urbnlivn, a seattle condo blog

I’m in Manhattan this week for RE Bar Camp New York and Inman Connect so posting will be light.

Chris sent me this New York times article about lobbies here, The Come-Hither Lobby:

In an increasingly tough market that has left some high-rises sitting half-empty, the lobby has become a site of innovation for developers who find it more urgent than ever to make their buildings stand out from the crowd.

If you have any recommendations for restaurants, bars, clubs, or must-see buildings leave a comment or email me at mail@mattgoyer.com.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The Seattle Times had an article yesterday on affordable housing, Seattle may ease rules to encourage affordable housing downtown:

Two programs designed to bring affordable housing to downtown Seattle have fallen short of expectations, with officials spending just $5 million of the $20 million collected from developers.

Maybe the city should buy up some failing condo projects like Domaine and rent them out as affordable housing.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I’ll do a year end wrap up post on later but I think we might have a strong contender for this year’s listing with the wildest photos.

The listing is from Ryan Thompson at John L Scott and is at 98 Union St #908. For $630K you get 2 beds and 969 square feet right downtown beside the Four Seasons.

Let’s start with two shots of the living room:

And end with a shot of the parking spot:

The place last sold for $420K in 2005. It’ll be interesting to see if they can get $200K appreciation in three years.

Update: I like what jseattle had to say on Twitter:

@mattgoyer It’s like a yuppie Smith. I bet they killed the zebra with that car.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Ready for the storm? I just picked up some Marker Baron bindings from Evo today, 20% off. Still thinking about which skis to get. JF from my hometown store is pushing the Nordica Zeros. Bryce at Evo is pushing K2 Pontoons.

Update from Parc

I got an email from Ryan at the Parc about how their recent 72 hour sales event went:

To date we have received 9 offers and have 6 sales pending (still working through additional interest).

Although we anticipated a favorable response, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the value was immediately recognized at The Parc. In addition to the new inventory, views, home plans, and Belltown location, our promotion created a “jump-off-the-fence” attitude. We think it’s a positive sign that homebuyers are out there but they are looking for a deal. As the inventory dwindles, so will the incentive programs.

I, for one, have had many customers that have been looking for months and this was the catalyst that urged them to finally pull the trigger. Interest rates are near historic-lows and with preferred lender financing, all the stars seemed to finally align. We saw an incredible spike in traffic and more sales are on the way.

Still, our success wasn’t without education. Customers need reminding that Belltown properties command a premium over less preferred neighborhoods in all market conditions. Still, the primary motivator was in the interest rate buy-downs that were available. Imagine: 4.750% for a 30-year fixed mortgage with 10% down elicited many a “sign me up!” reaction. Buyers are figuring out that a lower interest rate can have the same effect as 5 – 10% off the purchase price.

We did have one price quote on a 2-bedroom that came down $150,000. The buyer and the agent looked at each other and the buyer said, “We’ll be back with my husband tomorrow. DO NOT sell this home.” It was nice to see that level of enthusiasm again!

We recognize that there is a tremendous amount of pessimism out there and many homebuyers are waiting to see if we’ve hit the bottom. I can tell you, we have at The Parc. Those looking to buy should really take advantage of these incredible offers. The supply of condos downtown is diminishing—new projects are on hold (or worse) and some are converting to apartments, so selection becomes key.

Intracorp made a corporate decision to implement this sale at another property in Redmond, with similar success. I contacted Jeff Smallwood, Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Intracorp, to get his thoughts on the decision to hold this sale.

“We are in the business of selling homes, and that is exactly what we are going to do,” said Smallwood. “There appears to be an abundance of buyers in the market who are simply looking for a terrific value in a great location. Intracorp has the location part figured out, so it is simply a matter of finding the right value. Our most recent sales activity says we have found this magic combination of factors, with 9 offers in two weeks at The Parc and 7 offers in the same timeline at our Redmond project.”

What else is on sale? Trace North

Ted “I never lower prices” Schroth just dropped prices on a few units.

#406. Dropped $40k to $249,950. It’s a 661 sq. ft. 1 bd/1 ba unit.

#301. Dropped $15k to $499,950 for a 952 sq. ft. 2 bd/1.75 ba unit.

#407. Dropped $45k to $284,950. 740 sq. ft. for 1 bd/1 ba unit.

What else sold? Mosler Retail

Wendy has news, Popularity: 16% [?]

We stopped by Oddfellows Cafe + Bar last night around 7:30 for its opening night.

Being the first night and all we’ll forgive the service and other hiccups. However, we were disappointed that half of the items on the menu weren’t available. We totally understand that the snow storm impacted deliveries and that the deep fryer hasn’t arrived yet but perhaps a temporary menu listing the available items would have been better? The items we did order (everything from the mac and cheese to sandwiches to the steak) were good but they left us all wanting more. In fact each of us ended up ordering our main entrees and then we ordered a half round of entrees because we were all still hungry. The portions reminded me of the small not so filling portions at Spur. Perhaps you’re supposed to eat dinner at home before visiting these tasty but small plate gastro pubs/cafes? Our amateur recommendation on presentation would be to use smaller plates so that the item does not seem so small. Also lower prices would be nice. An $8 sandwich at Oddfellows can’t begin to compete with an $8 sandwich at Honeyhole.

