Comments

2

Hasbro has bros.

4

The Ballard guy is too tropical. Need a blue collar fisherman look, or very boring tee shirt and jeans.

6

Exclusively white reading of Seattle neighborhoods.

7

How do you charge your Tesla overnight in some random robot chosen parking spot?

9

@8 - Perhaps so, so is @6.

10

Tesla charging mystery solved: "EV car charging is available (which is scheduled through the SPIRE Concierge)". So your car is parked by the latest in underground pallet moving technology, then someone has to go plug it in manually and be sure to unplug it before you use your car again. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

11

You know, Tokyo had these back in the 1980s, so it's not really a new thing.

Oh, and you'll need a COVID-19 test within the last 72 hours to cross the border, Charles. As well as the vaccine passport.

12

Yes #11 - not a new
thing. Car Parking Machine 1932
https://youtu.be/QDVcfWhp8iE

13

RE: Housing market

A big part of the reason you hear about lack of supply in the housing market and all cash offers is because a lot of sellers know the market is hot and they list their property at prices way over what it's going to appraise at.

Look on Zillow and Redfin and you'll see a lot of stock available, problem is, it's all overpriced. Homebuyers relying on loans can't buy those properties because the appraisal will come back for far less than they bid and the contract will fall through.

Not sure how to fix that.

14

I can't speak for the other neighborhoods, but Bill Murray looks almost exactly like me when I take the dog out for a walk around my Ballard neighborhood. The only difference being my Santa beard and the fact I haven't worn even a single watch (or Fitbit or whatever those are), let alone two, since the pandemic started.

15

@13:

The trend locally over recent months appears to be for properties to sell at considerably higher than their asking prices. So, even if some sellers are listing properties for higher than their assessed values, the market is so hot they're getting bids for MORE than their already-inflated ask. Which leads to the inevitable question: are they REALLY overly inflating their ask if they end up selling for even MORE than that? If the assessed value no longer has any strong correlation to the perceived value, then perhaps the City needs to re-evaluate how they go about calculating assessments in the first place.

Although as you say, it still sucks for anyone taking out a mortgage, because, seriously, how many of us have $700,000 or more sitting idle in a bank account that we can just throw it all on the table?

https://www.seattlepi.com/realestate/article/Seattle-homes-selling-above-asking-price-16296401.php#:~:text=Just%20over%206%2C300%20Seattle%20homes,a%20record%20%24737%2C800%20in%20May.

16

@13 it's called underappraisal, or AD22, in real estate contract lingo. If you want a shot at buying a house in this market, you have to guarantee you'll pay a specific amount (percentage or static number) to cover some, if not all of the difference, if your appraisal comes back lower than what your mortgage company will cover. If you won't cover all, the seller is on the hook for the difference. Whether they agree to those terms in the contract is a different story, but VERY few houses are appraising for less than they're selling for.

And I can't help but bang my head against the wall when Charles looks at a perfectly reasonable explanation provided by ACTUAL real estate experts, and say "well that's too easy so it's obviously a fault of capitalism." I knew he wrote this before I even looked at the byline. More people are sick as hell of living in Seattle proper (myself included - I bought a house out in Covington), so we're looking to buy in the suburbs. Very few people are leaving said suburbs, and corporate giants are snapping up all of the rental houses because small time landlords are sick of being dragged over the coals. So what does that equate to? This is absolutely simple supply and demand.

18

Concerning 'all cash offers', I am not sure that the quoted percentage of 25% is something new. In 2015 when I bought my house the market was very hot and houses were (most) going for around 10% over list, if you were to be the successful bidder. I put offers on seven houses before I finally was successful. Of the seven, three were bought with all cash and all were by Chinese buyers as investments. I'm not sure if this holds true today but we should not be selling our dwindling housing supply to people who are not US citizens. I know that most other countries do not allow this practice, including Mexico. Changing this policy would make a huge positive difference in opening up at least 10% more homes to actual homebuyers, rather than out of country investors looking for safe havens other than the stock markets. At the rate of price growth in our area, between 12 to 17% yearly, backed by an actual asset, it's a smart investment for them but hurts us.

20

@18:

I'm definitely NOT in favor of adopting some sort of 21st Century version of "redlining"; but I do think it's reasonable to require that someone actually LIVE in the house once it's purchased. It could be the buyer, a relation of the buyer, or a renter; but what I object to is buying a house solely as a safe harbor to protect and isolate capital and then leaving it empty, particularly in a market such as ours where there's already a shortage of available, affordable housing.

21

Charles - the incrediblek is right: your take is always easy to spot. If there's filthy language, it's Rich. If there's a lot of sexual stuff, it's Matt. If there's music stuff, it's that one gal. If it's a very nice person vibe, it's Nathalie. Although she drops the f-bomb, thankfully. But I did not come to bury anybody. I came to say: on the photo, it works good now, but I think it would be a bit more accurate to switch the middle two.

22

Come on Hasbro, give us some Dre, 2pac, Snoop, and Suge action figures.

26

I believe there are a couple mortgage brokerage firms out there, flyhomes mortgage may be one of them, but anyway they allow a buyer to offer all cash so they are competitive. I think this was a reaction to the occasional all cash offers many years ago. Now all cash offers can tend to be the norm and expected, rather than the exception/rare.

27

The disparity between yuppies grabbing real estate like poker chips at a casino and some hapless, homeless individual living in a tunnel like Saddam Hussein is mind-boggling.

Society is becoming increasingly economically polarized, and as Mr. Mudede aptly points out, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” must be slapped to provide some accommodation for the homeless, who are forced to live in less than opulent circumstances.

These tech-mavens with their generous compensation packages should feed the economic horse some extra oats to crap out for the rest of us.

The Stranger Election Control Board recommendations are vastly superior to The Seattle Times, which continues to pander to mercantile tastes with summarily ridiculous recommendations which reflect the needs of the business community and the Rotary Club, rather than the citizenry.

This is how we got Durkan from the Island of Lesbos.

Here we have the end of life on the planet as we know it from climate change, and some Beverly Hills-style condo puts in a fully automated parking garage for the same folks who are fomenting another real estate market collapse.

Those polar bears floating by on giant melting ice cubes would probably like to use these urban animals to wipe their big, hairy butts.

30

Many are probably removing the financing contingency from their offer. This doesn’t mean they payed cash.

31

is Housing a Right
or a Commodity?

are we Citizens
or Commodities
to be Harvested?


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