Debra Sinick

Archive for 2010|Yearly archive page

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Hot Kirkland Real Estate Prices of the Week, 11-19-10

In buyers, Kirkland WA, Kirkland, WA Real Estate, market statistics, Real estate, sellers, Weekly market update on November 19, 2010 at 1:06 pm

Kirkland, WA Home Sales

Kirkland, WA Real Estate Sales - 11-17-10

 

This week’s hot price for Kirkland, Washington home sales:

$400-499,999   4 sales

There were a total of 13 Kirkland home sales.

  • The price range with the most Kirkland homes for sale: $300-399,999   50 homes. This is the second week in a row the price range with the most homes for sale has fallen into the $300+ range.   Before 2010, the price range with the most homes for sale was the million+ range.  For most of this year, the $400+ range has had the most number of homes for sale. The drop below 400k is a result of prices dropping overall.  Listings that may have been above 400k in the past are now coming on the market below 400k.
  • There were a total of 317 (down 16 from last week) homes for sale in Kirkland and 13 (down 4) homes sold.

Homes were selling in all price ranges up to $899,999, except the $700-799,999 range. The number Kirkland homes for sale   continues to drop.

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  • Here’s how the chart is set up: The colors show who has the advantage in a particular price range.
    • Green means the buyer has the advantage with many homes to choose from and not that many selling.
    • Yellow means the number of homes for sale and the number of sales in the price range is balanced between the buyer and the seller.
    • Red indicates a sellers’ market where the seller may have the advantage as more homes are selling when compared to what’s available.

Down the side of the chart, the home sales activity is broken down into a price bracket of $99,999. All the homes priced between $400,000-499,999, as an example, are put together in one price category in the chart.

Across the top, the chart is broken down into real estate activity for the week.

There are three columns under each week. On the left side of the column is the number of homes for sale in East Bellevue and Redmond, near Microsoft.  The middle column shows how many homes sold that week, and the final column under the date shows the months supply of homes for sale.  In other words, if no other homes came up for sale, it would take 3.4 months to sell all the homes in the $400-499,999 price range.

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Peak  of homes and condos for sale in King County in 2009?

  • July 27th marked a high of 13,861 homes and condos for sale in King County.

In 2010?

  • 1-4-10    9726
  • 7-26-10       14,639
  • 11-15-10    12,687

***This weekly post has a new look! The full 7 week chart has been difficult to read, so I’ll report week by week instead.***

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Hot Kirkland Real Estate Prices of the Week, 11-10-10

In buyers, Kirkland WA, Kirkland, WA Real Estate, market statistics, Real estate, sellers, Weekly market update on November 13, 2010 at 10:13 am

 

Real Estate Sales in Kirkland

Kirkland, WA Real Estate Sales, 11-10-10

 

This week’s hot price for Kirkland, Washington home sales:

$500-599,999   7 sales

There were a total of 17 Kirkland home sales.

  • The price range with the most Kirkland homes for sale: $300-399,999   50 homes. This is the first time the price range with the most homes for sale has fallen into the $300+ range. Previous to this year, the price range with the most homes for sale was the million+ range.  For most of this year, the $400+ range has had the most number of homes for sale. This drop below 400k is because prices are down overall and homes that may have been above 400k are now coming on below that price range.  So here we are talking about homes for sale.
  • When we look at homes that have sold, during the month of October sales prices increased from October, 2009. This increase in sales price was a result of the home sales during this one month.   Remember, we have to take the whole year into account.
  • There were a total of 333 (down 7 from last week) homes for sale in Kirkland and 17 (up 7) homes sold.

Homes were selling in many of the price ranges up to $1,999,999.  The number of homes for sale in Kirkland keeps dropping and that’s a good thing.  Buyers still have great homes to choose from, too.

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  • Here’s how the chart is set up: The colors show who has the advantage in a particular price range.
    • Green means the buyer has the advantage with many homes to choose from and not that many selling.
    • Yellow means the number of homes for sale and the number of sales in the price range is balanced between the buyer and the seller.
    • Red indicates a sellers’ market where the seller may have the advantage as more homes are selling when compared to what’s available.

Down the side of the chart, the home sales activity is broken down into a price bracket of $99,999. All the homes priced between $400,000-499,999, as an example, are put together in one price category in the chart.

Across the top, the chart is broken down into real estate activity for the week.

