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Monday, December 07, 1981

Thursday Open Thread

This is your open thread for today. Please post random links and off-topic discussions here.

13 comments:

meshugy said...

November MLS report is up:

Area Statistics Report for the Month of November King County

Res Closed Median: 435K

That's down 5K from Oct but up YOY 46K from Nov 2005!!

Active Res listings:7,040

That's down from 7,865 last month.

Still looks like a very strong market...I thought we'd see more of a slowdown at this point. But with prices at historic highs and inventory tanking, I think we're looking at another year of big appreciation.

meshugy said...

Homes for sale now listed on Zillow

Zillow also is rolling out a service called "Make Me Move" that allows homeowners to list a dream price for their home and then entertain possible offers. Those homes will be marked on Zillow's maps with a blue flag.

I'll take 2 mil for my house...any takers?

The Tim said...

First off, I don't know anyone who has said "Houses are just like Pets.com." That's a straw man and I think you know it.

Secondly, this month's data falls pretty close to where I was predicting. I guessed the median price spot on, and was a little high for both inventory and sales. All in all, things are still shaping up pretty much like I predicted back in April.

Also, I don't believe that back in 2005 I was predicting a "crash" this year. One of the defining characteristics of a bubble is that it goes on for longer than any sane person thinks it will. I expect that this housing bubble will be no different.

I expect prices to retract somewhat next year, and so far things seem to be headed in that general direction.

Nolaguy said...

The mess at Merit made one of my favorite macro-economic blogs:

http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

In addition to the Merit story, this was a good point:

"When nobody remembers a time when housing dropped, then that complacency creates the perfect conditions for a trend reversal: "permanent" up switches to "permanent" decline. We may be in the first stages of just such a decline."

Matt Rivett said...

I don't know anyone who has said "Houses are just like Pets.com."

I mentioned the Pets.com reference, horribly taken out of context here, just paraphrasing a Shiller analogy about the shift in speculative manic driven investment from the tech-boom over to housing when Greenspan dropped the credit bomb.

BTW, my predictions been, Recession Q2 2007, and I'm sticking to it. All econmic signs are pointing in this directiopn and even Berneke starting to go easy on his 'soft landing' B.S. as inlfations starting to spike...

meshugy said...

Hi Tim...nice prediction on the Residential Median Price!

However, your condo prediction was way off....Condos shot up to $272,950. That's up $13K from $259K in Oct. Everyone keeps predicting a condo glut, but it looks like they're hotter then ever!!

Anonymous said...

Our market in Vancouver BC has started to show some signs of weakness, but I think our price/rent ratio is farther out of whack than Seattle.

http://vancouvercondo.info

The Tim said...

However, your condo prediction was way off...

Yes, I didn't expect to be very close on that one. As I explained here, the condo market is much more volitile (i.e., unpredictable) than the SFH market. Plus, since I don't follow the condo market as closely, I'm even less likely to make a very accurate guess.

Anonymous said...

Shug,
You keep hoping for the best and trying to creat the meme that the bubble ain't burstin'. You are fighting an uphill battle and if you think Seattle is going to be the only place in the United States that doesn't have a drop off, then you've been eating some of those mushrooms that have pooped up after the rains.
Look closer at the numbers from across the country, not just the "median" that you keep quoting because that doesn't mean crud. Unfortunatly for us homeowners, it is not good news and it isn't going to get any better. Everybody can specualte all they want and argue one way or the other, but the time is here that the cycle turns, rapidly or gradually doesn't realy matter.

Matt Rivett said...

Look closer at the numbers from across the country, not just the median that you keep quoting because that doesn't mean crud.

hahahaha... you've stumbled across the Meshugy mind trick!

He's a one trick pony (or Troll?)... dump a handpicked MOM stats along with an adjective "falling fast"! or "very strong"! or "sellers paradise", bitch at The Tim when he doesn't use the proper adjective or when he overshoots a condo-prediction, than leave the turd in the punchbowl by not responding to any of it...

Best to ignore him, although its almost too delicious not to at times!

Matt Rivett said...

I'll take 2 mil for my house...any takers?

Yeah... I'll buy it, as long as it comes with the 1.9 mil worth of whatever you're smokin'...

The Tim said...

^^^Funniest thing I've read all day. :^D

Anonymous said...

Here is something that has been brought up before, tim did an excellent job of the comparison between San Diego and Seattle and combating the arguments that what is happening in San Diego, can't happen here. this may all sound like beating a dead horse, but I wonder if anybody can find out where the Seattle migration came from that spiked the demand for housing. where do these people come from that can take the equity out of their home and pay top dollar, causing bidding wars on homes? Let's look at where they are coming from and what is happening there. I bet that those cities that are now seeing massive declines in the value of the homes, are the culprits for the rise here. I spoke to an agent a few days ago and told her that I moved up here from California. (I actually am coming back home from being down there a while) and she said that they love seeing So Cal people because that meant that they didn't care what the price of the home was. I told her that those days are over. the home I sold in the prime spot of Mission Hills San Diego, sold 100,000.00 less than the peak market value. Looking back at comps in my old neighborhood out of curiosity, I see a $200,000.00 drop from that. What would have sold at the peak 1.5 years ago for 1.1 mil, is now going for $700k. the "median" statistics don't show that drastic of a decline, even for San Diego, but that is the reality. I feel sorry for the people who bought my house because they are now upside down.