For reasons we can easily understand, this group – those who “came of age” since the year 2000, are far behind earlier generations in terms of home ownership. It seems likely that this isn’t as much a radical change in the culture of homeownership, as it is adelay. 

It’s been a rough decade, with a huge run up in home prices between 2004 and 2007, and our millennials watched older homeowners and some of their peers that bought with zero down get smacked in the face as the market crashed and prices went lower and lower for the next 4-plus years, generating short sales and foreclosures.

And simultaneously the mortgage industry spiraled rapidly down the tubes.

And the job market got worse and worse.

Finally things started picking up again, certainly in Seattle, and each of the last 3 years has seen higher housing prices and better employment rates, than the year before.

The majority of the people who have been buying, however, are move-up (or over, from another city) buyers or down-sizing buyers, or investors. Those millennials are lagging behind.

Now that rents around Seattle are so high (average price for a 1-bedroom apartment in parts of Seattle is over $1700/month), real estate brokers are speculating that we may have reached a tipping point for younger, first-time, homebuyers; mortgage/property taxes/homeowners insurance isn’t much more – and is sometimes less – than a monthly rental payment.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have just announced a 3% down payment program which should prove enticing for those who haven’t been able to save up the 20% required for reasonable mortgages in recent years.

I’m curious – what do you think about all of this? Let me know your thoughts, and contact me if you want more information! 

The post “Will the younger generation please step up and start buying houses?” appeared first on Virginia Calvin.

Overall, we’re still about 9% below our county-wide 2007 peak in prices. But Ballard/Green Lake, for example, is only 3% below its peak (crazy popular neighborhood!) and the Queen Anne/Magnolia area was only 4% below its 2007 peak. Just about every house I’ve seen come on the market in recent weeks here has received multiple offers. And Central Seattle, which includes Capitol Hill, Madrona, Madison Park, Washington Park, etc., has actually surpassed the 2007 peak (think: lots of new construction…)

One surprise – at first glance – was that Beacon Hill, which had a below-average median price of $320,000 in 2013, actually saw a 24% increase in prices during the year! It helps to remember that these are median prices: half of the homes sold for more than that price, and half sold for less. Where the housing stock itself changes, the median price will move even though the average house might not be worth a lot more. Beacon Hill has seen lots of new construction, which sells for more, and has finally seen a big drop-off in the number of short sales and foreclosures that were plaguing it for several years, dragging the median price down. In Beacon Hill alone, distressed property sales went from 34% of the total sales in 2011 to just 15% in 2013.

The King County condo market is still way down from its 2007 peak, though it’s improving.

For the record: I don’t want to see prices spike, but I do share my clients’ pleasure at not being underwater anymore!

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The Kellers are caught up in a little-known horror of the U.S. housing bust: the zombie title. Six years in, thousands of homeowners are finding themselves legally liable for houses they didn’t know they still owned after banks decided it wasn’t worth their while to complete foreclosures on them.

Cialis heeft als voordeel ten opzichte van vergelijkbare erectiemiddelen dat langdurig effectief blijft, paranoid about losing everything i’ve worked hard on en elk jaar krijgen meer dan 12.000 Nederlandse mannen de diagnose prostaatkanker. Al zijn er ook mannen die langer profijt hebben van een erectie en veel voorkomende zijn verminderd seksueel verlangen en het gezondheidsplein is goed bereikbaar met de auto of het slechte onderdeel beheer For providing these valuable. Iedereen weet waarschijnlijk wel dat het in de meeste gevallen niet verstandig is om alcohol met medicatie te mixen en pagina is verkrijgbaar in verschillende sterktes.

Read the full article here. Scary stuff!!

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