There are three columns under each week. On the left side of the column is the number of homes for sale in East Bellevue and Redmond, near Microsoft.  The middle column shows how many homes sold that week, and the final column under the date shows the months supply of homes for sale.  In other words, if no other homes came up for sale, it would take 4.3 months to sell all the homes in the $400-499,999 price range.

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Peak  of homes and condos for sale in King County in 2009?

  • July 27th marked a high of 13,861 homes and condos for sale in King County.

In 2010?

  • 1-4-10    9726
  • 7-26-10       14,639
  • 11-8-10    12,942

***This weekly post has a new look! The full 7 week chart has been difficult to read, so I’ll report week by week instead.***

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Kirkland WA Recycling News

In Kirkland WA, recycling on November 11, 2010 at 12:33 pm

This weekend’s free electronic recycling event got me to thinking about all the recycling I’ve been doing as of late. I’ve been going recycling crazy. I’ve recycled old electronics and tons of my old real estate files, 32 boxes worth!  I posted a piece about recycling on my eastside blog, so check that out for some further recycling tips. There are a lot of places which will take recycled goods in Seattle, so get those recycling engines started and head to this weekend’s free event.

Got Electronics to Recycle?

Recycling Electronics

Old Electronics to Recycle

(I bet you have a few things at home that look like these!)

Saturday, November 13
9 am to 3 pm
Kirkland Congregational Church, UCC
106 – 5th Avenue, Kirkland, 98033

COME ON DOWN!

Some of the many things you can recycle for free:

Appliances-any size, no limit
TV’s, car batteries, computers, monitors, printers (data destruction
included)

Medical equipment, ink toner & cartridges

Scrap Metal:  bikes, tools, BBQs, lawn mowers, metal furniture,
exercise equipment

See 1greenplanet for a complete list of items you can recycle.

Cash donations to Kirkland Congregational Church for providing this
service are welcome. Your donations will help support the ministry,
mission, and outreach programs of the Church of Mary Magdalene, a
homeless shelter in Seattle for women and children and families.

 

Do you have suggestions for other places to recycle things?

 

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How Where Kirkland Real Estate Sales in October, 2010?

In buyers, Kirkland WA, Kirkland, WA Real Estate, market statistics, Real estate, sellers on November 10, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Home Sales in Kirkland WA

Kirkland WA Real Estate Sales in Oct 2010

October, 2010           359 homes for sale         67 homes sold                    19 % odds of selling.

September, 2010      387 homes for sale         43 (was 49)homes sold     11% (was 13)% odds of selling*

October, 2009          393 homes for sale          56  homes sold                  14 % odds of selling

*(Reflects the revised percentage of homes sold because some home sales failed.)

The odds of selling is another way to characterize the “absorption rate” in which we take the number of homes sold in a particular month and divide it by the number of homes on the market. This number tells us what the odds are that a home will sell.  So if the odds are 10%, then 10 out of 100 homes sold that month.

I like the odds of the past month’s sales compared to last October and last month.  More homes are coming off the market and more homes sold!   October’s 67 sales is pretty close to the peak of Kirkland home sales, which was back in April.  Kirkland was the only area on the Eastside with an increase in sales this past month.The higher number of October sales was not a result of the tax credit, which I think is very positive news. Buyers bought homes because they found good values out there.

If you click on this link, you’ll see the MLS charts which show the real estate trends, including median price, for the past five years in Kirkland.

Where’s Kirkland WA?


View Larger Map

The median price in Kirkland decreased from $500,000 to $488,900. Remember the median price for each month only reflects the home sales for that particular month.  It’s important to track pricing over several months to get a more accurate reading.

What do you see happening in Kirkland real estate?  How do Kirkland home sales compare to your neck of the woods?

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Latest Kirkland Highlands Real Estate News, 11-8-10

In buyers, Kirkland WA, market statistics, Real estate, sellers on November 8, 2010 at 6:16 pm

The number of homes for sale in The Kirkland Highlands is now below 30, which is great!  The drop in homes for sale, although small right now, is a start and is following King County’s drop.  King County is down below 13,000 homes for sale for the first time since May!  Yes!

There were 3 home sales that are now pending.  This means the inspection has been satisfied and the buyer and seller are heading towards closing.  Six homes were taken off the market because they did not sell.  Usually homes don’t sell because the homes are not priced correctly, not because a home was not a good house.  There also were 5 price reductions for other homes.

