urbnlivn, a seattle condo & real estate blog

The Seattle Times recently did a feature on a tiny Seattle condo, Tiny apartment shows the value of a good fit:

Homeowners are building smaller in general. It’s economical and ecological. But few do it in 11-feet-3-inches wide, by 16-feet-2-inches deep, by 10-feet-4-inches tall (Sauer is very accurate) with two beds, a full kitchen with a dishwasher, bathroom with a shower, a soaking tub set into the floor just inside the front door. On three living levels. There’s also closet space, a dining table and storage for two bikes. All of it contemporary and in cool blue, with accents of black, red and white.

Wow. I shall never complain about 889 square feet again! Be sure to check out the pics.

Update: Cosmo Seattle has a few more details on this really small condo, Pico-Dwelling by Steve Sauer which includes a link to Steve’s site which has tons more details on the project, pico-dwelling.

Popularity: 2% [?]

In addition to Gallery, on Friday Trace North announced another round of price cuts (our coverage from the last round):

For your reference here are the sales from the last three months at Trace North according to Redfin:

#501, a 2 bed, 2 bath, 996 square foot unit sold $429,000 on August 12th.

#617, a 1 bed, 1 bath, 417 square foot unit sold June 15th for $225,000.

#515, a 1 bed, 1 bath, 647 square foot unit sold June 17th for $300,000.

Disclaimer: Trace North is an Urbnlivn advertiser and I live at Trace Lofts so of course I think you should buy at Trace. It’s in a killer location and we’re getting a pie shop!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Not getting baked at Hempfest? Or perhaps looking for some hapless real estate agents to harass after you’ve gotten baked at Hempfest? Here are a few of the 85 open houses in Seattle this weekend for your visiting pleasure:

606 E Thomas St Unit H

Sunday, August 22, 2010 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Thinking about buying an into an older coop, but worried that the previous owners didn’t take good care of the unit? Worry no more, because this place was owned by Font Nerds. Helvetica Font Nerds. And everyone knows one of the necessary conditions to become a Helvetica Font Nerd is a bad case of obsessive compulsive disorder. I highly encourage you to visit this Capitol Hill two-bedroom unit, and I dare you to find a speck of dust.

1950 Alaskan Wy #137

Sunday, August 22, 2010 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM
You know where a great place to buy a new condo would be? Right over where they are going to dig the world’s largest deep bore tunnel! I mean, you could get a boring machine stuck under your building! Or soil settlement could cause half the building to sink into the ground! Either way, you’ve got yourself a fat lawsuit on your hands. I’m sure you could make twice the $950,000 that this waterfront three-bedroom unit costs.

Update: Whoops, a reader pointed out this condo is not over top of the proposed bore tunnel. – Matt

8812 Stone Ave N #102

Sunday, August 22, 2010 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Dude! This $172,000 one-bedroom unit is perfect! You could go to Hempfest and get stoned, and then go to an open house on Stone Way! Double rainbow all the way across the sky.

613 E Highland Dr #2

Sunday, August 22, 2010 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Wish you could live in Harvard and Highland but don’t have a million dollars burning a hold in your pocket? Meet their red-headed stepchild, 613 Highland – she’s only 30 years older. We’re talking about a three-bedroom-plus-den four-story townhouse just blocks away with the same view for only $699,900. That’s quite a steal given that it sold in 2005 for $775,000.

2929 1st Ave #1001

Sunday, August 22, 2010 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
I know, I know. Everyone has covered the shit out of this condo. But come on, it’s in the same neighborhood as hempfest, and how fun would it be to try to find your way out of that place when you’re high as a kite?

Popularity: 2% [?]

With summer winding down, sales down and an auction at Olive 8 coming up we’re going to start to see more price reductions.

The first batch come from Gallery in Belltown who still has units to move even though they auctioned a bunch off.

Unit 324 started at $360,000, most recently was at $292,000 and is now priced at $275,000.

Unit 509 started at $307,600, most recently was at $262,000 and is now priced at $250,000.

Unit 1107 started at $646,000, most recently was at $470,000 and is now priced at $450,000.

Gallery is also offering a 3% buyer’s bonus:

Buyer Bonus: 3% up to $10,000, available on all new contracts written between 6/18/10 – 8/31/10, closing by 9/30/10.

Popularity: 2% [?]

As rumored earlier this month, it’s now official! Olive 8 developer, RC Hedreen, has retained Kennedy Wilson to auction off 34 units on Sunday September 19th. Kennedy Wilson was also the auctioneer for the 5th and Madison auction. Get the full details at Olive8CondoAuction.com or go here if you don’t want to give them a fake email address to see all the units being auctioned. Guess even though they had their $90 million construction loan renewed for an additional two years they’re getting nervous as they get to the one year mark.

