Ben Rush PTA raises $30,000 for school programs

Congratulations to Ben Rush Elementary and a special thanks to the PTA for raising $30,000 for school programs. A special thanks to Kymberly Meade and her committee for organizing such a great auction. There were some wonderful items for people to bid on, all for a great cause.

Go Ben Rush!

Come on down to the Ben Rush Elementary Auction

Friday night, the 23rd of March, from 7-9:30 is your chance to contribute to Ben Rush Elementary School programs. Sponsored by the Ben Rush PTA, there is a great list of items to bid on from live and silent auctions. The funds will go to program enrichment for Ben Rush students.

Have a little fun and support a great cause! Our kids are our future!

For those of you who may not know, Ben Rush is located in the Spiritbrook neighborhood on 152nd Ave NE in Redmond. You can get to Ben Rush by going north from NE 51st on 156th Ave NE. Just past Westside Park is a stop sign. Turn left at the stop sign and cross over highway 520. Ben Rush will be straight ahead as you turn onto 152nd Ave NE.

Have fun!

Check out the catolog on line. There are some fun things available.
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ugwc/catalog.htm

What were the chances of selling a home in West Redmond in February, 2007?

If you were a seller in February, your chances of selling a home in West Redmond/East Bellevue were pretty wonderful.

Sellers had a 58% change of selling a home in February, 2007, definitely a seller's market. There were 57 sales during the month.

Of all the areas on the Eastside, West Redmond/East Bellevue has some of the lowest number of homes for sale. If you look at my earlier post about the chances of selling a home on the Eastside in February, 2007, you will see at the end of February, there were only 98 homes available for sale in West Redmond/East Bellevue, an astonishingly low number. Kirkland, on the other hand, had 275 homes on the market, quite a big difference.

The areas around Microsoft and West Redmond are really going strong. Inventory is light under the 700k range. Some recent sales(some were mentioned in my previous post): In the Pinehurst neighborhood, a Burnstead built neighborhood of two story homes, a home was listed for $630,000 and sold for $660,000. In the Meadows, a planned unit development, the largest free-standing home in the neighborhood was priced at $525,000 and sold for $554,000. I sold a home on Rose Hill that had five offers and will close at more than full price.

A word of caution: pricing is on the side of sellers, but each home must be analyzed according to its current competition. Some homes will be able to be priced more aggressively and some will not. For example, if there's only one or two properties competing with a home for the same buyer, it may be easier to be more aggressive with pricing. However, if the competition creeps up from there, pricing for a home should be less aggressive. Competition is most important to analyze right up to the minute the home goes on the market.

Are prices in West Redmond already going up this year?

In a previous post, I looked at last year's data for real estate sales in the Lake Washington school district. Since the Lake Washington Schools covers a much larger area than West Redmond, I wondered what the sales range in 2006 was for homes in West Redmond. We're just about to complete our first quarter of 2007 and I already see some great appreciation.

The least expensive home sale in West Redmond in 2006?

Last year, the least expensive homes sold in a neighborhood called Stratford Village which is just south of Redmond Way. Stratford Village is a PUD, a planned unit development. The homes are similar to town homes, but is a housing style between a condo and a single family home. A PUD is different from a condo because ownership is fee simple, and like single family homes, you own the land your home is built on. The least expensive home sale last year was $329,900.

The least expensive home sale so far in 2007?

Looking at closed sales for our first quarter, the price of $329,900 has already been beaten by $35,000 in Stratford Village, the same neighborhood! This represents about a 10% increase in value. This increase does not surprise me as few homes are currently on the market in West Redmond priced below 400k. I expect the appreciation to be really strong in the affordable price range since competition is so heavy for these homes.

I just sold a home in the Redmond part of Rose Hill and we had 5 offers for the home, which was listed at $419,900. I can tell you the sales price after it is a closed sale. But suffice to say, it was a great sales price.

The most expensive home sale in West Redmond in 2006?

There was a 3 million dollar sale on Lake Sammamish last year. This home was built in 2001, sat on a 17000+ square foot lot with 50 feet of waterfront. Waterfront is in a class by itself.

If we look at homes that are off the water, Marymoor Hill had a sale of $1,005,000 for an 11 year old home with 3700 square feet.

The highest sale price in 2007 thus far?

This year there are already a few sales for new construction homes that have surpassed the sales price of $1,005,000. Since these homes are still under construction, it will be a while before we see the numbers for these million dollar sales.

Our highest closed sale price right now is for $660,000 in the Pinehurst neighborhood. A home near Microsoft just went pending today. It's list price was $850,000. The sales price will be public information as soon as it is closed.

I expect West Redmond to appreciate in value at a pretty strong pace this year. If our inventory continues to be low, expect prices to really pop.

What were the chances of selling an Eastside home in February, 2007?

Monthly Statistics for February, 2007


So what were the chances of selling a home on the Eastside in February 2007?

Sellers had a 42% chance of getting a home sold in February.

This is a fabulous increase from the 33% chance sellers had to sell a home in January. Almost half of all the condos and homes listed in February received offers. This is obviously a very positive trend and it speaks volumes about the direction of our market. Thirty-two% of the homes for sale in December sold, 33% in January, and now in February there was a 42% chance of selling. The amount of properties on the market has increased by only 23 homes/condos, 3%, and the number of sales has increased by 9%.

