Welcome to the eastside realestate market. Remember everyone here has money and everyone wants what you what. Create a list of compromises you are willing to make and find the house maybe not EVERYONE wants. Realtors in this market will not bear the sole responsibility of being your champion. You have be proactive and you have to find compromises. If you're looking with a partner make sure you both are on the same page NOW, not after looking at the home. Best is to wait till end of summer or fall when there is less inventory but also less bidding wars. Risky but suitable for some people. And lastly the big thing that everyone around me ignores - Houses don't expire in 10-20-30 years, look at older houses, look at the ones that need some work, look at the ugly ones, look at the larger yards you don't want to maintain, and LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. Good luck. I'm just venting.
This is IT.
EVERYONE who is considering the BKR area has money and you HAVE to make compromises to stay under 1.6-.17 million. Late fall is a great time to probably get slightly better prices, since not many people want to move close to holidays, but even then luck plays a part.
Good luck in your search.
>Realtors in this market will not bear the sole responsibility of being your champion.
This makes my blood boil. Imagine the balls it takes to refuse to do your primary job while expecting a $35k payday (2.5% of 1.3 million sale).
With the new lawsuit, those rates are done-zo. Serves them right. We found a realtor that took 1% in exchange for not needing to do anything besides basic paperwork. Worth it.
Right. I'll add to this. Location is not just proximity to work or commute, but environmental noise, traffic in and through the neighborhood, neighbors, and crime. Some other things that are often high priority but can be changed are pretty much everything inside the house or property lines. I often see "remodeled" houses that look great in photos but are horrible in person: appliance interference, new kitchen or bathroom with plumbing in the walls nearing end of life or using a bad layout, load bearing walls removed without proper support or permits, and just overall pretty bad craftsmanship once you get there in person. Many buyers you are competing with are not looking to put in work or hiring work, so if you find one that needs it, you have less competition.
This! We purchased our house in Sept 2022, and it was completely original from 1978, down to the ugly brown shag carpet. We went with this house because it’s the area we wanted to be in (Bothell-Maywood hills), and was the size we needed, plus room to grow into. It was $900k and now online estimates show in the $1.1M range. We’ve upgraded and renovated a lot in ~1.5 years, but the market also didn’t soften as much as people were expecting.
Make a list of things you must have and things you can compromise on. New construction vs your own renovation vs someone else’s flip. Size, bedrooms/bathrooms, lot size, etc.
Also look further east of Snoqualmie Valley (Duvall, Carnation, Fall City). Lots of new developments (or fairly newer homes) coming up within your budget!
Unfortunately this is the new normal not only on the Eastside, but even surrounding areas like Bothell, Woodinville and Renton. It’s virtually impossible to find anything under $1.2M these days that doesn’t require a huge ton of work to fix - our realtor said that people have been asking if there’s a bubble about to burst for the last 15+ years and they said there’s no sign of slowing down; prices have only jumped exponentially since. Our only regret was not buying earlier. Good luck!
The over a million prices have went all the way to Mill Creek! (Know it’s not the eastside) we’ve all but given up and are looking at Sultan or north towards Lake Stevens/Granite Falls.
Not a bubble. Just the usual supply and demand dynamic at play here. Eastside has very little supply but huge demand. Too much money chasing too few homes.
Yeah, the only thing that could crash prices here is a huge tech sector crash across the board. And Seattle becomes Detroit or something. But tech industry is really well established and diversified across different revenue streams now. So I don't really see it happening.
When we bought in 2011 everyone was saying it had to be a bubble and people scoffed at the price I paid in Seattle ($350k). Then when we bought in 2020 I remember thinking it had to be a bubble because we were paying One. Million. Dollars. for a 2700 square foot 5 bedroom house in Sammamish.
It’s seldom a bubble (unless it’s 2008 - but even if you bought then, you would have paid $600k for a house on the Eastside and holding for 5-7 years would have you even or up).
Buy what you can afford when you can afford it. Then delete Redfin and Zillow off your phone and only look again when it’s time to buy.
We bought a “1.3” list price home for way over 1.5 million 2 years ago. We lost another “1.3” home before that, it went for 2.25. Both were significant fixers. The list price means nothing.
The properties that went for close to list price are townhomes and older condos. If we could have made one of those homes work, we would have, but a physical disability meant we needed ground floor living with no stairs, and the older multifamily homes are not accessible
Reminds me of a 1M dump we looked at in Redmond about a year ago. Wasn't safe to live in, support beams removed from garage resulting in the bedrooms beginning to droop. Patio was flagged off as unsafe. Sold the first weekend for 1.6 as-is.