What about the interior? The interior is amazing. Linda found lots of cool pieces from places like Great Stuff (they now have a photo gallery of what’s in stock!), Space Oddity, Pacific Galleries and a variety of other places. In particular the chairs and bar stools she’s found are fantastic for the space. She also dug up wood from the basement of the building and re-used it in the space.

While Oddfellows did not wow on the first night like Barrio did we are regulars of Linda’s and will surely be back, at least for drinks.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Veer Lofts recently sent an email trying to stir up a few end of year sales:

There has never been a better time to move to Veer Lofts. Prices have been reduced on many units, with some starting in the low $300’s. Interest rates are historically low with current rates under 5 percent. And, with quick access to the streetcar and lots of great shops and restaurants right around the corner, you can finally ditch the expenses of owning a gas-guzzling car and live a truly urban, sustainable lifestyle.

Related: Wendy got photos of Rollin Street. I can’t even get a tour! I’m curious, did Vulcan relax their ridiculous no photo policy?

Popularity: 16% [?]

I recognize that this blog is quickly in danger of becoming a mouth piece for Ted Schroth. However, in my defense, I would really like a gym in my building because I am very lazy. Also, with this frigid weather I think that cold vacant space beneath my unit is increasing my heating bill. So I’m happy to help with his request for testimonials from folks interested in a gym at 12th and Madison:

The investor for the gym partnership would like to hear as many testimonials as possible, as soon as possible, from people who live/work in our neighborhood for how underserved we are for a gym and how many people would go to a gym if it were located here.

My testimonial would be:

I don’t currently belong to a gym. However, I’m thinking of climbing Mount Rainer this summer and doing the Seattle to Portland ride and I don’t think my twice a week hockey and weekend ski trips to Whistler are going to get me in shape.

I’d gladly pay for a gym to kick my ass a few times a week to get me into shape.

The good news is that I’ll sign up for a year membership but only use a few months of it in order to get ready for these adventures and then I’ll stop going until I find a new adventure. You may worry that I will in fact use more than those few months of a year membership but for two and half years I had a gym membership at both the Pro Clubs in Seattle and NEVER WENT ONCE. I’m your ideal high paying low attendance customer.

And just to do a little original research for this post here are the closest gym’s to 12th and Madison:

Gold’s Gym - 401 Broadway E - 1 mile away - 1.5 stars on Yelp
24 Hour Fitness - 1827 Yale Ave - 1 mile away - 3 stars on Yelp

From reading the reviews for both of those gym’s I think it’s clear we need a quality gym on Capitol Hill. Bonus definitely would be if it were close to me. Though I worry about the noise living above one. Does anyone have experience with that?

Leave a comment if you’d go to a gym a 12th and Madison.

p.s. It doesn’t take much to get Urbnlivn to write about your projects. Either, go bankrupt or have your project put up for auction OR invite me on a tour of your latest project and buy me a beer so we can commiserate over the crazy commenters.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Tonight I got a sneak peak of Linda Derschang (Linda’s, Smith, King’s) and Ericka Burke’s (Volunteer Park Cafe) Oddfellows Cafe + Bar at 10th and Pine. The interior is amazing; certainly nothing like Linda’s (there is no taxidermy.) Had I been thinking I would have brought my camera.

It’s set to open this Friday at 4 p.m. I’m looking forward to checking it out.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Seattlest has the scoop, Live Historic aka Pioneer Property Not Paying Bills:

Pioneer Property creditors received notice from the group’s bank over the weekend of the group’s bankruptcy filing that their bills are not being paid.

I’m trying to but haven’t confirmed the story.

If it’s true, this is a bummer. I toured De Lorges and Marlborough and both of them were nicely done. I feel for the people who purchased at their buildings since it looks like sales have not gone well. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens. I suspect The Press condo auction won’t be the last condo auction.

Buildings affected with sales pulled from King County Records:

• Queen’s Court at 124 Warren Avenue N (Queen Anne.) 13 of 34 units sold.
• The Pittsburgh at 125 Warren Avenue N (Queen Anne.) 16 of 31 units sold. (Listed under 117 John St in the county records.)
• The Nord at 312 First Avenue South (Pioneer Square.) 6 of 7 units sold.
• The Marlborough at 1220 Boren Ave (First Hill.) 0 of 82 units sold.
• De Lorges at 325 Harvard Avenue E (Capitol Hill.) 1 of 27 units sold.
• Dayton 4420 Dayton Avenue North (Fremont.) 0 of 8 units sold.

Overall, they’ve only sold 20% of their available inventory and some of those projects they’ve been working on for a while.

Bonus link: Seattle PI blog, Apartment market not so hot, report says:

Dupre + Scott forecast in September that market vacancy (not counting new construction in lease-up) would rise from 4.8 percent this fall to nearly 6 percent by early 2010. They now say it will peak at 7.3 percent in June 2010 but won’t get back into balance until early 2012.

Popularity: 19% [?]

The Stranger has details on the Press condo auction, The New Condo Market:

On average, the 15 condos in the Press buildings auctioned for about 80 percent of their listing price and over 30 percent of their starting bid.

Any readers attend?

Update: The Stranger has a humorous follow up story making me regret not going and getting some video footage, Why Pay More? :

Everyone I spoke to before the auction said they would not bid above $300,000; however, not a single unit sold for less.

Popularity: 19% [?]