Seattle Houses?

[ziplock]

I notice alot of people interested living in Motorhomes fulltime there, and now I see why:

MSN

www.msn.com

Awild housing market is forcing many Seattle-area home buyers to pay $300,000 to $500,000 over asking price — in some cases, even nearly $1 million over asking.

Homes are getting snatched up hours after they go on sale. Open houses bring so many people, there are lines down the street.

“If you’re a buyer it’s tough. It’s pretty brutal out there. It’s been tough for buyers for the past four years, but in the last 3-4 months it’s just really felt like the most difficult market that we’ve ever navigated,” said Kendra Todd, a real estate broker with Kendra Todd Group at Keller Williams. “It’s fairly common — on the Eastside in particular — for people to be escalating $300,000, $400,000, $500,00 over list price.”

A quick search on Redfin shows many examples. This Kirkland home sold for $500,000 over asking. This house in Bellevue, listed at $1.5 million, sold for $2.4 million— about $900,000 over asking price.

Shoo!

 

[donn]

Why anyone would want to live in that hell hole is beyond me. Traffic is horrendous 23 hours a day. Homelessness and crime are out of control. I won't mention the unsafe policies put out by the government. Just wait for big crash.

 

[markandkim]

2nd that!

 

[Ex-Calif]

I am happy to be retired and living in rural Florida - LOL...

I understand that the most desirable locations are cray expensive. It's supply and demand. However it is interesting to see how close one can get to the major areas and have reasonable pries. Not generally what you want as a forever home but there are lots of starter homes in Seattle area especially if you go north.

I'd guess the LA basin is still worse. It's mountain geography limits the easy commutes.

 

[Lou Schneider]

I enjoyed living across the sound near Port Townsend. Out in the country and away from the Seattle madness but the big city is only about an hour and a half away via a pleasant ferry trip or driving around the south end of the Sound. Won't work for a daily commute but do-able for the occasional trip. But prices there are going up, too. Last year my ex-wife sold a 42 year mobile home and attached shop on 2.5 acres for $300,000. She bought it 15 years ago for $100k. Now nearby properties are selling for $750k up to $5.8 million for one 7200 sq ft custom built house.

 

[TheBar]

Those people living in motorhomes will be moving south after the first big cold snap. So you won't have them permanently parked on the downtown streets like in CA.

 

[ziplock]

permanently parked on the downtown streets like in CA.

Does California issue permits for that parking, or how does that work there?

 

[Lou Schneider]

Does California issue permits for that parking, or how does that work there?

No permits, no problem due to court decisions that said cities can't evict homeless people from their encampments unless they can supply alternative housing. So homeless RV encampments are largely left alone as long as they stay out of the tony neighborhoods. In some cases homeless were put in hotels hurting for business during the pandemic when their encampments were dismantled. In Santa Rosa when neighbors raised enough of a fuss they relocated the occupants of an encampment in a city park to 8'x8' pods in a parking lot with a central kitchen and bathroom area.

 

[ziplock]

In Santa Rosa they relocated the occupants of a tent encampment in a city park to 8'x8' pods in a parking lot with a central kitchen and bathrooms.

That sounds unique.

 

[Skookum]

Hi! 25 miles from Seattle, here. The city proper has its issues like all big cities, and the slightly smaller cities (like Tacoma) experience those issues at scale.

The price of admission to the area keeps a lot of people away, and I think that might be a good thing, coming from someone who was born/raised here. If you believe it is a leftist hellhole where taxes and pricing are exorbitant, then perhaps you should remain in your lower-cost arrangement.

 

[Lou Schneider]

That sounds unique.

Here's the article on the aluminum pods in the Sonoma County Juvenile Justice Center's parking lot and a couple of others about cities setting up programs to allow vehicle based homeless to stay in parking lots, sometimes overnight other times 24 hours a day.

Los Guilicos Shelter Village for People Experiencing Homelessness - Pallet Shelter

Sonoma County opens Pallet shelter village to address a homeless encampment near a popular trail.

palletshelter.com

Safe Parking Shelter and Rapid Rehousing Program | New Beginnings

Santa Rosa OKs homeless safe parking program at new site

 

[ziplock]

leftist hellhole

My goodness. How did you come up with that response?