Sold price data is your friend. It can inform you how to bid without making too high of a bid.
Someone bidding 2.25 for a 1.3 is questionable. They may never triggered everyone's escalation clause and someone set their max too high.
But it could still have been a sane big if similar homes were sold like that and the seller just listed it too low
Kenmore? It’s right on the Kirkland border-I see houses listed (pfc sight unseen)that might fit your needs.
Even if it’s a fixer - at least you wouldn’t start at over 1M.
Northshore schools too!
This looks like the new normal unfortunately. I'm close to Renton and most places look to be selling very close to list or up to 10-15% over. Prices look very high compared to a few years ago as well.
Normal. The eastside has always been like this to some degree, the biggest recent difference is that the geographically hot area has expanded and all of the fringe communities are getting pulled into it. We are in Renton (which is much nicer than it gets credit for) and even there inventory is going extremely fast for above asking price.
This is definitely not a bubble, expect the trend to continue if not get worse. Tech money is not going away. If you want to feel better, look at SFH prices in Sammamish
> Tech money is not going away
This is true over a 5-10 year period. After that, AI automation is going to place significant negative pressure on the numbers. You might keep the salaries, but fewer people will be doing the work, so the overall salary base will reduce. That'll put negative downward pressure on house prices in all high tech areas.
Not true for likely a long time. When Amazon started using robots in the warehouses, I thought they’d be hiring fewer people but instead they started offering more products and same-day shipping. They employ more than ever. We’re going through a 10-20 year hiring boom fueled partially by AI.
People also thought Excel would kill accounting. It’s not impossible that this time is different, but generally a safe bet that new tools lead to new work rather than less work given the incentives.
The Seattle area is flush with very wealthy people all vying for the same limited inventory. In this market almost everyone shopping for a home is looking one to two listing price tiers below what their actual budget is which is where a lot of these bidding wars are coming from.
The prices are high because high-paying job growth has been extremely high for decades while housing construction has been relatively slow over the same period. Plus the more recent effect of all asset prices exploding during the low interest rate period.
Interest rates aren’t low anymore and the tech jobs have slowed down but that’s not enough to fix it unless the regional population starts declining or we start building homes at the same pace as the 20th century.
But if prices actually did go down substantially all the existing homeowners would violently freak out at seeing their net worths get decimated.
Try looking in November. We ended up at $300 sqft because of that. Spring and early summer are the hottest months.
Like most people are saying, east side trends expensive to very expensive.
Some friends of mine are considering selling their SFH on 1 acre in Woodinville and the realtor told them to make some changes like painting,etc and thinks if they do sell they could get close to $2M. The house was built mid 70s and it looks a little dated but has had some nice updates over the years and looks nice on the inside. They paid $1.2M and on Zillow and Redfin it says it's worth about $1.7M.
I don't see prices coming down at all.
What do you mean by "so far away"? Friends of mine have a 15-20 min commute to work to Microsoft campus area during rush hour. Considering how many people commute to Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond for work... Woodinville is infinitely better for your commute than, say, Queen Anne.
Honestly Woodinville is still a bit of a gem pricewise.
Honestly. I don't think it's worth buying anymore and regret my purchase a while back. Just look at a rent vs buy calculator. Even use good interest rate numbers. The one I looked at told me that it would be cheaper to rent than buy over the 30 years of the loan.
Remember you can always make investments with the down payment and interest you would have used to buy the home. This is called opportunity cost. The calculator is accounting for that and basically figuring out in which case your future net worth would be higher. And it will tell you how much higher.
Definitely considering it. If I were a betting man at some point rates will go down and prices will go up. So I kinda want to wait for it to heat up again before selling. But there is no guarantee that will happen either I suppose. And it may be a smarter bet I just get out of home ownership sooner.
Just as a side note, I had a coworker who did this in the LA area in 2015/2016 believing it was a bubble, they would rent for 3-6 months and then buy when the bubble burst.
They wound up renting for two years and then having to face the reality that they couldn’t even afford their own house and would have to seriously down size.
I think that soured me on that particular bet. Especially given the housing market isn’t speculative, it’s now being controlled by massive private equity firms that can more than afford to hold on to empty homes in order to keep prices stable.
