bellwether | (no subject)

Whew.

morganlf and I just got back from three days of house/apartment hunting and being tourists in Seattle. The more time I spend there, the more excited I get about moving.

We decided that West Seattle seems most appropriate in terms of price and location, plus we absolutely loved the downtown area along California. We've applied for a smallish (1000 sq ft/2BR) mother-in-law unit that looks like it will be more than big enough for now. We'd ideally like to buy a house in 6-8 months, assuming the market continues to act like it has been.

The big pluses of Seattle for me seem to be: a tangible environmental/green focus, a strong presence of a foodie culture, lots of available outdoor activities, and lots of used book stores. Taken together, these are huge. The downside is going to be two-fold--I will definitely miss the sun, and in terms of friends, we're leaving behind a large and established social base. That's pretty scary, but I am definitely looking forward to reconnecting with folks I've not seen in a long time.

My major annoyance of the weekend: having to watch the BSG premiere streamed over "borrowed" WiFi in our hotel room for scifi.com. The stream kept sputtering.... however, it was still worth it. :) The song that

morganlf wrote/translated the lyrics for seems to be Baltar's new theme music. How cool is that?????

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The housing market up here is a little different than the rest of the country. There's been no "crash" in real estate prices. The market's just stalled. Now, admittedly, that's good for you, but there isn't the desperation to sell that you might find in some markets. It's not like California at all.

Glad to have you moving in the area!

Here's an interesting article about local home sales:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/realestate/2004329266_homesales05.html

I actually read that article this weekend. Definitely interesting. It seems like though, what's more important than month-to-month median price trends, is the Year over Year trend. There's a normal curve to prices over the course of a year, so considering month-to-month prices kind of obfuscates the real price trends. Year-over-year is a slightly clearer indicator of the market, or so I've been told. That could be misinformation though, so take it with a grain of salt.

With that in mind, http://seattlebubble.com/ has a *lot* of interesting data. Seattle's YoY index for March is down 3.3% vs 2007.

Oh, in particular:

http://seattlebubble.com/blog/2008/04/04/nwmls-anybody-seen-my-spring-mojo-i-cant-find-it/#more-1774

I liked West Seattle growing up there. You should go check out Lincoln Park down by the Vashon ferry terminal.