Young Buyers, Prepared and Fearless

I think it’s time to either move to New York or get ready for the collapse of the Seattle real estate market. Check out this article in the New York Times, Young Buyers, Prepared and Fearless. First a look at how young buyers approach the transaction:

Brokers say that younger buyers, especially those under 30, often approach their first home with cold calculation and an appetite for risk more often associated with real estate moguls.

While this approach to buying may be typical of Wall Street analysts and bankers who are used to approaching deals with extensive research, younger buyers with jobs far from financial fields — wedding photographers and advertising executives, for example — are not relying only on the advice of their brokers. In addition, they are coolly investigating the backgrounds of their developers and their buildings’ histories. They treat these purchases first as portfolio diversifiers and only second as homes. With that in mind, they are keeping their money in the bank and borrowing as much as possible.

I hope in the near future to build up Urban Living a bit more. Currently you can see which developers have done which projects but it would be great to add some commenting and rating features so we can build up profiles on developers, marketers, interior designers and architects. For instance, I’m really worried about Trace’s interiors given what I’ve seen the same interior designer put together for Trio.

Now the quote that really caught my attention was this one:

They put down a deposit for a 1,000-square-foot one-bedroom loft selling for about $500,000.

Does anyone find it odd that I’m looking at a 800 square-foot studio loft selling for about $500,000 in SEATTLE? Maybe I should move to New York where the lofts are cheaper!?

After the couple spent $35,000 on a number of changes, including expanding the closet in the master bedroom and installing new floors, Mr. Hyman predicted that they could easily rent the place out and cover the mortgage.

Unless you’re putting 20%+ down there is no way you could rent out a Seattle condo and have the rent cover mortgage + HOA + tax.

And they end the article with a quote we are all thinking when we close our next deal:

“I really think that real estate will not go down,” she said. “At the very least, it will stay the same. In the meantime, I need a place to live. So the worst-case scenario still isn’t that bad.”