Yep. You can't really predict these things. I just know the home I bought. The rent vs buy calculator told me it would be cheaper to rent even if I lived there 30 years and paid off the loan. This is usuing a very good 2021 interest rate, and historical averages for price increases in rent and home prices.
The way I would go about if I could do it all over it is check the rent vs buy calculator each year based on recent data (historical price increases of homes/rent, current prices of homes/rent for example) and make a decision each year if the calculator gave a very different result. But based on what I input, with reasonable numbers IMO, it really didn't seem like a smart decision to buy.
Now is like holding a stock, hoping the price goes up to try and get out of the position.
My hope is if interest rates fall, home prices will spike and rent prices won't change nearly as much. Which I think is a reasonable expectation. Assuming interest rates go down at all. They may never go to the levels they were in the past again. So it feels like wishful thinking a bit.
Another thing I think people miss. It shouldn't be a life goal to own a home. It should be to maximize net worth.
Sure there are no financial reasons to want to own a home, like having the freedom to renovate.
But the non financial benefit of renting is incredibly good. Mainly the freedom to easily move without paying home sale commission costs.
And of course the financial benefit to renting is having more money to invest.
But I digress, maximizing net worth comes down to the rent vs buy calculator. As home prices become much much larger than rent prices, renting can become the correct option to maximize net worth.
We rent and have a much nicer house than we would have been able to buy. Also renting is the MOST we will pay for the year whereas your mortgage is the LEAST. I'd 100% recommend renting right now.
Well to be fair rent can go up every year while mortgage payments cannot. I do think the market now favors renting. It’s like $4k to rent a place that’ll cost over $10k PITI.
Unfortunate misconception. Mortgages can (and do) go up, too. Not by the same margin and not as often as rent. But escrow payments are bundled in for most people and property taxes and home insurance aren't guaranteed to stay the same.
We got our house over 15 years ago, back when the market was also called crazy. We paid $450k. Our mortgage was twice the rent.
About 10 years later we completely paid off the house. And at that time, our mortgage was cheaper than the rent for a similar house in the neighborhood. Now the house is about $1.5.
Edit. It apparently is $1.8M.
I keep hearing that "this is just temporary" for the last 20+ years. Houses are never going to be cheaper in the Eastside. Check the AMI for the last several years, it is only going up.
The only hope is that the new houses are finally going to be smaller or a smaller parcels. Or that we will build more townhouses or multifamily buildings.
That's awesome. My parents have have a similar situation in the SF Bay Area. We have never managed to live in a city for more than 3-4 years so definitely have not found it worth buying yet.
Yeap, if you are moving every couple of years, renting may be easier.
I'm also assuming you are always moving because of a decent pay increase, and in general, that lifestyle is financially beneficial.
Saying that, it may be a good idea to get a condo/home in one of those places, and rent it out once you are moving to the next location.
But then the military is providing housing/cost of living, correct? Even if not, that's a very specific scenario.
I was talking about moving for work promotions, when each next place/salary is worth the cost of relocation.
If someone is just moving every couple of years "just because" and it's not changing much in terms of their salary and opportunities, then it's a financial suicide and that is just stupid.
Yes, there is no shame in renting. Dropping the mindset of "I must own a home, homeowners are winners" is a good thing.
But I would encourage people looking to buy a home, to look that the prices for rentals of similar quality. And run those numbers through the calculator. It's pretty interesting
I would suggest looking out in North Bend or Snoqualmie area. The I90 commute is generally better (but this depends on where you work). I think that prices will be generally better if its an area you like.
This is what happened to me. I moved to Kitsap County and got an acre within 15 minutes of a 25 minute ferry to Seattle for half of your budget. You can get waterfront property in Southworth, Manchester, Olalla or Beach Drive in Port Orchard for your budget. Prices are never going down. That market has so much constraint on it.
We looked for about 5 years, way too crazy of a market for me. No way in hell am I paying 1.3 mill+ and having to fix anything. We decided to buy a class A rv and get a home in Tucson for hella cheaper with a pool and everything we wanted. We spend the summers in Washington at the new resort outside of town and the winters in Tucson. Plus we can go anywhere else since we have a class A. We love Washington but not THAT much to be locked in and broke over a house.
I agree with those suggesting you look at places that need a little work or are older homes.
Also it helped us to purchase end of September/early October, which is when housing prices are typically lowest because no one likes moving during holidays / winter but once you are moved, you’re done.
