Soft Real Estate market?

Data point - Redmond, WA. Sold in 2 days @ $7700 over asking price. Multiple offers with escalation clauses. I stopped the bidding out of concern for appraisal. Anybody got a big truck I can borrow?

[bryanthompson]

Congrats! Where ya movin' away to?

{sarcasm}
Sucks about this rotten economy, rabble, rabble rabble
{/sarcasm}

Bryan,
We're going back to TX.

Wayne,
I had it priced at the top of the area comps - $429K. Inventory here is very low right now so guess that's what drove the interest.

[fintstone]

The market is still pretty solid here in Albuquerque too....but it never got as crazy as CA. Not so much bubble to bust.

[ubiquity0]

Agreed that CA potentially has a long way to fall.

[nostatic]

many sellers are increasingly insane/greedy. Good houses that are fairly priced still sell VERY fast at least around my area.

[EdT82SC]

Originally posted by nostatic
many sellers are increasingly insane/greedy. Good houses that are fairly priced still sell VERY fast at least around my area.

Agreed. I see the same thing in Irvine. They languish on the market when greedy sellers try to get 10% over what they did 3-4 month ago, but get snatched up when they price them realistically.

[tabs]

Let's state the obvious....In LA area..including OC, San Berdino/Riverside....it's all one big city now....there are MICRO MARKETS.... The South Bay might be hot while the West Side is cold..etc..

I watch here in my little neck of the woods (NW LV)...There are now 5 houses for sale with signs in my development...in January/February there weren't any..but I didn't here of any for sale either...Now it seems some people want to cash in before it turns south on them...

In my situation I am here until the end of March...thats when my sentence in this Neighborhood is up...(2 year tax laws). I also still have to get the repair for expansive soil done. The monies for that should be arriving by the first of next week...

[tabs]

Oh yeah my friend in Redmond sold his house earlier this year for 700K....he bought a fixer in Sequim, WA and is building a home on 5 acres with ocean view into Canada...he says he's gona rent the fixer after the new house is built.

[Superman]

The housing market here has been white hot for some time, and it looks like I'll sell my house at the asking price. But I was reflecting this morning....

Yesterday I had a chance to spend some time with the chair of our state's transportation commission and this morning I had the pleasure of being in one of our famous traffic jams. It was around 5:30 or 6:00 and I spent forty minutes in first gear with my foot on the clutch. Pretty darned aggravating. Anyway, the transportation commission chair told me yesterday that the estimated cost of restoring our worst-in-the-nation (or nealry so at least) transportation infrastructure over the next twenty years is roughly $150 billion, not counting the time value of that money. It would take a gas tax hike of somewhere between $0.50 and $1.00 per gallon to provide those funds. That would throttle local industry, but then so does traffic congestion (think of the lost productivity alone...all those people sitting in their cars for hours per day). And since Tim Eyman and the conservative talk show "personalities" have convinced voters that they should get all their wishes fulfilled and tax cuts at the same time, I see little chance that we'll decide to bite the bullet now, while the price tag is this low (Yeah, $150 billion low price tag!). Now there is a reason for this rant and it's not politics. It's economics. I think Seattle real estate is going to be a poor investment. These problems are going to lower peoples' quality of life, and moreover I think industry is not going to tolerate the high cost of not being able to move things around on our roads. I think Western Washington is circling the drain, and just does not know it.

[tabs]

Remember the Telemetrics system I was telling you about for...Pay for Road Usage....Norwich Insurance Comapny in the UK has just gotten a grant to use 5000 cars to test a system.

This would be an ideal way to pay for infrastructure maintence and upgrades.....

[Superman]

Yeah Tabs, if the voters bought into the notion that revenue of any kind would be necessary for making improvements. Mr. Eyman is busy telling them that they should expect improvements and tax cuts at the same time. This helps him become a local celebrity, and makes Gubmint Waist into the bad guy, in spite of the facts. It's a pretty fun game I'm sure, as long as you want to be a celebrity but don't care what happens to government services.

No, a use tax won't work any better than another tax. It's all gubmint's fault. Your idea is very good, but it just won't get past the voters right now. And I do seriously think this is going to throttle industry here, and employment and everything else.

[island911]

hmmmm. . .Mr. Eyman's Initiative Measure 775 passed with the approval of nearly two thirds of the voters. . . .Almost a super-majority . . .but Eyman, and the voters, are all wrong according to superman.

Hmmm....

Speaking of Eyman & supermajorities . ..What's wrong with demanding supermajority votes from legislative bodies for new tax increases?

Libertarian humorist P.J. O'Rourke is famous for this great quote:
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

[turbo6bar]

What WA needs is a major depression. Then, the state can hire trained out-of-work labor and professionals for $8/day like in the old days. That would fix the problem.

[Superman]

I thought as much. Good thing we have folks here who are "in the know" about where all these billions of dollars of gubmint waste are located and a plan to repair the problems. As I am sure you are aware, our state DOT has undergone an average of probably two performance audits per year over the past fifteen years and those drilling operations have failed to find water but....

All that's in the past now. I'm interested in hearing your plan. And before you suggest we can pay for this by stopping giving money to welfare mothers, please just enlighten us on the simple statistic of which three functions/agencies are responsible for spending the top 80% of state funds.

Libertarians are so enlightening. I'll check back.

[Drago]

Mark,

Congrats on selling so quickly...the market here is certainly still quite hot. I've had 2 friends sell their homes recently. One sold within 2 days and the other within 4 days...both full price offers...one for cash!

Again, congrats...we'll miss you around here.

[Rot 911]

Mark you moving back to Texas? If so what city?

Thanks Marc. I'll miss all you guys too.The lure of family and homeland is just too strong.

Kurt, we're not sure whether Dallas or Austin yet. There are some job decisions we have to make in the next few days.

[island911]

Originally posted by Superman
I thought as much. Good thing we have folks here who are "in the know" about where all these billions of dollars of gubmint waste are located and a plan to repair the problems. As I am sure you are aware, our state DOT has undergone an average of probably two performance audits per year over the past fifteen years and those drilling operations have failed to find water but....

All that's in the past now. I'm interested in hearing your plan. And before you suggest we can pay for this by stopping giving money to welfare mothers, please just enlighten us on the simple statistic of which three functions/agencies are responsible for spending the top 80% of state funds.

Libertarians are so enlightening. I'll check back.

Hmmmm. . performance audits. . .

The thing is, this oh-so-wise poster over on the conspiracy thread said this:

Originally posted by Superman
I have worked in the public works contracting arena for years now and can tell you that anyone who categorically denies the real potential for conniving, secret, unscrupulous behavior when billions of dollars are at stake is......

NAIVE.

So . . if I didn't know better, I would say that it would seem that Libertarian was spot on saying "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

[Wrecked944]

I have some cash on hand and I'm drooling over the prospect of a real estate crash. Prices here (central MA) have already softened. Where once you never saw a "For Sale" sign for more than a day or so, now they are sitting idle for months. But buildable land appears to still be out of control. Does anyone here have any knowledge of how land prices behave during a general real estate crash? Like what happened in your area 15 years ago?