Archive for May, 2009
May 29, 2009
Open House Date & Time:
Sunday, May 31, 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
431 N Bowdoin Pl Seattle, WA 98103
Priced at $689,000
6 BR/2.25 BA
Listing agent: Allie Howard
Seller Comments
Coffee Shop of Choice:
Cafe Ladro
Favorite restaurants in the area:
El Camino
Favorite places to go:
- Fremont Sunday market
- Burke-Gilman Trail
- Norm’s Pub Trivia Night
- Margarita’s at El Camino
Best features of the home:
- Large number of bedrooms (6), all with large closets
- Elementary, Middle, and High Schools in award-winning Lake Washington School District
- Large kitchen for classic home, enough space for a comfortable kitchen nook
- Entertainment patio
- View of Mt. Rainier
Any remodeling since you purchased the home?
- Replaced all the original windows (22)
- Basement — new media room, replaced flooring
- New exterior doors
- Bathrooms — replaced all sinks and toilets
- Interior painting with a variety of warm colors
- Landscape — Both front and back yards have been professionally landscaped
Most Romantic Spot in the Home:
Sitting on the outdoor patio with a fire and glass of wine.
What you will miss most:
- Never having to drive once you come home: Fremont, Fred Meyer, Trader Joes and the Burke Gilman Trail are all within walking distance of house.
- 5 minute drive or bus ride to city.
- BF Day Elementary School and the large park behind it is just one block away. We go almost every night with our two year old.
- Projects in the craft room with the kids
May 27, 2009
As Seattle first-time home buyers enter the market this season, we decided to check in with recent first-time customers to get their advice on the whole process.
Meet Katie and Bryan
We both just got jobs in Seattle and started looking for homes in November 2008 on Redfin. We knew we wanted to buy this year to start building equity and researched homes in Lynnwood, Edmonds and West Seattle. We loved getting Redfin’s listing alert emails so we could keep track of price changes for our favorite homes.
After touring a few homes, we contacted Redfin agent Loren Ellingson to talk about making an offer on a home in West Seattle. We were a little nervous about starting the process and had a couple concerns:
- Earnest Money: We didn’t want to lose our earnest money deposit if we needed to pull out of the deal. Loren explained to us that we’d have contingency periods for inspections and financing that would allow us to back out of the offer and get our deposit back.
- Addendums: We worried about all the addendums to the negotiation contracts, but Loren answered all of our questions. He responded to our emails within minutes and would even call later in the evening. We closed on our home on May 8th and couldn’t be happier with Redfin’s service. Loren went above and beyond what we ever expected in an agent.”
Katie & Bryan’s Tips for Future Buyers:
1. Start searching early: spend a lot of time looking at homes, monitoring price changes and make a list of everything you want in a home.
2. Don’t get your hopes up: buying a home can be an emotional and stressful process, especially in this market. Be realistic about what you can afford.
3. Learn about mortgages: do research on the different types of loans available. Take a lending class so you know exactly what’s involved in the application process and what you’re getting into. We shopped around a bit and ended up getting the best rates at BECU.
4. Communication is key: make sure you stay in close contact with both your lender and agent. Redfin did a fantastic job of keeping us informed at each step and letting us know what we needed to do.
Katie also filed the 1040X amendment form for her 2008 tax return to claim the first-time home buyers credit on the day her deal closed. “The form was easy to fill out and I mailed it in, but I still haven’t received the refund,” she said. It usually takes around 8 – 10 weeks to receive your check after you file the amendment.
Any other first-time buyers out there with advice? Just let us know!
May 26, 2009
It’s time for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI). For the full source data behind this post, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website.
For an explanation of how the Case-Shiller data is calculated, check out their methodology pdf. Also remember that the data released on the last Tuesday of a given month is for the period two months prior (i.e. – March data is released in May).
Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Seattle Area* as of March:
March 2009
Month to Month: Down 2.0%
Year to Year: Down 16.4%
Change from Peak: Down 22.5% in 20 months
The following chart shows the Seattle HPI scaled such that the July 2007 peak is 100% on the y-axis. Data on the x-axis is scaled to display the last time (pre-peak) the Seattle HPI was at or lower than it was in the latest data (May 2005).
After some fairly major drops in November, December, and January, month-to-month price declines in the Seattle area have toned down somewhat to “just” 2.0% in March. Meanwhile, the year-to-year price drops continue to steadily grow. It will be interesting to see if last year’s April bump is repeated again this year. If not, the year-to-year number could easily bump up to around 20% by June.
Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves, so you can compare Seattle’s performance to other areas across the country:
And here’s our final chart, in which we line up the peak Case-Shiller HPI value for each of Redfin’s markets, so we can see how long each market has been declining, and how much it has dropped from the peak.
Seattle’s relative post-peak performance continues to fall below that of most other markets served by Redfin. The 22.5% total post-peak price drop here is the 13th largest of the 20 markets tracked by Case-Shiller. Phoenix came in the highest at 53.0%, while Dallas is the smallest at just 11.1% off-peak.
*[Case-Shiller defines Seattle as the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.]
May 15, 2009
Open House Date & Time:
Sunday, May 17, 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
23239 NE 29th Ct Sammamish, WA 98074
Priced at $479,900
3 BR/2.5 BA
Listing agent: Febe Cude
Seller Comments
Coffee Shop of Choice:
Starbucks at Pine Lake Shopping Center (especially the fireplace)
Favorite restaurants in the area:
Favorite places to go:
What’s in the neighborhood?:
- Neighborhood park within walking distance of the house
- Elementary, Middle, and High Schools in award-winning Lake Washington School District
- Three shopping centers with a variety of outlets
- City parks, including one with a lake for swimming
Best features of the home:
Backyard — we love to enjoy the landscape and the peace and quiet
Any remodeling since you purchased the home?