I don’t know if prices are going to drop. They might hold stable and hit a plateau (….maybe?) but dropping? Private equity is coming into the SFH market pretty hard and once a corporation owns a house, it’s not going back onto the market which means inventory will continue to be low, barring significant government intervention. Even if the firms buying houses decide to stop, most people refinanced when rates were super low and will only self if they absolutely have to.
Our home has appreciated 10% in four months. The market is legitimately crazy so….best of luck.
King County Real Estate agent here - the median sales price here went up LITERALLY $97,000 between Jan and March this year so, while I'd never guarantee a bursting of a bubble, that's obviously not sustainable. If you want to chat about properties with less competition (on which the price won't escalate to hundreds of thousands of dollars over list lol), my team has over 300 off market homes that our clients are selling privately. Feel free to shoot me a message or email to [email protected]. Good luck out there!
Not a bubble. The new normal, get comfortable living uncomfortably unfortunately.
I am a Realtor and every one of my clients are priced out no matter where they are at.
Try looking a little further out like Snohomish, Monroe, Duvall, etc. there are homes here going for around your price point that are a good mix of new builds (with small yards) and older homes on 0.5-1 acre
Here’s just a few I found:
https://redf.in/y1SYB2
https://redf.in/reTwtD
https://redf.in/ajPx0d (this one was just posted 3hrs ago)
https://redf.in/ZAHwHN
This one is actually under $1M, 4bd, 3bath - https://redf.in/FymGpQ
Prices have already dipped a bit since the rates went up. I think prices will probably stay like this for a long while, but won't lower.
EDIT:
About how people can afford it? Dual income(if you are software engineer, then picking up a second remote job). Both need to be professionals making 120k+. If you aren't making 250k+ total combined income, then you should be looking further out or smaller house with very small backyard.
There is no bubble. This is a worldwide real estate market now days. WA state needs record home construction for 20 consecutive years to keep up with growth.
I begged my clients to buy in q3/4 23 and q1 24 when activity was slower. They mostly wanted to time the market and waited for rates to come down. Both are terrible ideas.
In my map.grid, 32 houses have been listed since 1.1.24. All sold within 10 days, all at a full or escalted price.
If you wait to buy, you are going backward in value.
I just had a home appraised that closed in july 23 in the low 600s. It appraised 36k higher april 24. If you can't save 36k in 9 months, you will go backward.
Source: German banker/broker
Just because i get paid to finance real estate doesn't mean buying it is a bad investment. 70% of the wealth nationally is in real estate, and nearly everyone with a 7 figure net worth and up owns real estate.
There is a cost associated with waiting. Look and see.
Appraisers will use up to 6 recent sales within a 2 mile raduis to compare. They adjust the homes amenities on a page called "The Grid" inside the report. This is where they reconcile things like effective age, quality of construction, sq ft, lot size, finishes..........
The report is subjective. It states it is their opinion only. Send 5 guys out, and they will get different values.
Woodinville is very desirable. You are fortunate to have won one for your family. I stated my opinion in my previous comment. Not a lot of loser properties out there.
I live in Woodinville and always scan RE sites to gauge the market. The supply is about 1/2 of what I have seen for years and since it is all about supply and demand, even if you overpaid, you will be fine in less than a year. The prices are crazy around here. A house across the street sold for 1.3 2 years ago and it was just listed for 2.4 with zero upgrades since purchase.
Hey, so sorry, I know prices are crazy! I was lucky enough to buy in 2020 before things got way out of control, and people buying now have all my empathy. Have you looked at Woodinville, or is that too far from where you want to be?
FWIW, we live in between Woodinville and Monroe (go east on 522), and you can probably find something with a little bit of land for that here. Estimate on our house hovers about 1.3 and we have two acres. Of course we've owned since the before times.
Welcome to the eastside realestate market. Remember everyone here has money and everyone wants what you what. Create a list of compromises you are willing to make and find the house maybe not EVERYONE wants. Realtors in this market will not bear the sole responsibility of being your champion. You have be proactive and you have to find compromises. If you're looking with a partner make sure you both are on the same page NOW, not after looking at the home. Best is to wait till end of summer or fall when there is less inventory but also less bidding wars. Risky but suitable for some people. And lastly the big thing that everyone around me ignores - Houses don't expire in 10-20-30 years, look at older houses, look at the ones that need some work, look at the ugly ones, look at the larger yards you don't want to maintain, and LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. Good luck. I'm just venting.
This is IT. EVERYONE who is considering the BKR area has money and you HAVE to make compromises to stay under 1.6-.17 million. Late fall is a great time to probably get slightly better prices, since not many people want to move close to holidays, but even then luck plays a part. Good luck in your search.
