Real estate market still strong here

Despite the constant drumbeat of housing doom and gloom reported nationally, Ballard's single-family home market is still rosy but has a few faded blooms.

Nationwide, home values have dropped nearly15 percent in one year. Florida's market is swamped with listings and Las Vegas real estate investors lost their shirts.

However, according to Multiple Listing Service statistics in the Ballard zip codes 98107 and 98117, the average selling price is only down about 8 percent.

Inventory of single-family homes and townhouses for May and June is 222, nearly double that of last year's listings, and average time on the market is now two months, twice last year's. Still, area realtors and lenders say the market is relatively strong.

"The best stuff, like a sweetheart of a house on a pretty street in a nice neighborhood is getting full price, sometimes higher," said Michael Busacca, a realtor with Skyline Properties' Northgate office. Busacca lives in Green Lake and has a listing in Sunset Hill for $622,000.

"Lower-end housing sold quickly between 2002 and 2007," he recalled of the bygone boom. "Now people are more particular if a house has an Achilles' heal, like small bedrooms, cat or smoke odor, or if it's on a real busy street. Prices on those are dropping, but it's pretty tame compared to the rest of the country."

Busacca sees more people getting stressed with their income.

"Buyers now want a 'turnkey' house, one with nothing dysfunctional, rather than spending a lot of money on improvements.

"Once, lenders gave anyone with a pulse a loan. Now, there are plenty of legitimate first-time buyers but programs have dried up."

"The media beats us up," complained realtor Kevin Isaminger of Re/Max in Bellevue, who has listings in Ballard, and West Seattle where he lives. He said potential buyers lack confidence in the local market due to pessimistic news reports of troubled markets in other regions.

"It used to be a breeze to sell. Now a buyer takes all the time he wants. With so much inventory comes randomness where a nice house is sometimes overlooked," he said. "But we try to stay positive."

Isaminger said that most of his clients are good friends, like Jason and Adrienne Rice. They live with their two young children in desirable Sunset Hill, but on busy 32nd Avenue Northwest, and feel their charming three-bedroom craftsman house Isaminger listed nine months ago has sat due to traffic, and the economy.

"We keep getting told by buyers, 'Your home was our second or third choice,'" said a frustrated Adrienne, who uses their mirrored finished basement to rehearse for her professional belly dancing company, Troupe Hipnotica. "We love our house but want to live closer to Jason's new restaurant." Jason was formerly a personal chef to Paul Allen. His Bohemian Caf/ will soon open in West Seattle.

Isaminger lowered their house to $499,950. Summer is traditionally slower in the industry, but he is hopeful as a dozen homes sold in the last two months near theirs.

Suzanne Lambalot has lived in Sunset Hill for 31 years. A former flight attendant with Alaska Airlines, she is a veteran Ballard area realtor with Re/Max Metro in Seattle. While she agreed that the busy street might play a role in the Rice's listing woes, she said business has been percolating in Sunset Hill recently. She agreed with Isaminger's view that the press is partly to blame for the slower market.

"We (realtors) say don't pay attention to the national media. Pay attention to the local market," she said. "Seattle is insulated. Interest rates are excellent and businesses are coming in."

She acknowledged that Ballard is now a buyer's market, and offered these tips.

"If a house is still occupied, clear the clutter. Add some color. Remove personal items like photographs. You want buyers to see themselves living there. I read that 95 percent of people see how things are, not how they can be. Often empty rooms look smaller. People don't get a feeling of scale."

Lambalot possesses some accent pieces to place in empty houses.

"Otherwise I hire a 'stager' who brings in furniture and we decorate tastefully." She has even hired a "feng shui professional."

"Have you ever gone into a house and felt subconsciously that something was not right here? Feng shui makes the home more inviting with a positive flow of energy which moves in proper directions with color and placement."

Lambalot suggested shopping in Ballard for a mortgage, including Sterling Savings, and Peoples and Viking banks. She said they look at you more as a name than a number.

"Ballard is solid," said Ozzie Kvithammer with Viking Bank in Ballard. "We're not rated a declining market like communities in Nevada and Florida, and we have programs for the first time buyer through FHA with 3 percent down. We still look at credit scores and capacity to make payments as the main criteria, but we also look at the whole picture of a person's situation.

"We've never done those 'sub-standard' loans. We don't lend irresponsibly.

During the boom, he said, "The government wanted everybody to get a house. They allowed people who shouldn't have a house, have a house."

Some people want more than a house. They want acreage to go with it. But in Ballard?

"A retired couple from Baton Rouge recently contacted me," said Lambalot. "They wanted to move to the Northwest and decided that, based on their Internet research, Ballard would be a nice community. They have several donkeys and horses and wanted five to ten acres in Ballard. We've communicated a lot since then. Looks like Mount Vernon or Arlington will work nicely for them."

Steve Shay may be contracted at steves@robinsonnews.com