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The graphs below are the result of a study I did on the condominium market in the greater Seattle / Bellevue urban area, including all of Seattle and the Eastside from Renton Highlands to Bothell and out to Sammamish. There is good news for both Buyers and Sellers in here, but not in the same places.
The good news for Buyers is that if you are interested in the urban lifestyle and one of the chic new high-rise condos, you should be able to cut a pretty good deal over the coming year. This is clearly a Buyers Market situation, and you have both the leverage of Sellers competing for your business, and historically low interest rates to finance it with. Even jumbo rates are coming down finally.
The good news for Sellers is that if you have a modestly priced condominium that you want to sell now, there are plenty of Buyers (it looks like we are on the edge of a Sellers Market) and the amount of competition is a lot less than it was. If you have a clean move-in-ready under-$500k condo that you want to sell, you can probably find a buyer pretty quickly these days. And the extended home-buyer tax credit should continue to help.
The first chart is a fairly traditional graph of the overall condominium Months Supply in this area, laddered by price range. Months Supply is calculated as Current Inventory of condos for sale, divided by the average monthly rate of Sales, in this case through the summer months - July, August, September. It shows pretty much what you would expect in our current market - the selected area is a little more tightly defined than in the King County condo charts I usually do in Reiling's Real Estate Market Reports, but the shape is the same as in the full King County Months Supply by Price Range analysis I did in September. Overall the lower price ranges show about 8 months supply, rising to over 36 months (3 years - ouch!) supply in the high price range.
However, if we dig deeper, the picture changes quite a bit. It is somewhat common knowledge that many of the the newer high-rise urban condos are in trouble because they are expensive relative to prior low-rise developments, and because they have been overbuilt relative to demand.
What is less common knowledge is that the lower priced re-sale condos are selling very well - condominium homes under $500,000 that are in good condition and priced at market are selling fairly quickly.
So how do we see that in the data? This first chart shows the overall Months Supply situation for condominiums by price range, and clearly shows the sharply rising Months Supply (read oversupply) at the high end of the price range. Condominium Months Supply - Overall
The second chart shows the same situation broken down into a grid by price and age to show how some major segments of the condo market are performing differently. Condominium Supply - By Segment
The newer condos, those built in 2007 and later, represent almost 25% of the current market inventory, and even that is understated because the developers don't list every unit for sale - they often list only a sampling of the types of units, particularly those that are complete and ready for sale. By contrast, the older resale condos built before 2007, i.e 2006 and older, are almost 75% of the market, and generally sell for under $500,000. So in this chart, reading left to right, the first box set, Sales Rate, is the number of units sold per month through the summer in each age/price segment, the second box set is the remaining Inventory of unsold condo units in each segment, and the last box set is the current Months Supply in each segment. No surprise that the newer higher priced condos are way out in Buyer's-Market-land with over 15 months supply. But look at the lower-priced resale market at only 4 months supply! That is starting to be Seller's Market country, and is the source of some of the multiple-offer stories we've been hearing lately.
Updated from the original post on Greater Seattle Homes Blog
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Downtown Bellevue real estate home sales are up thanks to a boost from the first time home buyer tax credit. The Downtown Bellevue(98004) area is from I-90 North to Highway 520 East to I-405 and west to Lake Washington.
As of 11/21/09 here are the real estate home stats for Downtown Neighborhood of Bellevue Washington. The numbers below are from the last seven days, this gives you a general feel for what is going on in this neighborhood in any given week.
| Total Number of home for sale: | 197 |
| Average List Price: | $2,081,369 |
| Average Days on Market: | 125 |
| Total Pending homes sales: | 3 |
| Average List Price: | $877,667 |
| Average Days on Market: | 94 |
| Total Expired Home Sales Last 7 Days | 1 |
| Average List Price: | $1,099,950 |
| Average Days on Market: | 225 |
| Total Sold Home Sales Last 7 Days | 6 |
| Average Sales Price: | $1,426,500 |
| Average Days on Market: | 61 |
If your looking for more information on homes sales in the Downtown Neighborhood of Bellevue Washington simple give me a call(206-818-8816) or contact me, and I will be happy to get you the information you seek.
It is my goal to help buyers and sellers. If you are a home owner and you would like to know more about how I sell homes for top dollar with my Marketing Action Plan simply sign up for a Market Snapshot and I will contact you for a private review of your homes market value.
-Dan Edwards, REALTOR(r) Northstone Real Estate, Inc. 206-818-8816
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Are you looking for a place to go with your kids this Halloween? Go to The Bellevue Collection in Downtown Bellevue. It's a place where I take my family every year and it's safe, fun, relaxing and you can get a jump start on early christmas shopping.
Here are a few pics of the family last year at Bellevue Square / now The Bellevue Collection.

At The Bellevue Collection, are various photo stages where you can get your picture taken with props in the back ground.

Judah "the lion" having Jamba juice after playing and going store-to-store for candy.

The family waiting in line to get pictures taken.
Here is a link to this years Bellevue Collection Halloween activities. See you all there.
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Rebar mini camp in Bellevue was good half day of information. There were some very informative attendees, good topics, an overall educational camp. I can see how these last a full day easily. We could have had quite a few more sessions.
I've heard more discussion lately of "levels" of classes needing to be offered. Some discussions get bogged down in beginner minutiae, which is great for those just learning to use the technologies. There aer a handful of real estate pros in these same sessions that could really pow-wow into a smaller group and discuss the higher-level issues they're working with. It might require some organization, and it's frankly amazing that the organizers can already make these sessions happen on the fly. It's a well-oiled machine, for something that goes from index cards to sessions in 10 minutes.
One great session today was Jim Reppond's "Twitter 201". There was no beginner stuff, just Twitter add-ons, advanced features, strategies for getting noticed, re-tweeted, etc. The group seemed very well-informed, and I think these kinds of sessions could keep more tech-savvy pros involved. We may just need to have at least one high-level session per hour, all day long.
Overall, nice work, folks, I enjoyed meeting some new faces and some old one that I've only ever seen online before.
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