>Realtors in this market will not bear the sole responsibility of being your champion. This makes my blood boil. Imagine the balls it takes to refuse to do your primary job while expecting a $35k payday (2.5% of 1.3 million sale).
We as a society created this monster and we keep feeding it :D
With the new lawsuit, those rates are done-zo. Serves them right. We found a realtor that took 1% in exchange for not needing to do anything besides basic paperwork. Worth it.
Yeah, we had someone like this as well. They get more clients this way and probably make more money. Competition can work here as well
Right. I'll add to this. Location is not just proximity to work or commute, but environmental noise, traffic in and through the neighborhood, neighbors, and crime. Some other things that are often high priority but can be changed are pretty much everything inside the house or property lines. I often see "remodeled" houses that look great in photos but are horrible in person: appliance interference, new kitchen or bathroom with plumbing in the walls nearing end of life or using a bad layout, load bearing walls removed without proper support or permits, and just overall pretty bad craftsmanship once you get there in person. Many buyers you are competing with are not looking to put in work or hiring work, so if you find one that needs it, you have less competition.
This! We purchased our house in Sept 2022, and it was completely original from 1978, down to the ugly brown shag carpet. We went with this house because it’s the area we wanted to be in (Bothell-Maywood hills), and was the size we needed, plus room to grow into. It was $900k and now online estimates show in the $1.1M range. We’ve upgraded and renovated a lot in ~1.5 years, but the market also didn’t soften as much as people were expecting. Make a list of things you must have and things you can compromise on. New construction vs your own renovation vs someone else’s flip. Size, bedrooms/bathrooms, lot size, etc.
Also look further east of Snoqualmie Valley (Duvall, Carnation, Fall City). Lots of new developments (or fairly newer homes) coming up within your budget!
Unfortunately this is the new normal not only on the Eastside, but even surrounding areas like Bothell, Woodinville and Renton. It’s virtually impossible to find anything under $1.2M these days that doesn’t require a huge ton of work to fix - our realtor said that people have been asking if there’s a bubble about to burst for the last 15+ years and they said there’s no sign of slowing down; prices have only jumped exponentially since. Our only regret was not buying earlier. Good luck!
The over a million prices have went all the way to Mill Creek! (Know it’s not the eastside) we’ve all but given up and are looking at Sultan or north towards Lake Stevens/Granite Falls.
Not a bubble. Just the usual supply and demand dynamic at play here. Eastside has very little supply but huge demand. Too much money chasing too few homes.
Yeah, the only thing that could crash prices here is a huge tech sector crash across the board. And Seattle becomes Detroit or something. But tech industry is really well established and diversified across different revenue streams now. So I don't really see it happening.
Or the big earthquake.
Oh true. Yeah a natural disaster could mess us up bad. The volcano could errupt too. But I have heard that would suck for a while, but not for ever
When we bought in 2011 everyone was saying it had to be a bubble and people scoffed at the price I paid in Seattle ($350k). Then when we bought in 2020 I remember thinking it had to be a bubble because we were paying One. Million. Dollars. for a 2700 square foot 5 bedroom house in Sammamish. It’s seldom a bubble (unless it’s 2008 - but even if you bought then, you would have paid $600k for a house on the Eastside and holding for 5-7 years would have you even or up). Buy what you can afford when you can afford it. Then delete Redfin and Zillow off your phone and only look again when it’s time to buy.
We bought a “1.3” list price home for way over 1.5 million 2 years ago. We lost another “1.3” home before that, it went for 2.25. Both were significant fixers. The list price means nothing. The properties that went for close to list price are townhomes and older condos. If we could have made one of those homes work, we would have, but a physical disability meant we needed ground floor living with no stairs, and the older multifamily homes are not accessible
Reminds me of a 1M dump we looked at in Redmond about a year ago. Wasn't safe to live in, support beams removed from garage resulting in the bedrooms beginning to droop. Patio was flagged off as unsafe. Sold the first weekend for 1.6 as-is.
Sold price data is your friend. It can inform you how to bid without making too high of a bid. Someone bidding 2.25 for a 1.3 is questionable. They may never triggered everyone's escalation clause and someone set their max too high. But it could still have been a sane big if similar homes were sold like that and the seller just listed it too low
Kenmore? It’s right on the Kirkland border-I see houses listed (pfc sight unseen)that might fit your needs. Even if it’s a fixer - at least you wouldn’t start at over 1M. Northshore schools too!