I was just amazed at how cut throat the housing industry is out there.

Do you know why everyone is jumping on houses like that?

 

[Skookum]

Maybe you have him blocked. He mentions both "hell hole" and "unsafe policies put out by the government". It's pretty much a troll on the region's politics.

Why anyone would want to live in that hell hole is beyond me. Traffic is horrendous 23 hours a day. Homelessness and crime are out of control. I won't mention the unsafe policies put out by the government. Just wait for big crash.

My goodness. How did you come up with that response?

I was just amazed at how cut throat the housing industry is out there.

Do you know why everyone is jumping on houses like that?

Yes, I do know why people are jumping on houses like that.

 

[ziplock]

Yes, I do know why people are jumping on houses like that.

I will read what you type. Why are they jumping on houses?

 

[Skookum]

I will read what you type. Why are they jumping on houses?

Same as anywhere else. Despite the high cost of living, it remains wildly popular. There are many opportunities to make big money in the region... Large companies here employ knowledge/skill which command very high wages. Your article mention some outlying areas which are on Seattle's Eastside, like Bellevue and Kirkland, which are very desirable. It's also important to understand the geography of the area. The region is land-locked by water and mountain ranges, and sprawl to the North and South is choked by road infrastructure and lack of transit/rail. A $2 Million home isn't really unreasonable when you're making the kind of money some of these people make. $1M/year total comp? How about if you're making just $400k/year? Still not out of the question. That's not me by any stretch...I bought a house in the area a long time ago. I'll be honest...it's very tempting to sell ..But there's nowhere else I really want to go.

The weather isn't humid, the recreational opportunities are endless, the geography is breathtaking, summers are mild, and winters are mostly without snow and hard freezes. It's rare that salt is ever used on our roads, and quite honestly, there isn't anywhere I feel unsafe walking in Seattle.

Lou mentioned Port Townsend. You have to be careful in places like that. Those small towns will steal your heart.

 

[thelazyl]

We have the same area further south in the Portland (Or) Metro area. People are coming into the suburbs and rural areas in droves. People in "knowledge professions" can often work remotely full time because of COVID. Many want to escape the rising crime in the Portland area. Our home is now worth nearly 3x of what we paid 12 years ago. People looking for homes or rentals are having a heck of a time finding anything available. This is really hurting young people with lower incomes (like my kids).

 

[Lou Schneider]

We have the same area further south in the Portland (Or) Metro area. People are coming into the suburbs and rural areas in droves. People in "knowledge professions" can often work remotely full time because of COVID. Many want to escape the rising crime in the Portland area. Our home is now worth nearly 3x of what we paid 12 years ago. People looking for homes or rentals are having a heck of a time finding anything available. This is really hurting young people with lower incomes (like my kids).

I faced a similar situation in the 1980s when I was in my 30s and took a job in San Francisco. Silicon Valley was just starting to rise up, the mobile home I owned north of Santa Rosa was too far away to allow a daily commute and housing prices closer to SF were increasing along with Silicon Valley's fortunes.

It seems I never earned quite enough to qualify to purchase anything closer to SF except run down apartments that suddenly became "condominiums". I couldn't sell my mobile home for a down payment because the owner converted the park to Senior Housing (55+), cutting the market value of the mobile home in half.

I hated the idea of throwing money away renting an apartment and one day I came across a tiny classified ad in the local paper offering a long term RV space in a park adjacent to the Marin side of the SF ferry for $300 a month, about a third of the cheapest apartment I could find. I already had a small 5th wheel so I put it there and started living in it during the week, commuting into SF on the ferry and going "home" to my mobile home on weekends. Meanwhile I put the difference between what it cost to rent the RV space versus what I would have spent to rent an apartment into savings. This let me take several extended vacations and a year long mid-life sabbatical in the coming years.

Eventually I sold the mobile home, bought a newer 5th wheel and except for 5 years in WA state I've been happily living in an RV ever since.

 

[Krazeehorse33]

Those numbers have nothing to do with my reality.

 

[ziplock]

the geography is breathtaking,

That makes me smile. I'll never get there, but I'll google .

Thanks for describing it.