Shit's getting interesting. There's a house I've been following (there are a hundred or so at any given time; I am my own real estate advisor). It listed in July at $769k and sold yesterday at $560k. That's a retrenchment of 25% in six months. I watched Los Angeles retrench 40% between Dec 2007 and Dec 2009... and that was the mf'n apocalypse as far as Angelenos were concerned. Meanwhile the WSJ is running fretful articles about how nobody is "buying the dip", talking heads are pointing out that both stocks and bonds are down at the same time (which never happens) and I see shit like this entirely too often: Do those markets look... a little too tightly correlated to you? Meanwhile futures and markets are no longer talking to each other. We were supposed to be up 100 points this morning. Instead we're down 30. I don't know what to read into that other than nobody knows what to do right now.
I know a few people who have been straight-up priced out of this market. ghostoffuffle is one of them. But keep in mind - the market I know is north of Seattle. Seattle itself is pretty crazy. So it's a little of column A, a little of column B: people aren't interested in paying the prices that are being charged so they're willing to drive in from the back of beyond. But at the same time if they aren't killin' it they're moving to greener pastures. Not that there are many greener pastures left. Here's what's even more fucked up: Know why Bellingham, Burien, Lakewood and Everett are at the top of the list? Because they're the poorest.
Amen to that. We lived in a 1930's shitbox. 1050 square feet. Baseboard heating, insulation decimated by rats, single-pane windows, non-euclidean floor plan. No curb appeal even if our street had sidewalks, which it didn't. No quick access to any charm. Regularly found needles on the street outside. Had to contend with semis unloading stock at 3am into the back of the Fred Meyer that abutted the property. Damn skippy we were priced out, and happy to be so. Within six months of us leaving, the landlord slapped some new paint on the wall and sold it for 650K. Fucking absurd.