- Upgraded kitchen: stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, new sink/faucet, painted cabinets with new hardware
- Upgraded master bathroom: ceramic tile floors, new lighting, new mirrors, marble countertops, new glass shower enclosure with ceramic tile/glass walls, new sinks and rain shower head
- Upgraded downstairs powder room: new granite countertop, sink, faucet and lighting
- Replaced all interior doors and installed new handles
- Interior painting with variety of warm colors
- Major landscaping in front and back yards, including several tall trees to provide screening and privacy
Favorite room:
The spacious kitchen
What you will miss most:
Our neighbors and all the work they have done to make our cul-de-sac stand out in the community.
May 8, 2009
Let’s look at our brokerage stats for the Seattle area to see how what our clients are doing right now reflects what’s happening in the market.
The information in this post comes from the NWMLS, the database for real estate transactions and listings for western Washington state, as well as our own database and surveys of Redfin customers.
We Have The Top Three Buyer’s Agents In King County
According to the NWMLS, Redfin agents Allie Howard, Febe Cude and Trevor Smith are tops among agents who represented home-buyers in King County for April based first on number of deals, then by total dollar amount.
| Rank |
Agent |
# of Deals |
Total Sales |
| 1 |
Allie Howard |
7 |
$2,720,000 |
| 2 |
Febe Cude |
6 |
$2,759,500 |
| 3 |
Trevor Smith |
4 |
$1,418,300 |
| 12 |
Loren Ellingson |
3 |
$1,439,000 |
| 32 |
Rachelle King |
2 |
$1,579,500 |
| 58 |
Cheryl McLaine |
2 |
$984,500 |
We also worked on a couple of deals with new construction homes that weren’t listed in the NWMLS. Cheryl closed on a $1.7 million home on the Eastside and Allie worked with a client the purchase of a $419,000 condo in Seattle.
Redfin clients work with some of the most active and successful agents in King County. Redfin agents are experts in the current real estate market and they know what it takes to help our clients buy the homes they want.
Our Clients Love Our Fanatical Service
We survey every client and track every transaction in a central customer database. For the surveys we received in April from our Seattle-area clients:
- 41 clients responded to our customer-satisfaction survey and posted a review online, up from 35 in March.
- 39 of those clients, or 95%, would recommend Redfin to a friend, up from 94% in March.
In these surveys, Redfin asks customers to rate the likelihood that they would recommend Redfin to a friend on a 0-to-10 scale. Customers who rated 6 or higher count as people who would recommend Redfin to a friend.
More People Are Out Looking At Homes
In April, our Seattle clients were busy seeing homes and making offers:
We also had 66 people come to the home-buying class at our Seattle HQ to learn about the home-buying process and to meet our agents. Check out the slide deck from that class.
It’s Taking 36 Days To Close On A Home
In April, it took slightly less time for our Seattle clients to close on their homes than it did in March:
- For our clients who bought re-sales, the average time from the initial agreement on terms until the close of the deal was 36 days, down from 38 days in March.
- All of our clients successfully financed their homes; 1 of our client’s failed to get financing in March.
- 1 deal failed the home inspection, up from 0 in March.
- Of our closed deals, the average discount off list price for homes sold was 4.88%, up from 3.41% in March.
Look For Our May Report
We’ll be back next month with our analysis of the May numbers. Let us know what you’d like to see in that report.
May 1, 2009
Over the last few weeks, our agents have seen a rise in the number of deals with multiple offers. At the same time, many of our first-time home-buyers have told us they got into the market hoping to get 15% off any home they want, but they’re finding the houses they want are in demand.The good homes seem to be selling fast with the final sale prices at or near list prices.
To get to the bottom of what’s going on in the market, Dave Billings, our Seattle manager, took a look at the data.
More Redfin Offers Are In Multiple Offer Situations
March: 18 of our 127 offers (14%) were in multiple offer situations.
April*: 24 of our 112 offers (21%) were in multiple offer situations. For the multiple offer properties the average list price was $398,000. 63% (15 of 24) were under $400K.
Houses Are Selling Faster
Looking at the days on market (DOM) for recent sales we see it decreasing:
March: Median DOM for <$400K single family home sales was 49 days.
April: Median DOM for <$400K single family home sales was 37 days.
March: Median DOM for <$400K condo sales was 42 days.
April: Median DOM for <$400K condo sales was 49 days.
For single family homes, a 12 day drop in the median DOM over just 30 days is huge. New inventory is being snapped up quickly, while stale inventory is sitting on the market and rotting. Condos have typically been a house-alternative, but given seven day rise in median DOM for condos, it looks like buyers who can afford houses are choosing that path over condos.
Prices Down, Sale to List & Sales Up, Inventory Flat
We also have a few observations from when we were pulling the numbers for our home buying class slides [pdf].
In every neighborhood we monitor, both the average sold and list price dropped roughly $50K from March, while the sale-to-list percentage was up about two points in each area for both condos and single family homes.
The NWMLS King County inventory remained fairly flat at just under 40,000 listings, but the number of sales in the last month increased. As a result, the months of inventory dropped from roughly 16 to under 12; a significant drop in for one month.
Note: We pulled the April data on the 28th so it’s not for the whole month.
