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Seattle Region Home To 10 of Nation's 30 Most Competitive Neighborhoods For House Hunters (geekwire.com)
After a recent report revealed Seattle had the nation's hottest housing market for the second month running, it should come as no surprise that many of the most competitive neighborhoods in the country are clustered around the Seattle region. From a report on GeekWire: Redfin, a Seattle-based real estate and technology company, crunched the numbers on the most competitive neighborhoods from house hunters across 27 U.S. metro areas. Four of the top 10 and 10 of the top 30 hottest neighborhoods are in or near Redfin's hometown of Seattle. Bellevue, Wash.'s Factoria neighborhood, home to T-Mobile, is the most competitive neighborhood in the country. Seattle's University district is second, followed by two neighborhoods in Boston, Mass. Redfin ranked the neighborhoods based on the percentages of homes that sold for cash and sold for more than their asking price. Analysts also considered the median days on the market and home price growth in each neighborhood. Home prices in the Seattle area are soaring, fueled by booming job and population growth.
Why is this on /. ? Too much eggnog by msmash ?
The mythology of making money from your own house is only that - mythology. We still have untold thousands (at least) of people who watch too much H&G TV and other cable programs that exist to bring customers to realtors, without concern for the fact that it is a pyramid scheme they (consumers) can never profit from.
If you want to buy a house for your own sake because you want to own a house for some reason, great. If you want to make improvements to said house for your own sake, great. But it is time to give up on the notion of "investing" in your house; you won't get the money back when you're old enough to stop working. You're just as well off putting the same money in a checking account (as savings accounts don't pay interest in this country any ways) and letting it sit there.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I'm all for the idea of relocating to get a better job. (I think that's increasingly necessary just to reward states with a pro-business/commerce mindset and punish the ones without it.)
But markets where real-estate gets so "hot", you can't ever imagine owning your own home without becoming a millionaire first? That's a huge negative, in my opinion. The "American dream" is all about home ownership and a good paying career type job should be one that makes that dream possible for you (even if you're still in a situation where you only want to rent, at the moment).
I moved to the DC area for a new job myself, and it has this same problem. So I compromised by moving to a small, more rural community in Western Maryland. Now I have a 50+ mile commute each direction for work, BUT we have a commuter rail system I can make use of, AND I have the option to work from home several days a week. So it's completely doable, and I get the benefit of enjoying peaceful, quiet rural living AND a regular does of the "big city" at the same time. Results may vary for others who opt to come here for a job ... but it's all stuff to consider.
All these hot housing markets just show where there should be more development in new housing, especially more compact housing. Put some high rises in and around those neighborhoods along with more public transit and problem solved.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Not tech, not news, not interesting, not surprising, not important.
I live 30 miles North of Seattle. Housing prices are doing the same thing here. People are paying $400K for run down shacks. Tiny 2 bedroom apartments have gone from $800 - $1600/mo in 3 years. 2000sqft new construction in Edmonds are going for $1.4M. The biggest problem is infrastructure. The commute 30 miles to Seattle has gone from 40 minutes per way 3 years ago to 1-2 hours per way today - and getting worse by the month. Seattle has punted on public transportation so long they had to shove $54B transportation spending bill down land owners throats that will take 25 years to build and won't fix the problems now or in 3-5 years. The streets are undriveable. Homeless are everywhere and growing. Crime is on the rise. If you're not pulling in $100K+, you can't afford to live in Seattle. .
Flippers are everywhere. But I don't see all the negatives turning the trend.
If you look at California, housing prices are still insane and higher than they are in Seattle. By CA comparison, there's a long way to go - on the up side - for pricing.
..and people still move there? Nothing like moving for a hot salary and then having it killed by a house.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
begone, fake news
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Because of the 15% foreign buyers tax that vancouver instituted in sept, our HAM (hot asian money) has moved slightly south. I thought this was a well known fact so its a shame the article seems to have another hypothesis that is much less likely. Seeing as the spike almost exactly corresponds with the tax and not any massive hiring in the last 6 months.
