Elizabeth Rhodes published an article on May 6th in the Seattle Times called “Buyers Drive Hard Bargains in Puget Sound Area Real-Estate Market“. While the gist of the article is true, especially for outlying areas, she failed to mention something outlined in her own chart. That is the Seattle downtown condo market has dropped less than one percent! While other areas are seeing prices drop much more, I think it is significant that downtown is fairing much better.
While the number of sales has dropped by about 37%, the prices seem to be holding pretty firm. I think that the continued job growth, along with the number of planned developments in the pipeline expected to dry up, paint a pretty rosey picture for the downtown Seattle condo market for the next few years. (see Q13 FOX News TV interview with me)
The last line of her article was probably the most important thing in the article. I hope people read that far! “While many remain cautious, this is the best time in the past eight years for buyers because of sellers' willingness to deal”