CHESSNOID

over 6 years ago I was looking for a place to purchase for my personal residence.  That was still before the housing bubble burst, but I was looking in many cities for a condo deal.   I was checking out San Diego, Irvine, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and all the surrounding suburbs around them.  Of course, back then when the prices of the cheapest condos were in the $400,000 range I guess I was just dreaming.

I signed up for email alerts through zillow, redfin, and trulia. As well as some smaller websites for alerts of new listings.  I get these everyday and have kept all the emails for the last few years.  I am surprised to see the values fall as far as they have today.  Over 50% declines in most places even in the places I love to visit like Seattle and San Francisco.

My favorite emails are the ones listing Seattle studios.  When I considered moving there 3-4 years ago, the cheapest prices were about $300,000 for a tiny (300 sq ft studio).  Those are like old  Singapore prices of $1,000 a square foot.  Unlike Singapore, the prices have fallen in Seattle and I see studios in the $100,000 range which is odd because the residents and real estate agents argued that it would not be affected by the national recession.  They had a strong local economy, major technology companies like Amazon + Microsoft based there, and most important a limited supply of land.  These were factors that would avoid the reversal of fortunes in that local real estate market, or was at least suppose to keep growth flat at worse.

Sometimes, I wonder how much different things would be if I had purchased one of these places at the height of the bubble.  I can only imagine I would be under a lot of stress from the inflated payments or depressed that prices had fallen so much.  I know because that happened to me back in the housing bubble in the early 1990s.

Anyways, I love getting these emails with prices and pictures straight from the internet real estate websites.  I wanted to post the ones I like here from all those cities I enjoy visiting and might do so in the future.  My only prediction is that some of those Seattle studios will eventually sell for less than $100,000.  At that point, I think they will be good value buys.