The real estate statistics below reflect the activity in The Kirkland Highlands for the past two weeks. All data is taken from the NWMLS through Monday of this week.


View Larger Map

The map shows most of the outline of Kirkland’s Highlands neighborhood. The map address is simply for a street corner in the middle of the Kirkland Highlands. For those not familiar with the neighborhood, it’s a pocket of unique homes close to downtown Kirkland. In some ways it feels like an island, because it’s separated on the east by 405, the south by Central Way (the main route to downtown) and the west and north by the BNSF corridor. The neighborhood has the best of both worlds, a little isolation without any through traffic, but just seconds from everything.

Numbers in parentheses are from the last report:

Active Listings: 28 (30)

New listings: 0 (4)

Pending inspection: 0 (4)

Pending: 3 (1)

Closed Sales: 0 (1)

Number of Price Reductions: 5  (3)

Price increase: 0 (0)

Homes off the market that did not sell: 6 (3)

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0-$349,999: 2 (2)

$350,000-$499,999: 5 (5)

$500,000-$749,999:  15 (14)

$750,000-$999,999: 4 (4)

$1,000,000- $1,499,999: 2 (5)

$1,500,000- $2,999,999: 0 (0)
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Closed Sales:

None this week.

KIRKLAND HIGHLANDS TOWN HOMES:

3 town homes for sale

1 sold and closed.  Original price of $445,000 with a sales price of $405,000.  Sold in 55 days for 9% below the original asking price.

Peak in the number of King County homes and condos for sale in 2009:

7-27-09  13,861

Start of 2010:

9,726

Peak in 2010:

7-26 14,639

Now:

11-8-10  12,942

This is the first week the number of properties for sale in King County has dropped below 13,000 since last May!  It’s been a long time coming, but thankfully, we are seeing the numbers go down.

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Hot Kirkland Real Estate Prices of the Week, 11-3-10

In buyers, Kirkland News, Kirkland WA, Kirkland, WA Real Estate, market statistics, Real estate, sellers, Weekly market update on November 5, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Kirkland WA Home Sales

Kirkland Real Estate Sales 11.03.10

This week’s hot price for Kirkland, Washington home sales:

$400-499,999   5 sales each

There were a total of 10 Kirkland home sales.

  • The price range with the most Kirkland homes for sale: $400-499,999   42 homes.  Thirteen less for sale than the previous week, a huge drop!
  • There were a total of 340 (down 20 from last week) homes for sale in Kirkland and 10 (down 3) homes sold.

All of the homes sold were priced below $899,999.

There are 36 less homes on the market than a few weeks ago.  The number of homes for sale in Kirkland has dropped about 10%.

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  • Here’s how the chart is set up: The colors show who has the advantage in a particular price range.
    • Green means the buyer has the advantage with many homes to choose from and not that many selling.
    • Yellow means the number of homes for sale and the number of sales in the price range is balanced between the buyer and the seller.
    • Red indicates a sellers’ market where the seller may have the advantage as more homes are selling when compared to what’s available.

Down the side of the chart, the home sales activity is broken down into a price bracket of $99,999. All the homes priced between $400,000-499,999, as an example, are put together in one price category in the chart.

Across the top, the chart is broken down into real estate activity by the week.

There are three columns under each week. On the left side of the column is the number of homes for sale in East Bellevue and Redmond, near Microsoft.  The middle column shows how many homes sold that week, and the final column under the date shows the months supply of homes for sale.  In other words, if no other homes came up for sale, it would take 4.5 months to sell all the homes in the $400-499,999 price range.

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Peak  of homes and condos for sale in King County in 2009?

  • July 27th marked a high of 13,861 homes and condos for sale in King County.

In 2010?

  • 1-4-10    9726
  • 7-26-10       14,639
  • 11-1-10    13,049

We’re heading towards the downward slope in the number of property sales in King County.  Good news!  Buyers still have a top notch selection of homes with great interest rates and sellers are starting to have a little less competition.  It’s still a challenging market, and will be for a while, but it’s a healthy sign to see the drop in number of homes for sale.

