Comments on News Flash: Seattle Housing Market Tanked in ‘07

Or .. maybe they should be building more inexpensive residential rental apartment buildings if they city/county would just change the zoning so you could build something in the 40-100 story range?

Not everyone wants to own. It's a pain.

Housing prices will probably drop further due to a decreased demand; the coming credit crisis and banks' unwillingness to lend means fewer people will qualify for mortgages, and so will not be looking to buy. Maybe we'll see a reversal of the condo conversion trend, and large complexes that went condo will go back to rentals.

I've said it before and I'll say it again;

people that cheer for the rise of housing prices and boo the rise in price of other necessities of life only have half a brain.

Yay!
Someone finally pays lip service to the idea that we might not want to grow/expand/infill/inflate into infinity!
I just shit on my Little Nickel ads out of sheer surprise!

The real story here for much of the Stranger's audience (that would include myself if I still lived in Seattle) is that this could be mean big jumps in rental prices in the coming year or two.

Nah. Downward pressure on rents right now, Dougsf.

6, yeah. 5, how do you figure that? in sf the rents go down when the housing mkt is depressed. seems it would be the same in seattle.

Bellevue Ave rocks my socks. He/She almost always says what I would have said.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to buy a home at a reasonable price that one can afford. The media and real estate 'professionals' try to make people feel guilty for wanting prices to drop. I feel ZERO of that guilt. Housing is (slowly) going on sale, baby!

Wait.. I thought Seattle was IMMUNE to this sort of thing. I thought it would NEVER happen here.

@3 just shut up already. this article had nothing to do with the "rise in price of other necessities." no one asked how you felt on the matter.

ok?

That's possible, Dougsf, but I doubt it. A good portion of the big, new devlopment proposals filed with the city -- and they just keep rolling in -- are for apartment buildings. While the new units won't be cheap, they will add to the market and should keep the rental prices down.

Those analysts are among those idiots who view real estate as a short-term investment. The only property owners who will be hurt by this are those who follow the analysts' way of thinking. When you buy a home, you should plan to be there for the long term, otherwise it's no better than renting. You don't even start to build equity until several years after the purchase.

What I was getting at is, usually when the market puts home ownership out of reach for more people (there may be a housing bust, but the price dips won't make up for the lack of potential buyers able to get a loans), it chokes the rental market and keeps occupancy rates really high. Occupancy rates are what determine the market value of a rental unit.

But like a few of you mentioned, there's tons of new construction - some previously slated for condos now turning rental - about to flood the market.

Rents plateaued for a long time in SF when creditors were actually letting buyers get in way over their heads... now that the shit's hit the fan and the rental market is getting squeezed hard.

at #7 - I think just wrote way too many words to say "actually, when the housing market is depressed in SF, rents go up, not down".

Umm... Dominic? I hate to burst your tired black hat construct of whimpering "developers and realtors" but there's another constituency that is a little less evil and is more impacted by falling housing prices - homeowners. Today's buyer is tomorrow's homeowner and potential seller. Once those Capitol Hill studio renters who act on the impulse that "now is the time to buy" and convert to homeowners, they stop advocating for affordable housing and begin the time-honored activity of giddily checking zillow.com for how much their house has appreciated in the last year... or 30 days.

Lionel @15) What keshmeshi said @12.

Also, new buyers won't get fucked unless they're trying to flip the house, and if an owner makes some basic improvements to a property they can probably turn a profit in this market.

@10, "cochise"

Oh shut the fuck up it is so obvio that you are Michael.

cochise, i give unsolicited opinions all the time. that isn't going to change.

home price depreciation isn't horrible except in the short term, exactly the time frame for home price depreciation. historically home prices track close to inflation, which doesnt mean you're actually making money on a house when you sell it.

market equilibrium and the invisible hand will take prices to a point where they are affordable under traditional lending standards.

I want the housing market to crash, hard, because that's the only way I'll be able to afford one.

lorig doesn't think so... fuck those scheming bitches...

@15 - hey! I resemble that remark!

@19 -- the only honest comment here.

Plateau, nothing. Prices here are falling, and fast. If you look at the August-Jan numbers, it's plain as day. And they're just starting to fall.

The plain fact is that prices in Seattle have far out-stripped the incomes of the people who live here. The prices were a fiction, based on easy credit and interest-only loans. Now that those are gone, the balloon is deflating.

Every thirty years or so, Americans have to re-learn a basic rule: DON'T BUY SHIT YOU CAN'T AFFORD. It applies equally to cars, clothes and creaky bungalows in earthquake zones.