Insecure Realtor Spams Seattle Bubble
As you may be aware, Blogger has a feature that allows an email to be sent to the owner of a blog whenever a comment is made on any post. It's a handy feature that allows me to easily stay on top of the lively discussions that take place on this blog. It also allows me to know instantly when someone is using the comments section as a venue for their worthless spam. While my usual policy is not to delete any comments made to the posts in my blogs, the one exception I make is for spam (I would probably delete excessive profanity as well, but thankfully that has not been an issue here). Requiring you to enter a captcha (the distorted text) every time you comment is a bit of a pain, but it makes it pretty much impossible for spammers to use automated methods to spread their worthless garbage. Plus, the rel=nofollow tag in the code makes comment spamming pointless since search engines won't follow the links anyway. Therefore, usually spam is not much of a problem here.
However, yesterday morning I was quite surprised to find my inbox flooded with over a dozen nearly identical comments—all from the same person—and more flowing by the minute. What was going on? Well, see for yourself in this screenshot of Seattle Bubble comments in my inbox:
When people come here and argue opposing positions, that's fine. I don't even mind if the discussions get a little heated sometimes—that's natural. But pasting a link (one that we have already talked about, no less) two dozen times is not a discussion, it's spam.
Because you have abused the open commenting policy, you are no longer welcome here, Tim Dunn, Spammer. If you post again from this point forward, it will be deleted.
24 comments:
I wonder if his M.A. in Psych can explain two dozen "I told you so" posts. Absent some sort of reasonable explanation, it would seem that he might be a tad unstable.
It's too bad. His posts were also good for a chuckle, especially when he was telling the bears that we had a vested interest in seeing housing go down.
Oh, well...there will be others.
That was some incredibly infantile behavior on the part of Mr.Dunn. If he's trying to sell houses he obviously in the wrong place. Presumably a failed Realtor, I guess he's just venting his own frustrations.
Dukes, does the "price increase" category only include price increases actually made on the MLS? That's pretty rare, which would explain the low #. Sometimes people don't sell in the first week, and the actually raise the price (go figure.) Or sometimes the agent just made a mistake and listed it at the wrong price.
I assume the "price increase" category isn't including final sales prices which are getting overbid all the time in the current hot market. In fact, I don't see how it could since the final sales price in not public knowledge for at least a week, but usually a month after the sale.
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Here's an article from Money magazine on the forthcoming housing slowdown:
Home forecast: Where the growth is...and isn't
Seattle is listed in the top 20 areas that will still see appreciation (over 10%). For more specific data on Seattle click here:
Seattle-Bellevue-Everett
Here's some interesting stats.Go here and click on Fastest growth (forecast)
MONEY Magazine: Latest forecasts. Financing strategies. Renovation tips.
Fastest growth (forecast)
Forecasters at Fiserv Lending Solutions and Moody's Economy.com predict a radical shift in the top 10 list of fastest growers for the 12 months beginning in June; only one California city, El Centro, will be represented. Instead, Washington State will dominate, with five of the top 10 cities.
Wenatchee, Washington, which lies about 150 miles southeast of Seattle, is predicted to gain the most of any city in the state, 16 percent.
That won't be enough to beat Panama City, Florida, where prices are expected to rise 21 percent. That's impressive, but it's still quite a comedown from the previous five years when price gains among the top 10 fastest growing cities averaged about 20 percent a year.
lesserseattle...how do you run stats on overbidding?
maybe we can work on some spreadsheets together. I am also plugging in the number, but I am working on Jan 2003-, which gives me a better picture, since 2003 was pretty much the beginning of the boom.
So far I have plugged in the listing for last three years in the Eastside, both total and new listing. I also plugged in sold, and closed sales. I did this for Eastside in general and 530 on the Eastside, because I think 520 is way inflated in price due to all the new constructions. Last I did so far, was comparing the proportion of new houses listed to total listed house.
I am assuming by having a high proportion of new listing to total listing, and that means houses are being bought off the market swiftly and in timely fashion. So far all my data have fell in-line with last three years, except slight change in April, which is too soon to tell.
Any thoughts?
lesserseattle,
how far do you go back? because if you don't calculate the seasoning changes in terms of natural market slowdown, then you might misled some of the numbers. By analyzing last few months isn't sufficient IMO, unless you can do that for at least the past three years. I'll be more than happy to collaborate with someone.