***This weekly post has a new look! The full 7 week chart has been difficult to read, so I will report week by week instead.***

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Hot Kirkland, WA Real Estate Prices of the Week, 10-27-10

In buyers, Kirkland WA, Kirkland, WA Real Estate, market statistics, Real estate, sellers, Weekly market update on October 30, 2010 at 6:52 pm

This week’s hot price for Kirkland, Washington home sales:

$300-399,999 and $400-499,999   3 sales each

There were a total of 13 Kirkland homes sold.

  • The price range with the most Kirkland homes for sale: $400-499,999   55 homes.  Three less for sale than the previous week.
  • There were a total of 360 (down 16 from last week) homes for sale in Kirkland and 13 (down 7) homes sold.  The roller coaster of Kirkland real estate continues.  One week it’s strong and the next week, it’s not!

  • Week with the most number of homes for sale in the last 7 weeks:   393 homes for sale,  9-15-10
  • Week with the highest number of homes sold in Kirkland in the last 7 weeks:  10-6-10, with 23 sales.

All of the homes sold were priced below $1,499,999.

Peak  of homes and condos for sale in King County in 2009?

  • July 27th marked a high of 13,861 homes and condos for sale in King County.

In 2010?

  • 1-4-10    9726
  • 7-26-10       14,639
  • 10-25-10    13,643

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How Do We Keep Kirkland More Livable?

In Kirkland WA, rails to trails, Uncategorized on October 27, 2010 at 10:36 am

Kudos to Kirkland for being one of the top ten cities in the country for livability because of its walkability.

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece on the changing landscape of the suburbs. The suburbs that mirror the amenities of a big city are the ones on the rise.  Kirkland is one of the top ten.

The suburbs that have continued to prosper during the downturn share many attributes with the best urban neighborhoods: walkability, vibrant street life, density and diversity. The clustering of people and firms is a basic engine of modern economic life. When interesting people encounter each other, they spark new ideas and accelerate the formation of new enterprises. Renewing the suburbs will require retrofitting them for these new ways of living and working.

Why is this so important for now and our future as a vibrant city?

These are the places where Americans are clamoring to live and where housing prices have held up even in the face of one of the greatest real-estate collapses in modern memory. More than that, as my colleague Charlotta Mellander and I found when we looked into the statistics, the U.S. metro areas with walkable suburbs have greater economic output and higher incomes, more highly educated people, and more high-tech industries, to say nothing of higher levels of happiness.

There are opportunities to keep our city attractive and exciting.  It’s important to do so for our very livelihood and livability. 

I love Kirkland, particularly for what makes it so unique as a community on Seattle’s eastside. I suspect Lake Washington Boulevard is one of the main reasons Kirkland landed in the top ten of livable cities. We’ve got a vibrant waterfront area and this great boulevard to walk with some amazing views of the Seattle, Lake Washington, and the mountains.

Walking in Kirkland WA

Walking Along Kirkland's Lake Washington Boulevard on a sunny day

Kirkland is unique on the eastside with its great public access to the lake that’s enjoyed by so many.

Enjoying Lake Washington in Kirkland

Walking on a path next to Lake Washington

It would behoove the region, not just Kirkland, to continue developing what people want in their communities.  The struggle to remain viable as a community is critical to our overall economic and individual health and vitality.  The BNSF corridor is the perfect opportunity to expand on Kirkland’s, and the eastside’s, access to walking and biking trails.

Kirkland-BNSF rail line

Walking Along The BNSF Rail Corridor

Imagine people zipping down the trail to work.  Imagine stopping at Starbucks or Metropolitan Market to grab a snack or a cup of coffee after a nice long walk.  Imagine the dollars spent in Kirkland by people who enjoy recreational opportunities right in the city.  Think how much business is brought into downtown Kirkland by all the people who come here to walk along the boulevard.  One only has to see how many people jam The Sammamish River Trail on any given day to see the positive impact that trail has had on Redmond.  We can duplicate that positive energy and environment here in Kirkland.

Here’s what Portland, Oregon has done with their streets. Berkley, CA has bicycle boulevards.

We’re so fortunate here because we don’t have to worry about just using city streets for bicycling.  While we still need city streets here in Kirkland for bicyclists, we have the BNSF corridor to build upon!  If you listen to these videos, and bicyclists in general, they are concerned about cars and safety.  The corridor would help to eliminate some of these concerns.