Welcome to unaffordability seattle! probably a good time to buy property, hold it for a few months and flip, if the lower mainland BC is any indication of whats in store for you guys.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Seattle is all in all a decent place to live. It also leads the nation in having the highest rate of car theft, lol, but that's what garages are for.
As for real estate, yes, the market is on fire here. If your asking price is even remotely close to reality you can sell it in no time. A $200K house priced at $230K will sell, no problem, and after the bidding wars you may get $250K or more.
For example, I could *easily* sell my home for triple it's original price and it wouldn't take more than a day or so. Given a 30-day window for competitive bids it would be considerably more than that. I get flyers from real estate agents all the time begging me to sell, and it's tempting, very tempting. But then I'd either have to move a fair distance away or hunt for another home in the same super competitive market, neither of which appeal to me at this time.
Frankly, I expect another housing market crash within the next few years, so if I was smart I'd sell now. But my house payment is super low and I don't want to move, so I'm staying put. Hell, my house payment is less (a lot less) than what most people pay for rent around here.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Yes.... many reasons why home ownership makes good sense in the long run.
Maybe you're still too young to get it though?
Look ... it's not about playing some kind of investment game with the home you live in, expecting you can flip it for a big profit (which mysteriously, you believe will only increase based on how much you spend upgrading everything in the house).
It's about the fact that with your home comes a chunk of land that it sits on, for starters. This means you have your own little square of space on this planet you have control over. If you decide you'd like to start growing some of your own food, you can just go out in your back yard and do it. If you want to buy a big dog, you can do it without worrying about getting your landlord's permission first, AND you can let him poop outside all you want, and clean it up again on your own time. You're not stuck running around with a bag and pooper scooper, right behind your dog, to appease the other people who live in your apartment unit. Heck, maybe you decide you'd like to build yourself a workshop or a shed to store some things in? It's your yard, so you can do it!
It's also about having control over your house itself. If you discover you'd like things much better with a wall removed between your kitchen and your living room? You can undertake that project. You don't have to worry about somebody you're renting from telling you no. You can repaint any time you like. You can redo anything you want in your kitchen or your bathroom to suit you. And if you spend the money doing it, at least you don't get stuck giving all of it away to somebody else at no charge, for them to get some of the benefit from it, when it turns out your rent has gone up and you need to find a different place to stay.
Obviously, you get the tax advantages too, such as tax credits on the mortgage interest you pay.
I don't know why you're trying to paint home ownership as some kind of political scheme? As someone else posted, it's been a popular theme for over 60 years in America. The only problems we had were when presidents decided to sell it as something EVERYONE should do, no matter their financial situation. Again, you need to have a solid, steady job that makes it viable FIRST.
You don't get tax credits on mortgage interest. You get a tax *deduction*. And it's not that great, because you still get the "standard deduction" as a renter; if you're not paying much in mortgage interest, you might not be able to deduct that much more than the standard deduction. (If you don't know the difference between a credit and a deduction, you need to educate yourself fast if you're a taxpayer.)
Your points about benefits of home ownership are suspect in modern society. If you live out in the sticks, sure, you can do whatever the hell you want mostly. (But there's no jobs in the sticks, esp. not tech jobs.) If you live in a subdivision, no. Buying a big dog can get the police called on you because you leave it outside to bark its head off all day long, disturbing the neighbors. Having a shed or workshop might not be approved by your HOA. Same with having a garden. There's all kinds of limitations on what you can do on your own property in municipalities these days.
The giant downside of owning a house is being tied to it: if you get laid off from your job and need to move to another city for a new job, owning a house makes that far more difficult and expensive. Even changing jobs within the same metro area is complicated by it, because it could mean going from a short commute to a brutal one. Renters have an easier time packing up and moving when things become too inconvenient. The other big problem is property taxes: in some states (NJ and TX come to mind), property taxes are insanely high and keep going up far beyond inflation. Apparently those police departments want cushier retirement packages for their members.