If you’ve been thinking about selling your house, now could be the time.
We noted this in a news story the other day, but it’s worth repeating: The number of homes available for sale these days is shrinking.
As a result, prices for both single-family homes and condos are hitting new records. The fact that home prices continue to rise is not unusual. Prices have been going up 6 percent or so a year for quite a while.
But in September, home prices in Snohomish County were up more than 10 percent compared with prices in September 2003. The combined median price for single-family homes and condos in the county was $248,000 last month.
In the southeast portion of the county near the King County line, that price was $292,500. In the Lynnwood, Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace, it was $267,475; in Everett, Mukilteo and Mill Creek, it was $245,000; in Snohomish, Monroe and Gold Bar, it was $229,000; in Lake Stevens and Granite Falls, it was $213,00; and in Arlington, Marysville and Stanwood , it was $215,450.
Values for your home could be different, but basically homes sell faster and for more money the closer you are to King County.
Common sense says this can’t last forever. Conventional wisdom is that people will continue to buy homes as long as mortgage interest rates don’t go up dramatically and the economy continues to improve.
With the shortage of available homes, sellers are in the driver’s seat, at least for now. A clean, reasonably priced home should sell pretty quickly.
But that could change, since you can’t count on prices shooting up forever.
Outsourcing
I got several comments on my ranting and raving last week about how a lot of people these days pay lip service to American-made goods and advice but are unwillingly to pay for it.
And I said I think those folks are responsible for companies sending jobs overseas.”
One caller, whose name I forgot to write down, said she’d be glad to pay more for quality items but finds a lot of poorer quality merchandise these days, even in stores charging higher prices.
Dennis Lund of Bothell commented on a number of related issues in an e-mail. I appreciated the feedback, and here are some of Lund’s comments:
“I find it interesting in the sense that ‘outsourcing’ has become a buzzword and the blame for everything from organized labor pricing themselves out of jobs that they like to call ‘their jobs’, to businesses and corporations doing what they have to do to compete in the marketplace. The latter, of course, is commonly referred to as ‘corporate greed,’ right? Guess it depends on who you ask.
“… (Why do) people buy stock in a particular company? Is it to eventually make a profit or a donation? Who answers to the stockholders? My guess would be the members of the board and the CEO. Hopefully, those stockholders don’t have guns to their heads, but they sure expect those who hold the fiduciary responsibility to perform, and if that means cutting costs through eliminating over-priced labor, they are expected to do so. As you illustrated, the consumer of the goods or service has come to demand it, ‘brand loyalty’ or ‘support your local merchant’ be damned.”
There are a lot of sides to this topic, but comments like those I received last week make be believe more strongly than ever that consumers who want products made locally should support them with their pocketbooks.
Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459; benbow@heraldnet.com
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