urbnlivn, a seattle condo & real estate blog

Seattle Times, Housing fees don’t damp building boom:

Those regulations, which took effect in spring 2006, allow residential developers to build to 400 feet, or about 40 floors, in parts of downtown’s Denny Triangle, an area now dominated by parking lots and low-rise buildings.
Elsewhere downtown, residential developers are allowed to build to 45 stories or more.
In [...]

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Seattle Times, Seattle buildings going tall for the middle class:

Mayor Greg Nickels is considering a proposal to raise height limits on residential buildings in the Interbay, South Lake Union and South Downtown neighborhoods — on the condition that developers create some units for people who make too much money to qualify for government-subsidized housing, but [...]

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The Seattle Times has an article looking at condo hotels, specifically, 1 (worst name ever), Owning a hotel room for pleasure, profit:

He’ll make a down payment of $240,000, and get a 30-year loan with a 6.88 percent interest rate for the rest, with a monthly mortgage payment of $2,366, not including property tax, insurance and [...]

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First a touchy feeling article, First-time buyers find ray of hope in condos.
And now the cold hard numbers King County condos.

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Seattle Times, Rents soar through the roofs:

Average rents are up 12 percent on the Eastside this year, the highest rise ever recorded for that area.
In Seattle, it was 8 percent, below the modern record of 9 percent in the dot-com years.
Driving it all is a booming economy and the condo craze. So many apartments are [...]

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I biked by Ruby Condos on Eastlake where it meets Allison on Monday, occupancy summer 2008.
The Seattle PI had an article on, Condo dwellers seek quieter life in new parts of city. My unit at Trace Lofts at the corner of 12th and Madison is likely to be anything but quiet.
Ashely looks at Million [...]

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The Seattle Times had an article recently that I never saw since I don’t read the Seattle Times. Maybe some of you also did not see it – Prices driving single women from downtown condo market.

Half of downtown condo buyers are couples, a third are single men and the remaining 17 percent are single women, [...]

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The Seattle Times has an article about all the recent conversion and ‘adaptive reuse’ projects, Throughout Seattle, vintage condos conserve character, and takes a look at the Pittsburgh and Trace Lofts. :

A growing number of developers throughout the region and across the nation are rehabbing historic-lookingbuildings and turning them into new condos with an [...]

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Last week the Seattle Times answered the following question about how a Condo’s location determines its value

My newest tax assessment values my studio condo in downtown Seattle at more than I think I could sell it for.
The studios in my building have no parking, no washer/dryer, no view, no air-conditioning, no gas range, no venting [...]

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Seattle Times declares this year, The year of the condo in downtown Seattle!
Some of the more notable quotes from the article:

Thyer insists that Seattle isn’t like other cities, where developers are struggling with an oversupply of new condos. There’s a demand for condos in downtown Seattle, he says, drawing a contrast with the speculative buying [...]

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