Recent Stories with tag double-dip

"much can be said" courtesy of our Flickr pool's +Russ

How is the Seattle real estate market like an ice cream cone? It's frozen and it either is currently "clearly a double-dipper" or will be. (Once again, Portland gets there first.)

Hell may have frozen over as well as Seattle; the Seattle Bubble says this could be a good time to buy a home. Granted, they're talking about prepared buyers taking advantage of that below-market deal they've found. Anecdotally, this is echoed by Redfin's report on the Seattle area market, which notes that a few first-time home buyers are making their move. 

Otherwise, of the Seattle area homes pulled off the market in November, a full 60 percent were delisted by owners who plan to wait out the winter. Only 40 percent were sales. Of the city of Seattle 1,700-house November inventory (down 14 percent from October), 344 sold, while the time it took to close on a sale continued to lengthen thanks to difficulties finalizing financing.

Seattle condo sales remain way back in the deep freeze section, down a full 50 percent year over year. 137 sold, but 200 were delisted, to wait for spring. The Bubble warned that the home buying credit program was simply pulling demand from the future, and that once it ended, we'd see the frozen wasteland currently before us. But it is also true that many first-time buyers went the condo route, and now sit underwater, unable even to think of taking a short sale's loss; the average condo sale price per square foot is down just 1.2 percent from last November.

Meanwhile, bottom-callers have these home-price declines to stare at. (Here's the Bubble's latest Case-Schiller graphs.) It's not just Seattle, of course--Seattlepi.com reports that Seattle and ten other metro areas are seeing a "triple-dip," and analysts predict anywhere from another six to fifteen percent slide over 2011. (Nor is the problem limited to residential real estate--the Wall Street Journal reports that Beacon Capital Parters, owners of the Columbia Tower Center, are selling their best-performing asset to raise capital to meet debt obligations.)... (more)

Flamingo chick at Woodland Park Zoo (Photo: Dennis Dow)

Via the Seattle Bubble (of course), let's point you to the Puget Sound Business Journal story on class action status granted to the Washington Mutual suit. While you're at the PSBJ, read this article on the double-dip in Seattle housing, and remember to buy your friends in the real estate business a drink. The Stroupe Condo Blog covers the last days of the McGuire Apartments.

In other news, State Supreme Court justices Richard Sanders and James Johnson made the Seattle Times for suggesting that while minorities end up in jail disproportionately (as part of the population), they do so under their own steam. Sanders helpfully clarified that certain minorities are "disproportionally represented in prison because they have a crime problem." (Also, things burn because they contain a "fire-like element.") Minority News has another angle.

Medical Teams International emailed us to say that a medical team of eight nurses from Washington state, assembled by North Shore Baptist Church in Bothell, has left to help with the cholera outbreak in Haiti. You sort of wish the epidemic hadn't been foreseen many months ago. In contrast, one of our big concerns is whether light rail is running on time.

RIP, flamingo chicks, we hardly new ye: "The two Chilean flamingo chicks that hatched this month at Woodland Park Zoo have passed away. The older of the chicks was found dead this morning in the exhibit, and the younger of the chicks was discovered missing Sunday night." And now...

Neighborhood Headline News... (more)