The units being auctioned are on floors 18 through 26. They’re holding back the sky suites on floors 27 to 39 and will continue to sell those traditionally. Starting bigs start at $160k but as with the 5th and Madison auction be sure to pay attention to the fine print on this auction:

All homes have an unpublished reserve price (Unpublished Reserve Price), which means that the seller has established an unpublished minimum selling price. The Starting Bid is not the reserve price. In order to become the winning bidder of a home, a bidder must have the highest bid and meet or exceed the unpublished reserve price. The highest bid is subject to acceptance by the seller. With respect to a high bid less than the seller’s reserve, the high bid, resulting purchase documents/offer are subject to the seller’s acceptance, counter-offer or rejection during the auction, in the contract room and/or within five (5) days following the auction.

I’m sorry I missed the first official announcement on the Olive 8 blog, Olive 8 Auction, because I’m puzzled by their language,

The Olive 8 Sales Team is proud to announce that we will have 34 homes auctioned in September. The auctioned homes will be on our lower floors 18 through 26.

The sales office will remain open onsite and continue to sell floors 27 through 39 our “Sky Suites.” Now is a great time to buy a view home in Seattle’s tallest and most luxurious tower. The sales office is open daily from noon to 5 p.m.

Proud? They failed to sell the units conventionally so now they’re resorting to an auction to try and move units. This building was initially almost completely pre-sold but when it time to close only a fraction of the units closed and sales have struggled ever since.

Great time to buy? Prices are up slightly while sales volume dropped 30%. Prices are more likely to go down than up at this point.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Another update on the Diamond Drama! Joel Diamond, CEO of Diamond Parking, not only bought the six-million dollar penthouse at Escala. He’s also attempting to sell a four-bedroom house with weirdly-fluorescent-green pool for 7.88 million dollars. That house is unfortunately not having an open house this weekend, but 98 other fine abodes in Seattle are:

1100 E Harrison St #402

Sunday, August 15, 2010 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Okay, before I tell you the price of this Capitol Hill unit, just look at the end of the deck there. At the end of this spacious private deck with a view of the gorgeous Seattle skyline there is a spiral staircase. That spiral staircase leads to a second spacious private deck with a view of the gorgeous Seattle skyline. And don’t tell me it rains too much in Seattle for decks to be useful. Seattle got 0.31 inches of rain in July. The unit is listed at $639,900, which is actually not bad in the current climate.*

2301 NE Blakeley St #306

Sunday, August 15, 2010 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
If you’ve lived in Seattle long, chances are you’ve biked past this one-bedroom unit more than a few times. Those trees outside the window line the Burke-Gilman trail right by U-Village. That’s right – a bike trail, a university, and an apple store. What more could you ask for? Aside from more than 687 square feet, that is…

1420 Terry Ave #1906

Sunday, August 15, 2010 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Now that is what I call a view. This three-bedroom 19th-floor corner unit is listed at $899,000. It has two master suites and floor to ceiling windows with gorgeous views in nearly every room. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s one in the bathroom so you can contemplate the mountains while you pee.

2425 33rd Ave W #204

Sunday, August 15, 2010 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
This Sunday and this Sunday only, you have the opportunity to visit The Worst Building in Seattle. If you’d like to live there, you can pay $550,000 for the pleasure of owning this second-floor 1,384-square-foot two-bedroom unit.

1301 Spring St Unit 18-J

Sunday, August 15, 2010 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Would you pay a million dollars for that kitchen? This two-bedroom unit is listed at $1,170,000, or $574 per square foot! I’m sorry, construction from 1982 is not “timeless.” Everything is square, nothing is open. I have a shoe rack larger than those windows. Don’t get me started on the ugly brown bathroom tile.

*Redfin is not joking about prices going up in Seattle despite dismal sales. 28 of this weekend’s 98 open houses are listed at over $500K, and 11 of those are over $800K. That’s insane. Are luxury condo owners the only Seattleites who aren’t chained to an underwater mortgage?

Popularity: 3% [?]

That crazy mirrored Seattle condo that we first blogged about on August 2nd, was featured in a NYT article earlier this week, What You Get for … $500,000.

Notice all the people in the upper right of the photo. It must have been really hard to photograph this place!

For a few choice comments on the place check out Tim’s post on the place.

Interesting to note that our readers currently estimate the place is worth $391k.

Popularity: 3% [?]