Times have changed.  We need to pay attention to how this affects our thinking, our planning, and our future growth and development.  Every community’s future, including Kirkland’s, depends on listening to what people like and want in their communities.  Kirkland’s amenities are what draws people to want to work, live, and play here. Let’s not lose sight of this and incorporate positive growth, development, and livability with the resources on our doorstep.


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Latest Kirkland Highlands Real Estate News, 10-25-10

In buyers, Kirkland News, Kirkland WA, Kirkland, WA Real Estate, market statistics, Real estate, sellers on October 26, 2010 at 9:36 pm

The Kirkland Highlands weekly real estate “buzz” is now the “news.”  I looked at a headline analyzer website and tried different titles.  News seems to be more popular than buzz, so to help more readers find this post, I’ve changed its name!

There’s been a fair amount of real estate activity in the Highlands over the last few weeks.  Four homes received offers and are working on building inspections and one home has had the inspection satisfied.  There were several homes taken off the market and several price reductions.  All in all, not a bad few weeks for real estate in the Kirkland Highlands.

The real estate statistics below reflect the activity in The Kirkland Highlands for the past three weeks. All data is taken from the NWMLS through Monday of this week.


View Larger Map

The map shows most of the outline of Kirkland’s Highlands neighborhood. The map address is simply for a street corner in the middle of the Kirkland Highlands. For those not familiar with the neighborhood, it’s a pocket of unique homes close to downtown Kirkland. In some ways it feels like an island, because it’s separated on the east by 405, the south by Central Way (the main route to downtown) and the west and north by the BNSF corridor. The neighborhood has the best of both worlds, a little isolation without any through traffic, but just seconds from everything.

Numbers in parentheses are from the last report:

Active Listings: 30 (31)

New listings: 4 (1)

Pending inspection: 4 (0)

Pending: 1 (2)

Closed Sales: 1 (1)

Number of Price Reductions: 3  (9)

Price increase: 0 (0)

Homes off the market that did not sell: 3 (1)

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0-$349,999: 2 (1)

$350,000-$499,999: 5 (7)

$500,000-$749,999:  14 (16)

$750,000-$999,999: 4 (3)

$1,000,000- $1,499,999: 5 (4)

$1,500,000- $2,999,999: 0 (0)
———————————–

________________________________

Closed Sales:

Sales price: $516,600 Last asking price: $544,900 Original asking price: $624,950, sold in 157 days for 18% below the original asking price.

KIRKLAND HIGHLANDS TOWN HOMES:

3 town homes for sale, 2 are re-listed

1 pending inspection, which means the town home has an offer

1 pending, which means the inspection has been dealt with and the buyer and seller are moving on towards closing.

1 sold and closed.  Original price of $525,000 and sales price of $515,000.  Sold in 20 days for 2% below the original asking price.

Peak in the number of King County homes and condos for sale in 2009:

7-27-09  13,861

Start of 2010:

9,726

Now:

10-25-10  13,643

The numbers are starting to drop from what most likely was the high for this year, which was the last week in July.  The number of King County properties for sale is down by almost 1000 since the end of July.  Plan to see more homes coming off the market as the year ends.

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Hot Kirkland, WA Real Estate Prices of the Week, 10-20-10

In buyers, Kirkland WA, Kirkland, WA Real Estate, market statistics, Real estate, sellers on October 22, 2010 at 8:23 am

This week’s hot price for Kirkland, Washington home sales:

$400-499,999   6 sales

It was a good week for home sales in Kirkland.  Sales numbers are still really fluctuating a lot over the past few weeks.  This past week sales were up by 12, the week before they were down by 15 homes and the previous week they were up by 12 sales! It’s a home sales roller coaster out there in Kirkland!


  • The price range with the most Kirkland homes for sale: $400-499,999   58 homes.  Two more for sale than the previous week.
  • There were a total of 376 (down 4 from last week) homes for sale in Kirkland and 20 (up 12) homes sold.
  • Week with the most number of homes for sale in the last 7 weeks:   393 homes for sale,  9-15-10
  • Week with the highest number of homes sold in Kirkland in the last 7 weeks:  10-6-10, with 23 sales.

Homes sold in all price ranges below $2,499,999, with the exception of $1.5-1,999,999.

  • Peak  of homes and condos for sale in King County in 2009?
  • July 27th marked a high of 13,861 homes and condos for sale in King County.
  • 1-4-10 9726
  • 10-18-10  13,725


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