Lending, lending, lending...

Here's an interesting piece from the Seattle PI on how lenders are working hard to get financing approved for potential borrowers.

Enjoy.

Read the full article here.

Numbers you should know...

Here are the recent sales numbers for single-family homes in the city of Seattle. Only 26% of the available homes sold or went under contract in the month of October. A more balanced market would see that number grow to 50%. One encouraging number to notice is the decrease in available listings. This amount will hopefully continue to drop as buyers eat up the current inventory and sellers hold off on listing their homes during the holidays.

Click on the chart to see a larger view!

Residential Architecture Snapshot: The Tudor

With so many differing styles of residential architecture out there, I will periodically feature styles commonly seen in Seattle. Most styles are not native to this area. As people moved west, they brought their building knowledge and appetite for home styles from their hometowns.

The Tudor:

This architecture style was popular in the 1920s and 1930s and continues to be a mainstay in suburbs across the United States. The defining characteristics are half-timbering on bay windows and upper floors, and facades that are dominated by one or more steeply pitched cross gables. Patterned brick or stone walls are common, as are rounded doorways, multi-paned casement windows, small porches. Tudors are highly desired in the Seattle area, however their floor plans often prove to be impractical. The steep pitched rooves and relatively small footprint (in Seattle neighborhoods) don't allow for much room inside. But people fall in love with their curb appeal and usually fork out the money to live in them. Seattle tudors are often all brick and have a little bend near the bottom of the roofline.

Google releases Street View for Seattle!

This is a super cool feature new to Google Maps in the Seattle area. Google offered Street View for other cities and just added Seattle, D.C. and Baltimore to the list. As you look at a map, viewers have always been able to select from a street map, terrain map, satellite image or some combination of those. Now, when a map viewer clicks on "street view," an image box pops up that shows what it looks like to stand on the street in that particular location.

This is a very useful feature for home shoppers as they can see how certain properties look in a more realistic fashion than before. From what I've heard, Google sent vehicles around town with cameras attached and filming all the way. I haven't yet found a location that they didn't capture, which continues to amaze me. Have fun playing around with it.

Check it out!

Downtown Condo Q&A

While this feature in the Seattle Times may be old news for some of you, I finally got around to reading through it this morning. I feel the questions asked and answers provided cover what the average person might be wondering as it relates to Seattle condos. Dean Jones, CEO of condo-research and -marketing firm Realogics, fielded questions online on October 8th. Seattle-based Realogics is a real estate consulting firm specializing in market research, product development, marketing and sales solutions for in-city condominiums and mixed-use properties.

Happy reading and Happy Halloween!

Read the Condo Q&A here.

Seattle real estate pegged as a hot market

There have been recent articles anointing Seattle as a hot market for both commercial and residential real estate. The Seattle PI ran a story that sited outside research and named Seattle as the #1 market for commercial real estate in 2009. Another article in Smart Money magazine listed Seattle in the top 25 markets poised for a quick rebound in 2009.

The reasoning behind these reports are things many of us have been saying for a long time now. Seattle's physical boundaries are limited on most sides by water and this has prevented extreme over development seen in other areas like Arizona. Our job picture remains very positive as mega-employers like Microsoft, Boeing and Amazon.com remain relatively strong. Job growth dropped again recently and more people continue to move to the area in greater numbers than they leave. Watch for the massive development in South Lake Union to add to the desire for housing in both downtown as well as the neighborhoods north of the lake: Queen Anne, Wallingford, Ballard, Green Lake and Fremont. 2009 looks great for Seattle, so take advantage of the soft prices while they last!

Here are the articles I mentioned:

Seattle in top 25 for residential real estate! (This is an abbreviated version published by Yahoo!)

Seattle is #1 commercial real estate market for 2009!

September pending sales increase!

Pending sales in September have increased 8.8% from a year ago and 1.8% from August. Below is an article that discusses this increase and what it might forecast for the market's future. Some feel it is due to approval for financing taking longer for buyers. Others feel it is a small sign of market stabilization. Since the market really slowed down in September of 2007, the 8.8% increase of pending sales one year later may indicate more sales to come.

Read the article discussing these numbers here.