This afternoon Redfin released new data on the Seattle Area market showing that for the city of Seattle condo prices increased 1.8% in July to $290,000, and were flat year-over-year. Sales volume decreased 29.4% to 161 sales from June to July, and decreased 23.7% year-over-year (there were 211 condos sold June 2009).

Inventory Down 4.5% Month over Month

In July the number of condos for sale in Seattle decreased 4.5% to 1,373 from 1,437 in June but up 1.6% year-over-year.

Here’s the number of condos for sale in July by neighborhood.

 
 
Sales Volume Down 29.4% Month over Month

When we reported on June sales had declined 18% month-over-month, and again this past month they’ve declined again. This time 29.4% month-over-month. Welcome to a post-tax credit world. This certainly surpassed our predictions as last month we predicted “sales will be flat to slightly down.” I said this last month, but this month, I mean it, I don’t think we’ll see such a big drop off for another month in a row.

Here’s the # of condos bought in July 2010 by neighborhood. Instead of showing the month-over-month increase which is skewed by the number of weekdays in a month we’re showing the weekday rate of change for a better comparison in sales volume:

 
 
Median Prices Increase 1.8% to $290,000

Surprisingly with sales volume really decreasing the median price increased slightly to $290,000.

 
 
For more color on sales in July check out our weekly series of recent sale posts.

What Does the Future Hold?

I suspect we’ll see sales activity be flat to slightly down in August, and inventory will be down as everyone heads out on vacation in August.

What Do You Think?

Have you been shopping for a condo recently? What do you think of what’s available for sale? Made any offers? How did those go?

Redfin has a spreadsheet available if you want to dig into the data for for a neighborhood or city not included here (or for single-family home and townhouse data.)

Disclaimer: I work at Redfin and run the marketing team. This is one of the projects I work on.

Popularity: 3% [?]

UPDATE: We wondered in last week’s post who bought the six-million-dollar penthouse at Escala, and intrepid Urbnlivn commenter Snoopy came through for us with this gem of wisom: “Escala penthouse was bought by Joel Diamond, CEO of Diamond Parking. Don’t park in his space or he’ll have your car impounded!” Thanks, Snoopy!

We now return you to your previously scheduled program.

There were 19 condo and townhouse sales in Seattle last week according to Redfin. Here are a few:

The rundown coop unit that we blogged about way back in January sold last week. It’s a 541 square-foot one-bedroom unit, and it sold for $97,500. That’s right, a one-bedroom unit within walking distance of 15th on Capitol Hill sold for less than $100K. Can you say “double dip recession”? I knew you could!

Another condo we blogged about sold last week! We reported back in June that this two-bedroom unit with curvy deck was listed at $425,000. It sold last week for $420,000 after only two months on the market.


The one-bedroom unit featuring this lovely Awkward Nook™ sold last week for $315,000. It’s a top floor unit and one of the first resales we’ve seen at Canal Station in Ballard. It was originally purchased in August 2007 for $377,400.

This one-bedroom unit at Ruby Condos in Eastlake sold last week for $285,000, which brings it in at $361 per square foot. That’s almost exactly the average price for the Eastlake neighborhood – $362 per square foot.


This 19th-floor unit at the swanky Cristalla in Belltown just sold for $447,000, just $2,000 less than the list price. They sold it as a one-bedroom plus den, but, again, it looks more like a one-bedroom plus Awkward Nook™ to me. It originally sold in 2005 for $434,990.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Mark Schuster, the developer behind Mosler Lofts, has written a book, Lofty Pursuits about his career and building Mosler Lofts, a Belltown condo.

Lofty Pursuits is a journey of success built the old-fashioned way: through perseverance and hard work. Over the course of twenty-five years, Seattle real estate developer Mark Schuster went from scrubbing toilets to building a multi-million dollar real estate investment business and, in the course of doing so, pioneered and developed the most nationally acclaimed, environmentally conscious residential high-rise building of 2008 Mosler Lofts. Early in his career, Mark had vowed to erect an iconic building, a building worthy of honoring his grandfather, George Mosler. The completion of Mosler Lofts fulfilled that dream and, in the end, much more. Mosler Lofts not only became a landmark expression of innovative design and green building practices but also the catalyst of expressing what Mark describes as the three pillars of sustainability. Lofty Pursuits is about honoring family legacy, designing and managing our businesses for future generations, and about making a positive impact on the social challenges facing humanity.

The book comes out September 6th. Can’t wait to pick it up and see what his says about the delays, the massive lien that dragged out for three years, water damage and the sale of his own unit. Not to mention his next project at 2700 Elliott Ave is on hold.

Popularity: 3% [?]