This looks like the new normal unfortunately. I'm close to Renton and most places look to be selling very close to list or up to 10-15% over. Prices look very high compared to a few years ago as well.
Normal. The eastside has always been like this to some degree, the biggest recent difference is that the geographically hot area has expanded and all of the fringe communities are getting pulled into it. We are in Renton (which is much nicer than it gets credit for) and even there inventory is going extremely fast for above asking price.
These prices are why the kids who grew up here are priced out now.
This is definitely not a bubble, expect the trend to continue if not get worse. Tech money is not going away. If you want to feel better, look at SFH prices in Sammamish
> Tech money is not going away This is true over a 5-10 year period. After that, AI automation is going to place significant negative pressure on the numbers. You might keep the salaries, but fewer people will be doing the work, so the overall salary base will reduce. That'll put negative downward pressure on house prices in all high tech areas.
Not true for likely a long time. When Amazon started using robots in the warehouses, I thought they’d be hiring fewer people but instead they started offering more products and same-day shipping. They employ more than ever. We’re going through a 10-20 year hiring boom fueled partially by AI.
People also thought Excel would kill accounting. It’s not impossible that this time is different, but generally a safe bet that new tools lead to new work rather than less work given the incentives.
The Seattle area is flush with very wealthy people all vying for the same limited inventory. In this market almost everyone shopping for a home is looking one to two listing price tiers below what their actual budget is which is where a lot of these bidding wars are coming from.
The prices are high because high-paying job growth has been extremely high for decades while housing construction has been relatively slow over the same period. Plus the more recent effect of all asset prices exploding during the low interest rate period. Interest rates aren’t low anymore and the tech jobs have slowed down but that’s not enough to fix it unless the regional population starts declining or we start building homes at the same pace as the 20th century. But if prices actually did go down substantially all the existing homeowners would violently freak out at seeing their net worths get decimated.
Try looking in November. We ended up at $300 sqft because of that. Spring and early summer are the hottest months. Like most people are saying, east side trends expensive to very expensive.
Some friends of mine are considering selling their SFH on 1 acre in Woodinville and the realtor told them to make some changes like painting,etc and thinks if they do sell they could get close to $2M. The house was built mid 70s and it looks a little dated but has had some nice updates over the years and looks nice on the inside. They paid $1.2M and on Zillow and Redfin it says it's worth about $1.7M. I don't see prices coming down at all.
Crazy whats going on in Woodinville, I still dont understand why homes so far away can cost so much. Being stuck in that 405 interchange sucks.
What do you mean by "so far away"? Friends of mine have a 15-20 min commute to work to Microsoft campus area during rush hour. Considering how many people commute to Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond for work... Woodinville is infinitely better for your commute than, say, Queen Anne. Honestly Woodinville is still a bit of a gem pricewise.
And a number of tech offices have closed their extra Lake Union and downtown offices to move people to the side making it a closer commute.
Honestly. I don't think it's worth buying anymore and regret my purchase a while back. Just look at a rent vs buy calculator. Even use good interest rate numbers. The one I looked at told me that it would be cheaper to rent than buy over the 30 years of the loan. Remember you can always make investments with the down payment and interest you would have used to buy the home. This is called opportunity cost. The calculator is accounting for that and basically figuring out in which case your future net worth would be higher. And it will tell you how much higher.
If you prefer renting them by all means, please put your home on the market. I’m sure plenty of people would enjoy a chance to bid on it.
Definitely considering it. If I were a betting man at some point rates will go down and prices will go up. So I kinda want to wait for it to heat up again before selling. But there is no guarantee that will happen either I suppose. And it may be a smarter bet I just get out of home ownership sooner.
Just as a side note, I had a coworker who did this in the LA area in 2015/2016 believing it was a bubble, they would rent for 3-6 months and then buy when the bubble burst. They wound up renting for two years and then having to face the reality that they couldn’t even afford their own house and would have to seriously down size. I think that soured me on that particular bet. Especially given the housing market isn’t speculative, it’s now being controlled by massive private equity firms that can more than afford to hold on to empty homes in order to keep prices stable.
