. They cost $6/mo to rent one that doesn’t support HD, or $20/mo to rent one that does support HD (and is a DVR). However, you can also get cable cards instead for $3/mo, so if you have something like a TiVo HD it’s better to choose that option. In addition, the sales rep will tell you they don’t have M-series cards, but that’s incorrect. We have an M-series card now. The M-series allows you to use multiple tuners, where as the old cards only allow a single tuner.
By default Verizon will actually remove the copper line coming into your house. It’s not clear why they do this outside of the fact that they are legally required to lease that line to competitors where as they don’t have the same restriction with their fiber optic cable. That means that reverting to your old phone service or changing carriers is more difficult since you would need to get the line replaced (this shouldn’t affect internet or TV).”
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Hope this is helpful to anyone who might be installing FIOS soon in the Seattle or Eastside areas.
The Seattle and Puget Sound housing inventory numbers for July 2009 show that the real estate market is continuing to become more balanced. In the heat maps below red indicates a seller’s market, green indicates a buyer’s market, and yellow indicates a balanced market.
(Click on the map to see a larger image.)
A seller’s market is generally defined as 0 to 3 months worth of remaining inventory, meaning the time it would take to sell everything on the market if no new homes were listed, while a buyer’s market is generally seen as 6 months or more.
(Because of the traditionally high real estate activity level and shorter market times in the Puget Sound area, some people feel that a buyer’s market for Seattle area real estate starts at under 6 months of remaining inventory.)
There were some trade-offs, notably the Redmond and Sammamish plateau markets moving from a buyer’s to a balanced market, while the south Bellevue and Issaquah regions made the opposite shift.
If you’re looking for a heating and cooling contractor in the Seattle or Eastside areas, here are three recommendations. (Two I’ve used successfully, and one was recommended by a long-time agent who has sent me good people in the past.)
Eastside:
Tom Duff, Highlander Heating and Cooling: (425) 868-2971 *
Seattle and Eastside:
Bassett Home Heating Inc.: (425) 398-1666
Seattle (and maybe Eastside):
Mark at Matrix Energy Services: (206) 682-0212 *
(The * means that I’ve used this contractor.)
As always, I recommend the best people I know but don’t assume any liability. Feedback on your experience with anyone I recommend is greatly appreciated!
Photo by Chris Peele
When river levels get low in the summertime, whitewater kayakers like me head over to the Powerhouse run below Snoqualmie Falls to practice on little holes and surf waves. Putting in at the base of Snoqualmie Falls takes some extra effort – you have to carry your kayak nearly to the end of the boardwalk, hoist it over the rail and then use several people or a rope to lower your boat down to the rocks – and then there’s another jaunt across boulders to the edge of the pool below the falls.
But… it’s all worth it! I was so glad my friend Chris Peele took these shots last time she was up there because I never seem to bring my video camera when I go there.
Heading up to Snoqualmie Falls - Photo by Chris Peele
Wind and spray from the falls make it feel like a blizzard. Photo by Chris Peele
And on sunny afternoons there's always a rainbow.... Photo by Chris Peele
