September 13, 2008 - Seattle market

The Seattle Real Estate market has been on a roller-coaster ride since last August 2007, when the lending crisis first hit the news. Prior to that there was already a trend of homes sitting longer on the market that started in June of 2006 so the "crisis of 2008" only added to a trend that started a while ago.

2005 and 2006 were record years for Seattle, so anything comparing back to that time will most likely show negative figures. Even with that said if you had purchased a home in January 2004 it would have grown in value by 53% as of June 2008.

Even in this slower market (the average time on the market for a piece of property is about 7.4 months) there are still many good qualities that the Seattle area has that other areas don't have;

• A large employment base in many different areas (Microsoft, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Amazon, Starbucks, Import/Export to Asia, Bio tech, Alaska Airlines, etc.) most of which have a national or international reach.
• Projected job growth. Though there have been some hiccups this summer (Weyerhaeuser and Alaska both announced that they will layoff up to 1,000 employees each) there are other companies that have projected growth for the next several years (Boeing will hire @4,000 employees/year for the next 2 years and Microsoft will hire @5,000 employees/year for the next 10 years.
• Limited construction growth. Due to local topography there is only so much buildable land. The mountains, lakes, streams and hills prevent the overbuilding that has occurred in other markets, many of which are REALLY suffering at this time.
• Prices are still much less than other major metropolitan areas on the west coast. Even with the strong appreciation over the last couple of years Seattle is still one of the least expensive big cities to buy property.

It is still a great time to buy. See the Recent Media section to see articles on the Condo Shortage in Seattle and other great articles specifically about our local Real Estate Market.