Comments for NCW Real Estate Blog

Comment on What if you had “Affordable Housing” and nobody came? by The Wenatchee World » Looking ahead: affordable housing

The Wenatchee World » Looking ahead: affordable housing — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:21:35 +0000

[…] A city of Wenatchee consultant (David Paul Rosen & Associates) is studying the need for affordable housing — and how to meet that need — makes its report Thursday. Click here to read Chris Pratt’s advance report on the meeting. There is wide agreement that housing affordability is a problem in the Wenatchee area. Aside from personal experience of people trying to buy a home, the issue is kept before the public by rising home prices of recent years and the the pending eviction of Ninth Street Trailer Park residents to make room for riverfront development. The real estate industry generally would like to see denser development and fewer regulations to cut the cost of housing. Here’s one industry view on the issue and Thursday’s sessions. […]

Comment on Vacation Rentals in Chiwawa River Pines by Dave Neir

Dave Neir — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:16:47 +0000

This will be an interesting test of CC&R’s. I know in my neighborhood, we have a “no commercial business” restriction on the original plat layed out back in the 50’s. We’ve had only 2 nightly rentals in the past 15 years. The first lasted 24 months and the 2nd lasted 36 months, only to be raided and closed down by the police as a meth lab.

When people purchase in our neighborhood, we tell them up front our community does not want nightly rentals.

For those that try, neighborhood yard signs about “no nightly renters wanted” tend to really dampen the enthusiam.

For those of us who live here, one of our major reasons is peace and quiet. We don’t want to me in a commercial business district, which is where nightly rentals belong, and where Leavenworth Zones them.

Comment on Sales Slowing a bit in the Chelan Market by geordieromer

geordieromer — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:00:45 +0000

Here is the info for the Leavenworth market if folks are interested.

http://www.myleavenworth.com/2008/04/leavenworth-real-estate-stats-for-q1.html

Comment on Sales Slowing a bit in the Chelan Market by geordieromer

geordieromer — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:06:10 +0000

Interesting. Wenatchee is seeing a similar trend, but Leavenworth and Cashmere are headed the other direction. After a slow 4th Quarter in 2007, Leavenworth has really picked up in Q1 for 2007. I’ll post a report here for Leavenworth in the next week or so.

Comment on What if there was a place that had no Growth Management? by geordieromer

geordieromer — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:35:55 +0000

My favorite quote about Texas “Never before have so many people bragged so much, so loudly, about so little.”

Comment on February Residential Sales Numbers in the Wenatchee Area by geordieromer

geordieromer — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:39:55 +0000

What is happening these days in Chelan? I think Leavenworth / Lake Wen. are splitting ways with Wenatchee. As I have reported http://www.myleavenworth.com/2008/02/real-estate-in-leavenworth-is-heating.html

we have seen less new inventory, higher number of solds and pendings, and higher prices in 2008 than we did at the beggining of 2007. Of course the Leavenworth numbers are included in some of the Wenatchee area stats, so Wenatchee may be worse off. I think the difference is the type of market. Wenatchee is more affected by the mortgage market while affluent Leavenworth buyers are less affected.

Comment on Soaring Foreclosures in the Wenatchee World? by geordieromer

geordieromer — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:57:36 +0000

The World loves to publish national articles like that and then the following day will print a local article with data that contradicts the first one. Every time a national story comes out, I get calls from buyers looking to take advantage of falling prices in Leavenworth. Not happening. Here’s an article I wrote spelling out the specifics. http://www.myleavenworth.com/2008/02/real-estate-has-been-in-national-news.html

Comment on How do you feel about those tax bills? by geordieromer

geordieromer — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:56:17 +0000

There is a good discussion that started awhile back over at Lake Wenatchee Info. You can see it here -
http://www.lakewenatcheeinfo.com/2008/sticker-shock/

They say there are always 3 values for a home - what someone wants to pay (very little), what they want it to be worth (quite a bit), and what they want it to be assessed at. (close to nothing)

Assessed values went up (especially at Lk Wen) because property values went up. Please raise your hand if you would rather own a home in Detroit right now..I didn’t think so. I will take rising taxes and property values over sinking property values any day.

Comment on Smart Condos, or Small Condos? by modguy

modguy — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:30:23 +0000

The GMA has done more to make housing unaffordable than anything else. It took the laws of supply and demand and tried to change them, can’t be done. As a developer myself in Chelan County I am subjected to regulations and time delays that only increase costs, yet no one seems to think there is a negative impact to this until a goofy editorial is written in the World. The non stop hang wringing about affordable housing without actually getting to the root cause of things is maddening. There are alternatives but no one wants to hear them.

Comment on Code of the West via our Chelan County Commissioners! by geordieromer

geordieromer — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:26:31 +0000

The Code of the West has been on the County site for a long time. I would guess 3-4 years at least.

I always think about the code as an excuse not to provide services in the county. Chelan County likes to pretend that it is more rural than it really is. For example, the state’s CTED would prefer that our smallest rural zoning is 5 acre lots, but Chelan County has 2.5 acre minimums in places and there are lots of 1 acre neighborhoods that were short platted before GMA.

Suburban densities but only rural service levels. Not really how GMA was supposed to work.