Looking back at 2006, your odds of selling a home were a bit stronger in February 2006 than this February, but not by much, since 46% of the homes sold as compared to 42%. It will be interesting to watch if our typical yearly patterns continue this year as they have in most of the past years. If you take a look at the Eastside Summary reports (click on statistical reports for 2007) you can see how more of the inventory sells in the spring. Spring is generally more of the seller’s market. I predict the same market swings as we have generally seen in the past few years with the market more seller friendly in the spring and more buyer friendly as the year moves on.

Of course, each area is slightly different. For example, there is a much larger amount of homes available in on the plateau, Snoqualmie, and Issaquah north of I-90. There were almost 500 homes available in these areas. This is a result of the boom in construction that is happening in Snoqualmie right now. These new homes have added greatly to the amount of inventory available in these areas. However, if you look at some of the more established areas of the plateau such as in Sammamish, they, too, do not have many homes for sale.

If we look to areas such as Bothell, Woodinville, Duvall and Kenmore, 380 homes were available. The Kirkland area came in next with 275 homes on the market in February. Inventory declined sharply in many of the other areas such as Redmond/Carnation with 187 homes, West Bellevue with 114, West Redmond/East Bellevue with 98 homes, and Mercer Island with only 90 properties available. The lack of inventory in these areas explains some of the increase in appreciation in each of these areas. The median price of homes in West Bellevue has increased by 68% from last year! This will explain why in some areas homes will have more than one buyer and may sell with multiple offers.

Good news for condo buyers: available condos increased by 26% from 406 in February of last year to 515 this year. More condos sold than last year as 328 condos sold as compared to 301. Even with all the new construction condos being built in all price ranges and the huge number of condo conversions, there still is a dearth of inventory. If you look at February of 2003, there were about 1200 condos on the market, so 515 available now do not represent many condos. In the next few years, many more condos will come on line, particularly in the luxury market.

Don’t forget to look at the attached charts on my website for this past month and past year. (Click on statistical reports for 2007 and for January 2007). Look at statistics-year to date charts to find this information. These charts will clarify a lot of the information.

For those of you who are familiar with my monthly statistics reports, you can see I have changed the format. I try to present market information in the most meaningful way possible. I plan to spend time analyzing the information presented in the past to see if there is a better way to present the individual price range data. However, feel free to contact me if you do have questions about the performance of each of the different price ranges.

Debra’s monthly tip: Since you never know when you may sell, take photos of your yard as the season progresses. Great photos of your yard can always be used in marketing, even if you sell in the dead of winter!
http://debrasinick.com/docs/2007_Year_to_Date.pdf

So what was the most expensive home in the Lake Washington School District? What was the least expensive?

While reading through the NWMLS 2006 statistical recap I found the sales ranges in the Lake Washington School District for 2006. Here is what the report said:

Median price: $569,950
Average sales price: $668,508
Lowest sale price: $164,500—Except, this is wrong!
Highest sale price: $6,175,000

I found the mistake when I looked up the listings for these homes. The $164,950 “home” was actually a condo in Kingsgate! So the stat for the least expensive home in the LKW schools is incorrect. The listing agent had erroneously listed the property as a single family home, which it is not.

I looked up the real truth about the least expensive home in the Lake Washington Schools and after wading through a list that covered manufactured homes and homes out in the Riverview District, I found it. The least expensive home was located on Union Hill and sold for $240,000. Built in 1941, it’s a two bedroom, one bath home on a 9000 square foot lot. (I need to let the NWMLS know about the mistake.)

Now the most expensive home, which sold for $6,175,000, is located right in downtown Kirkland. I happened to preview this home when it was listed and it really was something special. It had been designed to be a home and an office space at the same time. The finishes were fabulous in this home.

This research has gotten me thinking and I now want to know more about the least expensive and the most expensive 2006 home sales in West Redmond. Where were these homes and what were the sales prices? I will put this information in one of my next blogs.

What were the chances of a home in West Redmond selling in January, 2007?

As part of my blog for West Redmond, I will look at the market performance for the area and let you know what the sales activity was like for the previous month. I will answer this question each month:

What were the chances of a home selling this past month?

What were the chances of selling a home in West Redmond and East Bellevue?
(these areas considered the same areas in the MLS)

33% of the available homes sold in January, 2007.

There were 107 homes available for sale and 37 of them sold.

Statistics tell us it is a buyer's market as less than 45% of the homes sold. However, I believe the homes priced over $600,000 fall into a buyer's market. There is so little inventory under the $600,000 range that these homes, if they are priced right and show well, are going fast. Under $600,000 is more of a seller's market.


How do I get this information? I look at the statistics each month which you can find in this link or on my website, www.debrasinick.com. I analyze the supply and demand for each month. If the percent of the homes selling is 45% or below, we are looking at a buyer’s market. If this percentage, which we call the absorption rate, falls between 45-55%, then we have a market balanced between buyers and sellers. A market in which 55% of the available homes sell is a seller’s market. Last year, sellers markets were found in March through June, while the rest of the year was more in the buyer’s camp.

Each week I receive information specific to each area and price range on the eastside. For example, if you want to know how many homes in the Kirkland area are for sale and sold for $750,000-$1,000,000 this past week, I can tell you. It is critical to know the absorption rate so you will know what your chances of selling will be. By examining the statistics, I am able to tell you this information. I am happy to share those facts with you at anytime so you know what is happening in the market.