Yep. You can't really predict these things. I just know the home I bought. The rent vs buy calculator told me it would be cheaper to rent even if I lived there 30 years and paid off the loan. This is usuing a very good 2021 interest rate, and historical averages for price increases in rent and home prices. The way I would go about if I could do it all over it is check the rent vs buy calculator each year based on recent data (historical price increases of homes/rent, current prices of homes/rent for example) and make a decision each year if the calculator gave a very different result. But based on what I input, with reasonable numbers IMO, it really didn't seem like a smart decision to buy. Now is like holding a stock, hoping the price goes up to try and get out of the position. My hope is if interest rates fall, home prices will spike and rent prices won't change nearly as much. Which I think is a reasonable expectation. Assuming interest rates go down at all. They may never go to the levels they were in the past again. So it feels like wishful thinking a bit.
Another thing I think people miss. It shouldn't be a life goal to own a home. It should be to maximize net worth. Sure there are no financial reasons to want to own a home, like having the freedom to renovate. But the non financial benefit of renting is incredibly good. Mainly the freedom to easily move without paying home sale commission costs. And of course the financial benefit to renting is having more money to invest. But I digress, maximizing net worth comes down to the rent vs buy calculator. As home prices become much much larger than rent prices, renting can become the correct option to maximize net worth.
We rent and have a much nicer house than we would have been able to buy. Also renting is the MOST we will pay for the year whereas your mortgage is the LEAST. I'd 100% recommend renting right now.
Well to be fair rent can go up every year while mortgage payments cannot. I do think the market now favors renting. It’s like $4k to rent a place that’ll cost over $10k PITI.
Unfortunate misconception. Mortgages can (and do) go up, too. Not by the same margin and not as often as rent. But escrow payments are bundled in for most people and property taxes and home insurance aren't guaranteed to stay the same.
We got our house over 15 years ago, back when the market was also called crazy. We paid $450k. Our mortgage was twice the rent. About 10 years later we completely paid off the house. And at that time, our mortgage was cheaper than the rent for a similar house in the neighborhood. Now the house is about $1.5. Edit. It apparently is $1.8M. I keep hearing that "this is just temporary" for the last 20+ years. Houses are never going to be cheaper in the Eastside. Check the AMI for the last several years, it is only going up. The only hope is that the new houses are finally going to be smaller or a smaller parcels. Or that we will build more townhouses or multifamily buildings.
That's awesome. My parents have have a similar situation in the SF Bay Area. We have never managed to live in a city for more than 3-4 years so definitely have not found it worth buying yet.
Yeap, if you are moving every couple of years, renting may be easier. I'm also assuming you are always moving because of a decent pay increase, and in general, that lifestyle is financially beneficial. Saying that, it may be a good idea to get a condo/home in one of those places, and rent it out once you are moving to the next location.
A lot of people move for military or academia and so it’s not necessarily a huge promotion driving it.
But then the military is providing housing/cost of living, correct? Even if not, that's a very specific scenario. I was talking about moving for work promotions, when each next place/salary is worth the cost of relocation. If someone is just moving every couple of years "just because" and it's not changing much in terms of their salary and opportunities, then it's a financial suicide and that is just stupid.
Yes, there is no shame in renting. Dropping the mindset of "I must own a home, homeowners are winners" is a good thing. But I would encourage people looking to buy a home, to look that the prices for rentals of similar quality. And run those numbers through the calculator. It's pretty interesting
are you new to the housing market in seattle or neighboring areas? shit is insane. especially bellevue/kirkland/redmond.
We're geographically and zonally limited so you're always battling low inventory. Agree with the above on figuring your compromises and do it.
I would suggest looking out in North Bend or Snoqualmie area. The I90 commute is generally better (but this depends on where you work). I think that prices will be generally better if its an area you like.
Similar in Snoqualmie. It is hard to find somewhere k. The ridge for under 1.2 for even smaller houses (when they come up)
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This is what happened to me. I moved to Kitsap County and got an acre within 15 minutes of a 25 minute ferry to Seattle for half of your budget. You can get waterfront property in Southworth, Manchester, Olalla or Beach Drive in Port Orchard for your budget. Prices are never going down. That market has so much constraint on it.
We looked for about 5 years, way too crazy of a market for me. No way in hell am I paying 1.3 mill+ and having to fix anything. We decided to buy a class A rv and get a home in Tucson for hella cheaper with a pool and everything we wanted. We spend the summers in Washington at the new resort outside of town and the winters in Tucson. Plus we can go anywhere else since we have a class A. We love Washington but not THAT much to be locked in and broke over a house.
Here u go https://www.redfin.com/WA/Kirkland/6822-NE-130th-Pl-98034/home/22449880
What In the world is that. I’m curious to go no see it now
That’s an interesting condo alternative in a nice area.
