More economists are forecasting future growth of housing prices in the next fews years… this time it’s the Chief Economist at Fiserv (a financial services technology firm) David Stiff who is predicting the bottoming of prices in late 2010 with an average climb in prices of 7.2% between late 2010 and early 2014. Fiserv and [...]

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their latest data on pending home sales today showing that pending contracts, a forward looking indicator of sales, have slowed in June by 2.6% over levels in May.  The slowing was expected as the impact of the expiration of the home buyer tax credit takes full effect. Looking [...]

I was reviewing a National Association of Realtor’s newsletter and found this article about pregnant women having trouble getting approved for mortgages very interesting (Read the article here).  Put briefly, in the more conservative lending environmen,t lenders are sometimes refusing to approve mortgages based on the earnings of a woman who is pregnant because of [...]

The Seattle Times is reporting today on the latest edition of the Case Shiller home-price report which shows that Seattle area home prices are up 1.16% in May though still lower than the highs of 2007. Overall Seattle is middle of the pack for the 20 metro areas surveyed in the US whose composite index [...]

It’s time to look again at market inventory – the balance of properties on the market versus the number of properties selling. In June 2010 in King County there were: 14,275 Available Properties (Residential + Condos) 2,158 Sold Properties 1,950 Pending Properties 6.6 Months of Inventory Months of Inventory was up 10% from May 2010, [...]

Mortgage rates continue to be at historic lows: 30 Year Fixed, Conventional: 4.375% 30 Year Fixed, FHA: 4.375% 15 Year Fixed: 4.00% Here’s how rates have looked since the beginning of the year: Affordability Keep in mind the huge impact that low mortgage rates have on affordability (the lower the rate, the greater the loan [...]

The stats are in for June and it looks like median home values in King County are mixed depending on where you look… Residential Median home price in June for residential property (houses/townhouses) is up 1.05% over May to $384,000.  This is the peak value for 2010, and represents a gain of 5.21% since the [...]

A Zillow Zestimate may not be worth the bytes it’s transmitted with…

The local and national real estate market continues to show serious signs of improvement…

As we’re entering the holiday season, and a time of good cheer, lets look at three reasons to cheer for the Puget Sound real estate market. Sales Are Up! At the conclusion of October 2009, the market in King County was coming off one of the strongest rises in market activity in years. January 2009 [...]