Pacific NW Housing Summit- 10 Things I Learned

I was lucky enough to attend the Pacific Northwest Housing Summit with 200 or so of my closest Seattle Real Estate friends last Thursday and learned a whole lot about the past, present and the future of the Seattle Real Estate Market. Each one of the panelist was an authority in their respective profession and all gave me some sobering as well as compelling sound bites that I’d like to share with you. There is no particular order to my top 10 list but each of these facts has there significance no matter where they landed:

1. I learned that the hardest hit States in the housing down turn are referred to as “Sand States” (Florida, California, Nevada & Arizona…why didn’t I think of that?)
2. The housing market recovery in the Pacific Northwest is lagging behind the Nation statistically and our areas down turn also started much later. (This much I did know)
3. The job of an appraiser is not to determine the market but to reflect it. (Is that what they do? That’s news to me and probably every homeowner that is currently upside down)
4. Lennox Scott (Head Cheese of John L. Scott) literally jumped up and down proclaiming to everyone in the audience the Tax Credit worked and that the market is on the mend. (Well, we all needed some good news even if a few of the Tweets I received from folks in the audience indicated otherwise!)
5. The Unemployment rate in Washington is going down later this year! (I’ll take that kind of news any day!)
6. Interest Rates will begin to go up later this spring…as much as half to ¾ of a percent according to some. And, adjustable Rate Mortgages ARM’s are set to adjust later this year as well. (That will make those hard to pay Mortgages a bit harder for some!)
7. Banks that were holding off putting foreclosed homes on the market until the market got better will be forced to release their “Shadow” or “Phantom Inventory” now! In fact, I recently wrote a post about Bank of America releasing 500 foreclosed homes a month to the Nevada market. (That’s 6,000 homes in 2010 gang!)
8. The Pacific Northwest Housing Market is at the bottom and is going to start going up later this year into 2011! (I completely concur with that)
9. 25 of the 75 Banks in the State of Washington are current under a Cease and Desist Order. (All I can say is, “WOW”)
10. Spencer Rascoff, COO of Zillow.com gave me several great insights about marketing and attracting today’s real estate consumer. Probably the best sound bites I heard all day were, “You have to FISH where the FISH are.” And my favorite, “Fishing is FREE, but bait cost money!”

This was a wonderful event and a tremendous opportunity to take a 10,000 foot view of the overall recovery and condition of the Pacific Northwest Housing Market and Seattle Real Estate.