Comments on: MLS Watch: Re-sales galore

By: chris

chris — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 23:11:34 +0000

there’s a handful of sizeable price reductions on at the Cosmo. All except one are out of town sellers (Redmond the other). I’m surprised more on the S and W corners are not being filled with the office developments next door moving along

By: EconE

EconE — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:06:05 +0000

Looks like 201 Galer (QAHS) is trying to catch up to 2200 & Cosmo.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:42:44 +0000

Portofino just made a HUGE special assesment for repairs to the roof deck area that is used by the top floor units only. Aparently water has been seeping under it.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:14:38 +0000

Matt,

Its painfully obvious that people are not adhering to the rules that only a certain percentage of these condos are sold to investors. Isn’t there any ramifications for so many of these units flooding the market, or are those rules just merely guidelines that investors are ignoring?

By: chris

chris — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:11:27 +0000

as far as where are going the assumed escalations in development community are:

2006 (observed) 6%
2007 (anticipated) – 7%
2008 (anticipated – 7%
2009 – back to historical 3-4% average

Rents typically track inflation, but have just returned to the year 2000 level. so look for big rent increases if we have a soft landing from the housing market. If its a rough landing we hit some sort of recession and most can’t see how rents could double inflation in that case (unless 1970’s-style stagflation driven by energy costs??)

By: chris

chris — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:07:52 +0000

Dupre and Scott is the best source of available data. Some data on their website is for free but most is available for pay. Dick conway and Peterson Consulting are also good sources of data. for a very macro, free view of the rent picture, check out Seattle’s Office of Housing. They do a good job of tracking median rents in comparison to income levels.

I’d guess the average market rate apartment rent in Seattle for all units is somewhere between $1.25-$1.40 psf per month. At the low end, rents in SE Seattle, North seattle for a 1960’s era building with less than 20 units are in the range of $0.80-$1.00 and at the high end I’m guessing Harbor Steps is $2.50 on average. New construction (post 2000+) in Seattle averages $1.80 or so. Anyone building any type of new construction anywhere in the city needs at least $1.90-$2.00 average rents (2007 dollars) to make a market rate project work.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:52:55 +0000

Chris, can you comment on apartment psf in Seattle? How does it vary by neighborhood and quality? What are people forecasting for psf over the next five years? I don’t know about other readers but I’d love to find out more about rents.

By: chris

chris — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:57:08 +0000

jokers. The high-end apartments in the pipeline for Denny Triange are planned to come on at 2.40-2.50 psf in 2008-9…which is still “only” $2500 for a 1,000sf. …and those numbers are including two years of escalation

By: EconE

EconE — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 01:34:02 +0000

I had the same feelings about the 417 Pine unit…it is quite unique and makes a strong statement…especially the glassed in bedroom.

With regards to removing the Drop Ceilings and exposing the guts…I’m all for that. The only consideration that I would have is what is the floor structure above. I have heard about people who moved into/been in lofts in TriBeca (NYC) that had the exposed wood ceiling only to complain about the fact that the noise transmission from upstairs neighbors simply walking was pretty annoying.

Oh…and there’s a $4200 2br at the Cosmo on CL.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:49:40 +0000

Cameron, I’ve never been in the building but I have walked by it a lot and it does look like it has a drop ceiling. I’m wondering if you could take it out and expose the guts, I think that’d be cool :).