Wendy Leung's Seattle Condo Blog

Seattle is Both a Sellers' and Buyers' 2BR Market (Depending on Who You Are....)

Recently, I was doing some comparable analysis for a client who owns a large two bedroom condo in Belltown.  Despite the mushy economic climate, there is a considerably low inventory for sale in this mid price group ($400k-$700k).   Intrigued, I decided to pull more comparables in Belltown and Downtown as well as other price groups to see what their absorption rates are. (Absorption rate is the time it would take the market to consume all the units for sale based on the current number of units on the market and the most recent data on how many units are selling per month.)  

Not surprisingly, the lower price group (under $400K) are selling quite well; there is low inventory and demand is stable (mostly first time home buyers and opportunistic investors), thus pricing has seemed to stabilize.   

Seattle Condo Market Update January 2012- Median Prices Lower Than 2011

• January data is in. The big story is median prices which dropped 13% from $234,000 to $208,000 (the biggest month over month decline in a long time).  
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• At the neighborhood level, Queen Anne and Magnolia had the toughest January with a 20% drop in median prices. Ballard and Greenlake, on the other hand, had a stronger showing with median prices rising 18% from December 2011 to January 2012.
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• One encouraging spot is pending sales in January were up 6% compared to December 2011. Also, despite Queen Anne/Magnolia median price pressure, pending sales were up 50% from December to January. 

Viaduct and Seattle Condos

As I was driving South on 99 to the Stadium, it was great to see some progress with the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement project. The south end of the Viaduct had been demolished and the traffic has been shifted onto a new bridge near the stadiums. After more than 10 years of discussion, planning, design and prepping work, we can expect the deep bore tunnel work to begin next year. Yes, finally. With the removal of the Viaduct along the waterfront, which is estimated around 2016, I had to wonder which condos would benefit from it.

Well, I think a few of them like Belltown Court, Belltown Lofts, Pomeroy, Site 17, Fix Building, HillClimb, and Our Home Hotel condo will be better off. Let's take a closer look on why that's the case.

Living in a Seattle Church..

Six stories and sliding stained glass windows.  Pretty cool, start at half a million, but not sure if I'd like the relative lack of wide open floor plans (as opposed to lots of vertical space).

See below for a video tour.

 

Seattle Rents Expected to Rise 6% in 2012

Unlike the purchase and sales market, the Seattle rental marketing continues to power on despite bullish rental developers.  According to Dupre & Scott, rents were up 4.5% in 2011 and are expected to go up another 6% in 2012 and then 3% annually after that.  So I guess the good news is if you own a condo and don't see yourself selling in the near term due to soft pricing, looks like finding renters won't be a problem.