Blog - Seattle Real Estate Agents - Seattle Homes for sale in WA

The Seattle Real Estate Market has been trying to slow down now for about a year. 2005 was a very strong year for real estate across the country and Seattle was no exception. Most of the country has seen anywhere from a moderate to strong correction in the market sine January 2006. Not Seattle however. While the number of home sales is slightly down so far in 2006 as compared to 2005, demand is still strong and supply is well...very, very low in most of Seattle's close in neighborhoods. I think that buyers and agents alike would like to see things get back to just a normal "feeding frenzy" and we all think that a correction is just around the corner, but the corner just keeps getting longer and longer. January and February of 2006 were slower than the same period in 2005 but prices of single family homes just kept increasing. House that would have sold for $500,000 in October 2005 (which is almost the bottom price now for neighborhoods like Magnolia, Queen Anne, Wallingford, Green Lake, Ballard, Ravenna and Bryant) would now sell for about $550,000 and maybe $575,000. We are looking at homes that should sell for under $500,000 being Listed for $699,000 and some people are buying them. They have lost their minds because they have lost out on 3 or 4 homes because of bidding wars. This brings up a whole different subject but I'll get into that at a different time.

We have a friend and client who is an educator at the university level and we were talking a few weeks ago and did you know that the State of Washington ranks 43rd in the country in producing BA degrees? Yikes. But we are one of the highest educated states in the country. So, all of these people are being brought here for jobs that the locals can't fill. Microsoft has said recently that they are adding 10,000 new jobs in the next 4 to 5 years. Amgen at the base of Magnolia has said that they are adding about 500 new jobs in the next few years, and so on and so on and so on. Lots of high paying jobs, lots of out of state recruitment and very low housing inventory. Economics 101...prices are going up! And another interesting fact and what we tell our buyer clients is that about 1 out every 15 to 20 new homes that come on the market in Seattle is a really good house, the rest are well, the rest.