Rates are going up! Starter homes are all gone! You can’t find an affordable detached single-family home anywhere in the city! Ballard might as well be Bellevue. West Seattle is ancient history. The Rainier Valley is looking like the new gold coast. With the median price of a single-family King County home around $320,000 (up from $286,000 a year ago), no wonder the real-estate market is in a panic. Everyone liquidated their (remaining) stock portfolios after the Nasdaq crash; houses are seen as the only safe, reliable receptacle for one’s remaining assets; mortgage holders have been in a refi frenzy, trading upward and upward, buying more and more with their nest eggs; and supply just isn’t meeting demand. Take a deep breath, then, and consider the possibility that things aren’t really so bad. Despite the screaming headlines and goading brokers, we learn below that—by historic norms—Seattle has seen higher run-ups in real-estate values before. It’s possible to keep calm amid the booming fear market and actually find a new home. Some people are happily cashing out of the market and renting. Others are buying fixers. And sellers are prospering nicely, thank you very much (some with TV coverage to boot). So no matter how desperate things seem, the situation could be worse. If all this talk about a real-estate bubble is well-founded, we could soon be looking back on 2004 as the good old days. Eds.
Keeping Cool in an Overheated Market
How this writer actually bought a house and lived to tell the tale. And, no, I didn’t just win the lottery.
By Tim Appelo A locally produced TV show provides some tips for unloading your humble home at a handsome profit. Whether you’d want to subject yourself to televised humiliation is another matter.
By Brian Miller
The Revenge of the Fixer
When there’s nothing else you can afford in Seattle, the DIY special becomes a viable, if arduous, choice. Just be prepared for the rats, renters, and cost overruns.
By Leah Kohlenberg
Getting Out When the Going Is Good
Why I sold my house and am happy to be renting again. Seriously.
By Geov Parrish
The Return of the Panic Market
Think things are bad today? If you add enough zeros to the prices, we ran the same exact story 28 years ago. Not that we’re feeling nostalgic.
By Roger Downey
