Where is the Market?

June 6, 2008 – 8:09 am

It’s June 2008 in the great Pacific Northwest and raining cats and dogs and I beleive everyone is in a funk. The Wall Street Journal reoprted May 6th 2008 that the Housing Crisis is over and we are on our way up. With that being said we have a lot of inventory to burn through to reach that balance between supply and demand and the big question is how long will it take to get there? Currently we have around 6500 finished recorded new lots with about 1500 having new homes built on them and 4000 sitting vacant. Snohomish County new home sales are averaging about 200 per month so at this rate we have a 3 year supply; these numbers are down by about two thirds from our peak at the end of 2005. Many builders are in need to move their inventory because the interest from the bank is eating into their bottom line and developers need to sell their lots as well. We have seen signifigant price drops in the housing market and it is a buyers market with lots of deals and negotiating power. The Snohomish County lot sales on the other hand have not decreased in price as much and sales are at a basic stand still.

In Snohomish County in 2006 we sold 1980 residential building lots and in 2007 we sold 1874 building lots; for the first quarter of 2008 we have sold 47 building lots a decrease of 94.5% 1 year ago. The bottom line is we need to sell off our housing inventory in order to see some lot sales; developers are still asking yesterdays price because they have nothing tangible to compare prices to. The pipeline is also full with roughly 16,000 lots being processed in Snohomish County for a total of 602 plats. All of these plats probably won’t make it through because they were purchased at too high of a price to be in line with todays numbers even though were not sure where that’s at.

The subprime lender meltdown has now put FHA financing back on top and with the buyer assistance programs it could be even better than before. As the lenders get their acts back together and the Snohomish County job market continues to get better we will see more people move into this area. The slow climb out of the slump will help to stablize the market and get us back into perspective as this market correction starts the next cycle.

Posted in Snohomish County Builders and Developers | 2 Comments »

Reports Of Real Estate Woes are Greatly Exaggerated!

January 10, 2008 – 11:05 am

Those of us in the industry know the opportunities the Pacific Northwest has to offer with our strong  economy and great opportunities for employment, low interest rates and abundance of housing inventory.

Please check out the article written by Barb Lamoureux with Lamoureux Real Estate.  This was published in The Herald on December 23, 2007.  I found it very uplifting and inspiring in contrast to the negative media attention regarding the housing market.

 http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20071223/OPINION03/24495727

Barb and many other Real Estate Agents who  have been in the business for years know the market and what is really going on.    Don’t believe everything you read and hear in the Main Stream Media.  Now you know “the rest of the story”.

 Ruth Hopkins, Sales Representative

 

 

Posted in Snohomish County Real Estate | 3 Comments »

Welcome to Pacific NW Title’s Snohomish County Blog

December 21, 2007 – 11:36 am

Hi and welcome to our blog. We plan on using this forum to write about events and issues pretaining to the real estate market in the Pacific Northwest covering a wide variety of topics. We want our site to be a resource that you will reference while making business decisions or just doing research. The bulk of the information is about real estate and the market but we will cover related topics as well so please stay tuned as we grow into our blog and work to serve you better by providing the information you need.

Posted in Snohomish County Title and Escrow | 1 Comment »

Washington’s Growth Management Act

November 30, 2007 – 8:44 am

Washington State enacted a Growth Management Act in early  to mid 90’s in order to confine Growth in the state to urban areas and within cities limits. The theroy is to control sprawl and create density therefore having people live near their jobs and have less traffic. The outcome has caused confusion and anger with citizens because most people don’t understand the act. What a lot of Goverment officials hear is people don’t like sprawl and they don’t like density; so where does the balance lie without compromising our enviorment and natural resources?

Posted in Snohomish County Builders and Developers | No Comments »

Welcome

November 29, 2007 – 3:42 am

When we opened our doors on November 12, 1985 we had two goals in mind: ATTITUDE AND SERVICE

A positive attitude with the desire to give the customers what they want, when they want, has been the key to our success. PNWT is one of the largest title companies in Snohomish Country. Our staff has the knowledge and experience to handle the most difficult transactions. That experience with an aggressive and flexible underwriting attitude has contributed to our success.

Pacific Northwest Title is able to service a client’s real estate needs anywhere in the United States. Our market share and customer base validate our dedication to customer satisfaction.

Chris Schulz, President
Snohomish County

Posted in Snohomish County Title and Escrow | 2 Comments »