Anyone in Seattle can tell you, the Seattle real estate market has been going crazy! We had 20% appreciation over the last twelve months. That's a rate that makes me uneasy and I can't help thinking of the buyer pool as a reckless driver. Nuances often don't make the headlines and the big nuance that is being missed is that the driver of the condo market has their food off the gas. Prices of condos on Capitol Hill and the Central Area peaked in April of 2018. The median price of a condo at that time was $600,000. Today it is $422,000.
Part of the issue has been COVID 19. With the pandemic, all that made Capitol Hill so appealing -- restaurants, pubs, public transit, coffee shops, and live shows, are all things that many have avoided due to the need to social distance. But, the issue of falling condo prices started back in 2018, and COVID didn't begin changing our lives until March of 2020. So what was happening before COVID.
My theory is that it has to do with the construction of so many apartment buildings. If you drive around town, you have probably noticed new apartment buildings popping up everywhere. Rents for apartments are now so good that it's difficult to rationalize paying the mortgage for a condo when you can rent a like-kind apartment for so much less.
All this brings me to the excitement of my Capitol Hill condo listing shown above. The condo downstairs had languished on the market for 88 days and had taken two price reductions and a restage and re-shoot (photo shoot). I worked with my sellers to ensure their condo was priced well, recommended painting and new carpets and brought in a top stager. We got the condo under contract in three days and it closed in two weeks. This was another powerful reminder that market preparation truly pays off.
