Microsoft neighbhorhoods still selling like hot cakes?

[EastSider]

[synthetik]

[EastSider]

[Alan]

[Lake Hills Renter]

[EastSider]

[EastSider]

Many eastisde homes still seem to be getting multiple offers. We saw a home over the weekend --- the agent called today to tell us that the home got 10 offers (listied at $489K & sold for $515k). This was for a 20+ year old, 1500+ sqft SF home in Sammamish.

The eastside market seems to have really taken off in the past 3-4 weeks. Though, I'm clueless as to why. Any thoughts/insights are highly appreciated.

[ayles]

Relocation season is coming up. These could be people who are in the pipline for a move to Redmond (Microsoft Relocation) and want a house ready at the end of the school year to move the rest of their family.

[EastSider]

[ayles]

The business is super cyclical but typically things really slow down after mid september.

In addition to the people waiting for their kids to finish school, there is also a large influx of college grady. But most of them are not purchasing.

[corey]

Don't forget that Microsoft relocates people mainly from New York, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, and LA... as well as cities around the world like London, etc. These are the places with the most skilled workers, and their housing prices are sky high. If someone has paid off (or bought in early enough) on a house that's worth $1.2M over the past 10 years in Silicon Valley, there's almost nothing in Redmond that I can't overbid for, quite easily, and probably care more about a good school district for my kids than the extra $100K, especially if the house is all paid off and all I'm looking at are property taxes, etc.

Its not so much the Microsoft salary that is creating weird dynamics as their habit of pulling people from places that are really overpriced.

On the other hand, this is why Google is building their Kirkland campus. Its cheaper for them to build a campus here for their Seattle (ex-Microsoft) employees than to pay those employees enough to make it worth their while to move down and buy in to the way overpriced Bay Area market. Especially since the SF market will probably not crash nearly as much -or at all - compared to Southern California or how other places currently are, since they really are "special"....

[EastSider]

[meshugy]

[ayles]

[meshugy]