What I see is a Seattle area real estate market is turning around. What my clients see is the latest Case Shiller report and now they are worried. The "latest" is two months old. Many believe that there is a huge supply of bank owned homes ready to depress the Seattle real estate market again. Not true in Washington State, where deeds of trust are used for the purchase of real property. Read the rest of this entry »

When I began this series of three cheers for Seattle I knew that the first cheer would be for "scenery" and the second for "smarts," two aspects of Seattle that are firmly established. I planned the third cheer to be about silver linings, a much less sure thing, given the vagaries of the political and economic landscape. I'm happy to report that the clouds that made Seattle area real estate values go down the drain now have silver linings. Read the rest of this entry »

National statistics notwithstanding, there are neighborhoods where homes retain their value. This is especially true for homes that are only slightly less desirable than the very best in the same upscale neighborhood. That's true, for example, for Kirkland homes west of Market Street and, across Lake Washington, it applies to Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. Read the rest of this entry »

The main reason for Seattle's smarts, as I see it, must be the geography. Just take a look at the map. If a company in New York or Chicago was going to expand, Seattle would not be the first choice. It's too far away all by itself. Tucked in the Northwest corner of the US, Seattelites always had to be self-reliant to survive. That explains why so many corporations were founded here. Read the rest of this entry »

In 1999, when I still worked in the Rainier Tower in down­town Seat­tle, I mostly com­muted by bus from the East­side across Lake Wash­ing­ton. That’s when I learned the mean­ing of the phrase “the moun­tain is out” which means in Seat­tle that you can see Mount Rainier. Since then I’ve never stopped mar­veling at the incred­i­ble scenery that sur­rounds Seat­tle in all directions. Meanwhile on the real estate front: the most sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in Seat­tle area real estate is the lack of inven­tory. In some areas the num­ber of active list­ings is down by nearly 40 per­cent from a year ago. Read the rest of this entry »