Keep posting your numbers Dukes. Please.
lesser....which site are you searching on? I've never seen a "standard search" option.
I am assuming that he's searching on MLS.
Well, I wasn't trying to figure out how much appreciation has gone up, I want to plot the trend of any slowdown in terms of sales and listing. I am very much looking forward to the numbers in May, which will probably tell me a very strong sign that the market is slowing down.
The reason why I stay away from 520 is because the amount of investors in that area. I think the numbers will be quite skewed, whereas in most other Eastside areas, people are actually buying to own.
There's been a lot of postings on this site about "price surges" YOY.
If this is the end of the bubble, YOY becomes irrelevant.
Check it out:
First quarter '06 RE:
median US home price: 217,900K
gain from one year ago: + 10 %
loss from 3 months ago: - 3 %
Makes sense, right?
I think you should rely more on regional data than national data, because general shifts in an overall national market is not a strong representation of regional market.
Dalas:
Did you not read my post?
I said, "by way of an example".
If this kind of fuzzy thinking is running your decisions on whether or not to invest in RE, you are in deep trouble.
Hi anon,
National trends are important to look at...but in the end local real estate markets vary widely.
Although there was a slight drop in national prices, Washington State had MOM record price gains:
King: Sales fell 10 percent; median price rose 15.5 percent.
Snohomish: Sales rose 8.9 percent; prices climbed 19.3 percent.
Pierce: Sales rose 9.3 percent; prices jumped 19.8 percent.
Kitsap: Sales fell 7.2 percent; prices surged 23.2 percent.
Statewide: Sales slipped 0.3 percent; prices climbed 17.1 percent.
See: Home prices fall in some U.S. cities, but not here
sorry...those were actually YOY #s.
The MOM #s for Seattle are:
Seattle Median Price Res/Condo
April 06 - $410,000
March 06 - $407,000
Feb 06 - $380,000
Jan 06 - $376,995
Huge gains MOM....
meshugy,
exactly my point. are we still debating whether or not there will be an end to housing boom? I thought that isn't up to debate, but rather when.
so ya, your national data doesn't say anything.
here is an example why looking at when is important: if you are looking to sell your home at market peak and holding your money in CD for a year while renting to buy later. By timing when the market might slow down, you can maximize your profit. 6 months as oppose to a year does make a huge difference.
If you ever figure out how to ban someone, please let me know.
here some stats:
Eastside only. Excluding the early months slowdown (January - Feb or March). I am comparing the number of closed sales to total listing.
For 2003, it has been going up from 20% to 30% steadily, and rising to just above 30% in December.
2004, it has been above 2003 level the whole year and steadily moving up somewhere between 30% to 40% then jump up to 50% in December.
2005, following the similar trend from 2004, have not gone below 2004 for the entire year and hovering around 45% to as high as 55% in June.
2006, first time since 2004 that the number has been below the previous year starting from March and continue in April at around 48%. But still significantly higher than 2003 and 2004. 46% in 2006 for March as oppose to 28% in 2004 and 19% in 2003.
Sorry I am just kind of scrambling with this, but the number does show a slowdown in the Eastside area. First time in three year that houses are not flying off the market faster than previous year.
well, I didn't think I have to go into that much detail yet. But the number I been using does show a slight slowdown in terms of houses being sold relative to houses on the market.
can you explain why I should go into that much details and what exactly will that tell me?
Meshugy-
Do you have the link for those MOM's?
Sorry, but so much of what you have posted the past few days has been misinterpreted by yourself, I just want to see your source info.
And I know you are super duper at making links! thanks.
Dalas-
I'm very curious, how do you know that there are a large # of investors in 520? I've been wondering how to figure that out- how many in Seattle in general.
Stories?
I live and work in 520, so when most of the houses in the neighborhood around here is torn down and rebuilt, yes there are a lot of investors. It's a very known fact that 520 is driven up in price by a lot of investors.
If you own a home in 98004, you have been solicitated to sell at least a dozen times.
lesserseattle,
I don't know if listing price and actual sales price necessary reflect the market trend. If the house being sold is still in high proportion of active listing of houses in that area, I do believe that demands is still matching supplies. Even if the price went down a bit, but then you have to compare whether or not the house price did go down by making a lot more analysis comparisons.
MLS are off pdf files, they're a pain to transfer plus each one of them are pretty big.
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