Northwest Living | Bellingham Real Estate Market

Puget Sound - It’s the kind of house that a year or two ago would have been snapped up in days: a refurbished rambler in a woodsy residential neighborhood minutes from downtown. The asking price: $559,000.

But after seven weeks, the sellers had not received a single offer on their Wedgwood home. The sellers really believed there would be no problem selling, But the whole feel of the real estate market has changed. They might have to drop the price.

These Puget Sound sellers, along with local real estate agents and economists, wonder whether sluggish sales are part of the winter slump or a sign that Seattle, a perennial most-livable-city contender, is joining the rest of the country in declining home sales. The question has put many locals on edge.

Right now there’s not that urgency among buyers to pull the trigger, is the feeling among many local real estate agents. Buyers in Bellingham seem to be taking their time as well in our slowed down Bellingham real estate market. Lots of fence sitting going on up here in Whatcom County but lets see what will happen later this summer.

If sales are sluggish during the traditionally hot-selling months of February through April, then people will have a better idea whether the Seattle market and the Pugets Sound Region has joined the national trend.

Of 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas, all but three markets; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; and Charlotte, N.C., experienced a decline in real estate values this October compared with last October, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller composite price index.

Home prices have fallen most in the Midwest, Southwest, Florida and California. In Los Angeles, prices fell 8.8 percent; in New York, 4.1 percent.

Seattle prices increased 3.3 percent, but that was the smallest year-to-year rise for the city in more than a decade. The annual appreciation in Seattle has been slowing for more than a year and a half.

Some economists say it’s only a matter of time before Seattle joins the national slump. Although the city experienced a year-to-year increase, October prices fell 0.9 percent from September, the third consecutive monthly decline.

“There’s no real reason for it to slow in our state, but for the fact that people are watching what’s going on around the national economy,” Chris Gregoire, Washington governor said during the unveiling of a budget proposal in Olympia.

Seattle, WA and Portland, OR have bucked the trend partly because each has a relatively healthy local economy and all three continue to draw newcomers, which keeps demand steady.

Seattle has three ingredients that work together to keep home prices high, according to Seattle-area real estate blogger Larry Cragun: “lakes, mountains and democrats.”

The lakes and mountains don’t need explaining. The Democrats, Cragun said, have created such an anti-development atmosphere that available land for building homes is extremely limited.

“When you only have a certain amount of land to build on, the value of that land tends to run up,” said Cragun, who has been in the local real estate and mortgage business for three decades and blogs at Real­ Esta­teUndressed.com. But Seattle has “experienced the worst of it” already, he said, and will rebound soon.

The Dittmaiers family have purchased a new house nearby, and have been moving to the new place little by little. But the transfer won’t be complete, Kristen Dittmaier said, until their old house sells. Not to mention that the couple soon will be forced to make two mortgage payments if the Wedgwood house remains unsold.

Meanwhile, Dittmaier said, she has not seen the latest home-price report in the newspaper. And it’s just as well: “I don’t need to read a report to know houses are not selling as quickly as they used to.” via Herald net

Jerry Campbell - The Muljat Group -Bellingham WA - Whatcom Real Estate

Bellingham, WA - Even though the economy seems to have tanked It’s been reported that local Whatcom County household incomes keep rising. Whatcom County median income is currently at $53,573 as job growth continues locally. When it comes to household income growth, Whatcom County has been doing great compared to the rest of the state in the last two years, according to a new state report.

The median household income in Whatcom County is up 4.7 percent from the preliminary 2006 numbers and up 12.2 percent from 2005, according to the Washington state Office of Financial Management.

Household income is determined by a variety of revenue streams, including salaries, dividends, rental income, retirement and disability income. The median measures the point at which half the households have more income and half have less. Statewide, median household income is up 4.2 percent year over year, and up 8.9 percent from 2005.

Hart Hodges, director for Western Washington University’s Center for Economics and Business Research, believes there are a variety of factors at work for the increase in wages. One is that the same increase in income will look like a bigger percentage change because Whatcom County has a smaller base. In addition, the impact of higher-wage jobs being added to large employers such as BP, Alcoa Intalco Works and WWU is being felt.

“We seem to be seeing a slight improvement in the job mix as the local economy gets larger,” Hodges said. “For example, larger economies tend to have relatively larger finance and information sectors, and we’ve seen some growth there. The job mix is slowly changing.”

Whatcom County has seen a steady rise without any year-over-year decreases in household income since 1989, when the median number was $28,367, according to the report.

Hodges expects wages to continue to rise in 2008 because of a continued tight labor market and a relatively low existing wage base. The local unemployment rate has been under 5 percent since January. Many economists consider anything under 5 percent to be full employment.

Skagit County has also done better than the state average. Year-over-year household income there rose 5.8 percent to $56,163. “Both (Whatcom and Skagit) counties have seen a few good years of job growth in manufacturing and work at the refineries,” Hodges said. Partially via bham herald.

Jerry Campbell - The Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Whatcom County Real Estate

Bellingham WA - The National newspaper USA Today posted this little stat the other day in their paper showing that Bellingham, Washington home values were holding up well against other markets nationally. In fact it was the second best area in the country during 2007 with that distinction.

I Believe that since the Whatcom County housing market is so close to the Canadian market and the fact that our Canadian neighbors are buying purchasing property down here helps contribute to our real estate. Ever since the Canadian Looney and the American Dollar achieved parity with each other, more and more home buyers from British Columbia have been buying property in Bellingham and Whatcom County.

When you compare the geographical areas where most residents of lower mainland British Columbia and the areas of Whatcom County the population is nearing three million in BC and just 180,000 in Whatcom County. A home in Whatcom County would be 2-3 times it’s value if it was located in the more demand driven British Columbia markets.

But nevertheless its always nice to see yet another national magazine touting Whatcom County, this time on home prices.

Jerry Campbell - Muljat Group Realtors - Bellingham Real Estate

Northwest Washington - During the whole month of December we have been developing a brand new Whatcom County real estate web site in order to better serve home buyers and sellers in the Whatcom County area.  The site will also provide full services to the Skagit County homes, Island County property, and San Juan County real estate markets as well.

The real estate search capabilities were developed using Graphical Data, Inc. out of Seattle combined with state of the art web design from Real Estate Webmasters (REW), Nanaimo, BC to create a dynamic style web site of the future. The new web site is called WhatcomRealEstate.com  and the search engine part of the site is called WhatcomHomeSearch.com . The combination of these two technologies together will serve our current clients and future clients needs in so many ways, that we feel we will be providing them with many advantages over the competition. 

The new real estate web site will provide extensive information about Whatcom County and the three surrounding counties to better inform buyers relocating to the Northwest corner of Washington State. These four counties also just happen to be the area we like to concentrate on for our Northwest Living real estate blog here.

 Jerry Campbell - Muljat Group - Bellingham WA - Whatcom County Real Estate