As for approaching people I’d just send out letters to them, be as cordial as possible and act friendly. Getting a random letter is odd enough lol.

And don’t send out a mass email :) Speaking of that, did you ever sell the list? I bet you could make some more home downpayment money haha.

What I have done is pull the tax roll (publicly available) and then make contact. A letter is probably best yes. If it gets you what you want … well then it was worth it, wasn’t it?

Good luck Mike.

Move here and get five times the property on Lake Michigan for that price no doubt.

As for the “softening” market, I’m not totally sure I’d agree with you 100%. I think more of what you are seeing is just the general cyclical market of the year. Summer winds down and so does real estate, it happens every year, especially around here where the “summers” make any property look amazing, and a rainy seattle mood has a way of being un-motivating. Combine that with the many conversions popping up at the same time, etc… and sure, you can start to notice a trend of properties not moving as fast as expected. However, Seattle is still anything BUT a soft market. Ask Keith how much his home increased in value just from December of 2005. I just did a refi for them and you wouldn’t believe how much it went up in such a short amount of time, it’s a fantastic market, one of the best in the country currently.

Combine that with the fact that rates right now are the lowest they have been all year and probably will be all year, and you still are prime for good market conditions. People could wait around for a price to drop another 10 or 20k, but you could be saving that alone just on the rate condition right now, so in the end, it’s all a personal decision.

Also remember that just because prices are getting knocked, it’s not necessarily the market, the agents have to rely on their clients as well, and the general nature of people, they will always try to get what’s best for them. I was talking with an agent the other day about a property that was right on the river. He was convinced that $375,000 was probably the best he could get for it but the builder would not let him list it at anything below $450,000 for at least a month to see if there was any traffic on it. So when it did eventually drop, it had nothing to do with the market, just that it was out-priced originally.

My final advice? Work with a good agent. Get a referral to someone who you can trust will have your best interest at heart, has good experience and is fantastic at what they do. It’d be the same advice I’d give anyone looking to build a website for their company. Sure, they could fire up Frontpage or Dreamweaver, but it’s not the same, and it goes the same way in the real estate market. I find that the value the agent can bring just in assessing the property as an investment alone (and not the housing side of it) can be priceless.

Having had this experience, I have this to pass on: I live where I do because it’s a kick-ass place to live with tonnes of upside, views and a great location. We live in one of the best units in the building. It can therefore be assumed that we appreciate the w00t of our unit. If someone were to leave me a note stating how they are looking for a spot in this area and why, and show that they too appreciate the w00tiness, I think I would sympathize with their plight and call them first. Well, and of course they are outright telling me they are motivated ;-)

Don: Thanks. The running is going great! One year in! Funny, my next post was a toss up between this one and a “one year of running” post. That will be the next one I guess.

Josh: Thanks. Spoken like a true mortgage broker. :) You’re in the business of being optimistic about this stuff and you see a lot of success stories every day so I understand the sentiment, but something feels a little different here. My agent even says he’s never seen things this dead since he got into the business. He just listed three properties last week and zero calls on any of them. The first half of 2006 was good and I’m sure a lot of Keith’s good fortune came from that (go Keith!), but I think that was the overshoot period. That’s kind of what I’m saying, in fact: not that we’re in for a long down period… just that we’ve overshot a little in 2006 and there’s a bit of a correction going on right now. Sellers are still posting at pre-correction prices and there seems to be a good opportunity to wait these properties out for several weeks and get a more reasonable deal.

Craigslist lets you save search results as RSS feeds as well… I’ve found that a worthwhile way to keep an eye on the market.

I do know this is a good time of year to buy. Josh is right as far as that goes. It’s when we got our house last year and I’m 100% sure had we not bought when we did we’d have never, ever, found a place as nice in Seattle for the price.

I do see a bit of a softening though, especially when it comes to condos.

However, you can’t expect that to last forever. You mention you think there is a correction going on and I bet it’s corrected very quickly. My advice would be to get in as soon as you can. Trying to save that extra 30k for too long could cost you more than that. I also suggest a good agent, ours landed our house for us, without him we’d have had no shot.

I’m actually headed out tomorrow to take a look at a few places just to get an idea at what’s out there. I’m not seriously considering anything just yet, but I did get a card in the mail today talking about how you can win Seahawks and concert tickets just for showing up and taking a look at some condos.

I defnitely wasn’t seeing anything like that a year ago.

Our thoughts were not to buy anything that was on the market at least 30 days (so they seller has the “fear”) and not to buy anything that hasn’t dropped (or willing to drop) at LEAST 20k since it was originally placed on the market.

The market may be slightly different here in DC, but it was a successful strategy for us. Every agent we spoke to about asking their buyer if they were willing to reduce the price and accept a few contingencies (waiting for us to rent our place first) were extremely interested without hesitation!

So, happy to say we got an amazing corner unit condo in the heart of “Adams Morgan” with floor to ceiling windows and a roof top of what has to be some of the best views in DC at exactly what we were willing to pay (all contingencies included).

There’s tax/insurance benefits to s co-op as well. Of course the fact that we got in at a discount (compared to a condo) means we’ll probably half to sell at one as well.

Anyway, the unit next to was just went on the market @ $310 and is now going for $295. interpret that however…