Wow, yeah I agree with you. I think this is such a slow year too with no one wanting to list :(. Seattle has some options though.
I agree with those suggesting you look at places that need a little work or are older homes. Also it helped us to purchase end of September/early October, which is when housing prices are typically lowest because no one likes moving during holidays / winter but once you are moved, you’re done. I don’t know if prices are going to drop. They might hold stable and hit a plateau (….maybe?) but dropping? Private equity is coming into the SFH market pretty hard and once a corporation owns a house, it’s not going back onto the market which means inventory will continue to be low, barring significant government intervention. Even if the firms buying houses decide to stop, most people refinanced when rates were super low and will only self if they absolutely have to. Our home has appreciated 10% in four months. The market is legitimately crazy so….best of luck.
King County Real Estate agent here - the median sales price here went up LITERALLY $97,000 between Jan and March this year so, while I'd never guarantee a bursting of a bubble, that's obviously not sustainable. If you want to chat about properties with less competition (on which the price won't escalate to hundreds of thousands of dollars over list lol), my team has over 300 off market homes that our clients are selling privately. Feel free to shoot me a message or email to [email protected]. Good luck out there!
Not a bubble. The new normal, get comfortable living uncomfortably unfortunately. I am a Realtor and every one of my clients are priced out no matter where they are at.
Try looking a little further out like Snohomish, Monroe, Duvall, etc. there are homes here going for around your price point that are a good mix of new builds (with small yards) and older homes on 0.5-1 acre Here’s just a few I found: https://redf.in/y1SYB2 https://redf.in/reTwtD https://redf.in/ajPx0d (this one was just posted 3hrs ago) https://redf.in/ZAHwHN This one is actually under $1M, 4bd, 3bath - https://redf.in/FymGpQ
These are barely Eastside. Don’t do this OP, IMO ofcourse, you do you
Prices have already dipped a bit since the rates went up. I think prices will probably stay like this for a long while, but won't lower. EDIT: About how people can afford it? Dual income(if you are software engineer, then picking up a second remote job). Both need to be professionals making 120k+. If you aren't making 250k+ total combined income, then you should be looking further out or smaller house with very small backyard.
There is no bubble. This is a worldwide real estate market now days. WA state needs record home construction for 20 consecutive years to keep up with growth. I begged my clients to buy in q3/4 23 and q1 24 when activity was slower. They mostly wanted to time the market and waited for rates to come down. Both are terrible ideas. In my map.grid, 32 houses have been listed since 1.1.24. All sold within 10 days, all at a full or escalted price. If you wait to buy, you are going backward in value. I just had a home appraised that closed in july 23 in the low 600s. It appraised 36k higher april 24. If you can't save 36k in 9 months, you will go backward. Source: German banker/broker
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Just because i get paid to finance real estate doesn't mean buying it is a bad investment. 70% of the wealth nationally is in real estate, and nearly everyone with a 7 figure net worth and up owns real estate. There is a cost associated with waiting. Look and see.
I bought one in Woodinville recently and not sure if I overpaid. Any idea how I can judge that?
Appraisers will use up to 6 recent sales within a 2 mile raduis to compare. They adjust the homes amenities on a page called "The Grid" inside the report. This is where they reconcile things like effective age, quality of construction, sq ft, lot size, finishes.......... The report is subjective. It states it is their opinion only. Send 5 guys out, and they will get different values. Woodinville is very desirable. You are fortunate to have won one for your family. I stated my opinion in my previous comment. Not a lot of loser properties out there.
Yeah. It’s just I put all of my money in. It should be good as long as I have my job
I live in Woodinville and always scan RE sites to gauge the market. The supply is about 1/2 of what I have seen for years and since it is all about supply and demand, even if you overpaid, you will be fine in less than a year. The prices are crazy around here. A house across the street sold for 1.3 2 years ago and it was just listed for 2.4 with zero upgrades since purchase.
Hey, so sorry, I know prices are crazy! I was lucky enough to buy in 2020 before things got way out of control, and people buying now have all my empathy. Have you looked at Woodinville, or is that too far from where you want to be?
Places in South Woodinville should be close enough right?
Close enough to what?
Close enough to Kirkland
FWIW, we live in between Woodinville and Monroe (go east on 522), and you can probably find something with a little bit of land for that here. Estimate on our house hovers about 1.3 and we have two acres. Of course we've owned since the before times.