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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (354142)	10/8/2007 11:48:47 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575733

Well it was only a matter of time before you sewer rats would mess it up for the rest of us. Let the buyer rejoice: Home sales, prices fall By Elizabeth Rhodes Seattle Times business reporter Reflecting mortgage-market turmoil and buyer uncertainty, the median selling price of King County houses has fallen two months in a row. It's now back to where it was last spring — a sign that prices are softening as the number of for-sale homes continues to build. Gary Metter didn't need to hear that. To have any hope of selling his Bothell home, he knew he needs to roll back the price. So, as of Sunday, Metter will have chopped almost 100 grand off the price he set for his four-bedroom home in June. If that doesn't do the trick — and Metter readily concedes it may not — he plans to rent the house. He's certainly not the only struggling seller, as home-sales numbers released Friday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service reveal the most depressed market in years, albeit one that's healthier than most of the nation's. King County's median single-family home price last month was $450,000. That's less than March's $457,500 median and almost $32,000 less than this year's high of $481,750, set in July. (Median is the midpoint: Half the properties sell for more, half for less.) More striking, however, is the pronounced oversupply of for-sale houses. Every month since May, the year-over-year supply has increased 40 percent or more from the same month in 2006. Meanwhile, sales are lagging. Offers were accepted last month on 1,541 King County houses — a 32 percent drop from the numbers in September 2006. Likewise, the county's condominium offerings were up (a startling 74.2 percent, including new condos), while pending sales were down 26.7 percent. Despite this, King County's prices are up over the past year. House prices were up 5.9 percent last month, and condos up 14.8 percent, compared with a year earlier. Surrounding counties posted the same general results, the bottom line being that in Central Puget Sound the percentage of homes sold, relative to the number for sale, now approximates the sluggish market of 2002. That's when the region was in a recession. Conditions then were caused by the dot-com crash and subsequent stock-market downturn, which rippled across the economy and slashed jobs. Today's down market has different dynamics. One factor is house prices that overshot wages, pricing out a significant number of buyers. Another is the severe turmoil in the mortgage markets, which has locked out buyers with no down payments and spotty credit, and has made it more difficult for those seeking mortgages over the so-called jumbo-loan threshold of $417,000. The latter issue, in fact, may have played a role in September's median-price rollback by limiting sales of high-end homes. That would have the effect of lowering the median price. "The turbulence in the mortgage market has definitely had an effect on sales activity," said Lennox Scott, CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate. "We knew it would be this way for August and September, and we're still seeing the major effects here in October." read more......... seattletimes.nwsource.com