I don't see a $500k house dropping to $250k. The tech companies aren't leaving WA they are just jumping the lake to Bellevue. Even if it did drop that much in 2 years you still had to pay 2 years of rent to a place you don't own.

We just refinanced you 2.5 on a 30 yr fixed. Don’t plan on selling anytime soon. My mortgage is less than a studio apartment in Seattle a month. 3 bedroom 2.75 bath on a big lot.

My son and his fiancee' just bought a house in Spanaway. I couldn't believe the price but its their first home. I was encouraging to wait until after they marry (Aug 28th 2021) but my son said that his payment will be $200 more than their shared apartment so....start investing in yourself!
3.46 APR on a 30 year loan.
They're both 24 years old.
Smart kid.

I don’t see the housing market cooling off much at all. It’ll probably get hotter.

Housing starts were already lagging before COVID, and now they are way behind. Amazon, Facebook and Google are still hurling dump trucks full of money at people. Plus, we’re hemmed in by unbuildable topography like mountains and water.

With more companies moving to full hybrid remote work, we’re already seeing people moving further from the city centers and into the burbs and rural areas, driving those prices up as well. People aren’t commuting as much, not going out to eat/drink as much, etc, so they have more money to add to a down payment.

It’s all cyclical but generally upward. We bought our first condo in 2007 in Lynnwood for $277k. It was built in 2000 and the original owners paid about $200k for it, if memory serves. The next year the market tanked and my wife wanted to move out of state. The estimated value was like $225k at that time so we just rented it out. It hovered around that for a few years and in 2015ish, it came back to about $250k so we sold it. I still get the Redfin property value emails about it and last one said it was worth about $375k.

The house we bought 3 years ago for $625k is now showing a $775-800k value.

Who knows what the next year will bring. But to my mind, the best time to buy a place is when you can afford it. Unless you’re trying to flip the place, why does it matter if you bought high?


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I don't foresee a crash like the last one, but who knows

Back then the house across the street from me sold for 100K less than I bought my house for the year before. They're the same floor plan but mine had an extra 2' on the kitchen

Now houses are selling for 4-5 times what they bought at, which is still more than double what I paid

It's a bummer but had I not bought my house when I did I probably wouldn't have been able to get financing to buy at the lower price. When the hosing market dropped so did my workload/income. Fortunately I was able to keep up with my mortgage but it was pretty lean for a few years

Want to see insanity.

I live off the Kent Black Diamond road half between Black Diamond and Kent in a very quiet cul de sac of seven houses all on one acre or more. Five of the seven homes are occupied by us OLD people. The loudest thing here are the chipmunks.

At the end of the cul de sac is a 20yo old 1680sqft mobile on 6 acres of which maybe 2 have been cleared. It's located at the dead end. Owners moved 30 miles west of Boise 6 months ago and put it on the market for $715,000. A couple bites but no takers. $715k is insane for a mobile of average quality. Dropped it to $700K after 6 months. RE agent said the market is high because inventory is low. What's it appraise for?
https://www.johnlscott.com/search/listing/4696825

Lots of movement, much of it from urban to rural. Rural is where it's at right now. I'm in the reddest county on the wet side and there are Trump flags an signs everywhere. Former drug homes near me are redone, and property that has been in disrepair in the last decade is being fixed up.

I remember Don McAlvany talking about this book (Penturbia) decades ago, well it might be finally happening:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272145.Penturbia

Make sure you can get water and necessary permits, thus requiring a friendly county. In addition, your sheriff/police force must be friendly and not SJWs.

Detroit was mentioned in a thread earlier, will Seattle go the way of Detroit? When? How will this affect the outlying area?

What has been the recent megatrend in real estate? Hot Chinese money. Will this continue? What if the Chinese pull out or cash in?

What is the future megatrend for real estate (and many other things)? Baby boomers retiring/dying, inflation. Can hot Chinese money make up for boomers cashing in?

Is land not available or being tied up because of zoning?

You and your neighbors should form an LLC and buy it

If you don't there's a good chance a developer will then split it up. They'll pack as many houses as they can onto that lot

I've a 1800+ S/F mobile on 10.5 acres. My shooting range is out the back door, no one bothers me. I'll be selling and leaving the state if the election goes south for us conservatives, and while I'll miss this place, I surely won't miss the liberal bullshyte I've had to deal with from from the liberals who've moved here.

As someone in the tech industry for 20 years let me tell you what I'm seeing.

Microsoft is the single largest tech company in this area so let's use them as an example. Official policy is that relocation / 100% remote still requires special concessions from management. Employees are still going to be required to report back to physical campus eventually just not before July 2021 (subject to change).

Now in general what are the people I know doing? I've talked to several junior talent (been in seattle a couple of years) who were renting and they have moved out of the area to go back home to their families with the intention of moving back to Seattle if/when required. This points to an eventual bump in the rental market when campuses reopen.

More senior talent who own houses etc generally are not moving. Moving is hard and most of my peers in tech are convinced covid is going to kill them if they leave the house for more than five seconds so they are staying put which restricts supply.

Talent who have been hired since covid started are working remotely until campuses reopen at which point they will be required to relocate. This points to a jump in rental and purchases if/when campuses reopen.

Tech stocks are way up across the board over the last two years and that is primarily how tech people buy houses so many who are at the 5ish year mark in their careers now have the cash (via stock) to buy and this is driving up demand and thus prices.

So, assuming plans stay the same i would say outlook is great for Seattle housing market in the medium term. What could change that:
- if the heavy hitters like Microsoft make relocating a default option widely available
- tech stock price crash

Hope that helps.

Edit: sorry one last point... watch what Amazon is doing. They are second largest in Seattle and employers stand to save significantly through remote work. Amazon has a well-earned reputation for being cheap. They will go full-on 100% remote before microsoft, and if they do Microsoft will respond somewhat in-kind to remain competitive.

That’s a great insight. Thank you

Total misuse of the word ‘talent’ but this is the world we live in


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I was going to use the term "engineers" but didn't want the old guys reading this thread to get confused and start asking about trains. This was a terminology battle I just couldnt win.

Understood

There’s been a para dig gum shift and the dictionary got shredded in the worm hole


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Looking at the map, it looks like its probably still far enough out to be safe from a developer for now.