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Wednesday, January 27, 1982

01.27.2007 - Weekend Open Thread

This is your open thread for the weekend of January 27-28, 2007. Please post random links and off-topic discussions here.

17 comments:

Vickie said...

Deepcgi,It most likely means that. Though I think people putting their houses on the market right now may be pushing the upper limits to see where this is gonna go. possibly on the advice of their agent. but like I said, I think the most likely scenario is ther former. the same thing happened in SD when I sold my house. The upper priced homes started going on the market like hot cakes as a lot of people saw what was coming and decidied to get while the getting was good. This may very well be the case and causing the jump in Median asking. That median thing sure is misleading, no matter how you look at it.

Finance said...

deepcgi is probably correct, however it could mean the market is still strong in the region.

I hate the way only MEDIAN housing prices are reported. With all the statistical tools available we should be looking at it from several directions. At least report the MEAN, MEDIAN & MODE of housing prices. This way we can more accuarately tell whats really going on.

We have enough historical data to do this. My predition is the first person to do this will become rich...oops let the cat out of the bag.

Ben said...

Tim, you have spoken about inaccurate data in the MLS lately. How about a discussion about inaccurate fields other than DOM?

I find it really frustrating when the MLS listing does not indicate that it is a condo/townhome when it clearly is. I don't want a Condo (I live in one now) and it makes doing queries a huge pain.

The other thing that I see that is painful is when the lot size is 0 sq ft. Is it so hard to put a lot size? This is a very important consideration for me when looking at a property.

While I am moaning about the MLS, why is it limited to 15 photos? And why do some people only have 4? And why are the photos the size of a postage stamp on your average monitor? These are all trivial to fix and would go a long way to helping to sell property. Maybe as the market slows more people will make more of an effort.

When I see bad data in the MLS I can only think of two possibilities:

a) The agent is trying to deceive me.
b) The agent does not know how to use the MLS system very well.

Neither of these possibilities makes me think highly of the property.

Vickie said...

Look, it doesn't take a bunch of multimillion dollar homes to come on the market to raise the median. a simple increase in the number of 600-700k homes will do this. Which is what I am seeing actually, more of the higher priced homes are popping in higher proportions to the lower cost homes. I niether have the time, nor the inclination to run the numbers, but I'd put my money that I'm taking to the casino tonite on it.

Finance said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Finance said...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
html/realestate/2003542809_lesel28
.html

This is a very intersting comment in Seattle Times about their rent increasing 25% over the past several months to a year. Now that is brutal. [Not sure if it is commercial or residential?]

MisterBubble said...

Uh...didja notice the "syndicated columnist" right after the writer's name?

I know you were all worked up over the prospect of 25% rent increases in Seattle, but you're going to have to do a bit better than this, gooroo.

MisterBubble said...

Speaking of rents...I've been noticing TONS of listings for rental townhomes and condos on craigslist.

How are people affording ridiculously bloated mortgage payments? By gouging renters of course!

$750 for a freaking room? Riiight....

Alan said...

Boarding houses tend to lower the value of a neighborhood over time. North Carolina has laws prohibiting boarding houses to prevent that sort of thing.

Puget Sounder said...

RE: Ballard room for $750.

I wonder why the UW "young professional" alumnus would overextend himself to the degree that he'd need two roommates to help with housing costs.

I'm two years younger than him, graduated from the UW Business School, and rent a nice condo on the Eastside for a similar cost to his bedroom in Ballard. Um...yeah.

Matt Rivett said...

How are people affording ridiculously bloated mortgage payments? By gouging renters of course!

Good lord, who gave this specuvestor jazzbo a mortgage? The dude's coming up short $1250 a month to cover his bloat and needs a dinky townhouse packed with roomates to subsidize his "investment"?

At least with dot-com stocks, you didn't have to put up with a clownhouse full of possibly annoying roomates.

Nice find Mr. Bubbles BTW

Matt Rivett said...

Well at least here you get your own kitchen/bathroom along with the your $750/month Ballard rent.

Finance said...

The condo I own in downtown Seattle (98101) would rent for ~$1200/mo (including a coveted parking spot that others are renting out for $175/mo).

Renting one room for $750 is a little steep, yet $500 seems more reasonable.

Vickie said...

No dalas, not confusing median with mean. median = 1/2 above, 1/2 below. And it can be affected, and often is affected when a price decrease is at hand as a larger amount of those sold are in the upper half, raising the median.

wreckingbull said...

Salad-man, are you talking about a statistical concept or how to cook a steak?

Vickie said...

It has been discussed in length on this blog, and you don't need to throw your statistcal lingo around. there are plenty of staticians on this blog that have discussed the same thing. Unfortunately, there is no available method that accurately represents actual prices of homes sold. The only way one can see where prices are going is by being able to see an average price per square ft. Unfortunately, those numbers are only avalable to the "insiders"

Anonymous said...

My current landlord has offered to keep the rent the same after 1 year.

While we were looking, I was able to talk most people down in price, or get a free month of rent.

I don't see rents going up in Seattle anytime soon, especially with all the F&@ked buyers POS's coming onto the market...