On my Active Rain blog, I had a commenter (agent from Western Washington) asked me the following question:


Question: 
Is your appreciation in Wenatchee going to hit 30% this year?  What about this bad market????


Answer:
The "bad" market?  I had three closings last month and will have two closings this coming week, have one more pending.... and am working with several buyers.  Good thing the market is bad because  I'd go crazy if  it were any better.  LOL. 


Actually the market has slowed for a variety of reasons that you already know.  1) Wintertime slowdown 2) Media scare tactics,  3) Financing crisis,  4) and one other which is somewhat unique to our area and that is...


We have many buyers who want to (and will) buy here but they have property to sell elsewhere (California, Arizona maybe even Western Washington) but they can't buy until they sell.  Many of the markets across the country are experiencing true slow downs so properties are not selling.  Therefore, in my opinion, what we are seeing is a temporary slowdown with pent-up demand building locally.   Come Spring, we could see another surge with appreciation starting again.


However, I don't think we are going to see appreciation rates at the same levels of the last couple years (25% per year).  I think (and hope) it will be more like 10% - 15% .  Just a guess, of course.  If I actually could predict stuff like that I wouldn't be a real estate agent in Wenatchee.   I'd run for President and fix a lot of problems.  LOL.


At this moment in time, we are seeing a stabilization in prices which is a much needed and welcome breather from the frenzy.  





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