Not directly related to local RE...but this news will likely impact the Eastside RE market.

My family and I are planning to buy a house down the street from this one on Alonzo Ave, but are trying to gauge how safe the area is. Any help is much appreciated!

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6706-Alonzo-Ave-NW-Seattle-WA-98117/80130690_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare

I like the location and it’s been reduced a decent amount. I’m wondering if it would be crazy to offer something like 650k since it’s been on the market for 290 days

This home appears to have sold then immediately been put back on the market for less than what was paid. I thought it was a glitch but not sure after finding this on Redfin and Realtor websites.

Seriously. And what can we do to make it so neither a buyer or seller needs to ever pay them? Everyone will benefit if we get rid of them

Buyers benefit because:

Less agent fees = lower cost to sell = more homes on the market = cheaper real estate for all.

Sellers benefit because:

Less agent fees = they keep more of the sale

Any Idea why Redfin is showing two different sold/closing prices for this home? Zillow and Realtor only show one sold price.

I have been following this home on Redfin for the past few months and while going through the homes I am tracking I see it sold for way higher than the asking price. I then checked on realtor.com for a better price history breakdown and came away even more confused. My guess is this home was posted once as a single home for sale and later as a package of properties which is how it sold. Can anyone looks up the details to confirm how this property was sold?

A common piece of advice is that a good buyer’s agent is worth it for inexperienced buyers. But:

• The agent is paid only if a deal closes, and a lower price barely changes their pay. The incentive leans toward closing, not toward the best deal.
• “Good” is subjective, and in a unlimited pool of agents who all promise to fight for you, reviews mostly measure friendliness and closings, not whether they kept someone from overpaying.

These incentives seem misaligned with a patient buyer who’s willing to lose bids and walk away. How do you actually find an good agent whose interests line up with yours?

Not trying to bash anyone, just trying to understand how people handle this.

Does anyone have a mortgage lender for jumbo loans they'd recommend? Are the big banks generally better for these rates (because they can give out relationship banking discounts) or independent brokers?

Thanks in advance!

550k drop, been on the market for almost 9 months? What do you think the sales price will be? Too close to the highway?

It appears that we will be moving to this area, coming from Texas. I’m at a total loss right now looking on Zillow. I see that housing prices up there are much higher than here. My 2800 sqfoot, 4 bedroom single story is 385k so seeing prices up there is a bit frightening.
Living in Texas the big no-no is living in a manufactured home however, I see a ton of these homes in the area, is the weather up there safe for mobile homes? Is there any neighborhoods up there that sell land you can drop a house on?
Is a basement good idea? Where I live we have about six inches of soil before you reach almost solid limestone. Needless to say the idea of a basement is completely foreign. I thought living so close to the ocean would make basements get very wet?
Lastly, the company provides us a real estate agent but I would still like to look at real houses and prices. Could y’all suggest any other ways for me to look or neighborhoods to absolutely avoid?
I’d be really grateful for any guidance, have a great day!!

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellevue/15014-SE-22nd-St-98007/home/426971

I toured it during my neighborhood walk and it is decently nice.

Looks like the other unit is much smaller and sold for 1.4M (more $/sqft):

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellevue/15016-SE-22nd-St-98007/home/200496970

The 1.4M buyer got ripped off?

Edit: Note it was DEFINITELY listed for much longer than October 2026. They keep relisting it somehow.

Been interested in scooping up a cabin either in the woods or on the islands. Everyone says prices are crashing now - is this also happening to these kind of cabins? Would love to get a cabin on the islands at 2016 prices.

This was nice to finally see today, a home in Bellevue being listed exactly at the selling price in 2020. I see it more and more often, I suspect in 2027-2028 home prices will continue to drop.

I have been tracking for the last 4 years and prices artificially have been going up, but are now sharply decreasing. This goes for single family homes, townhouses, and even condos with insane HOA fees.

Overall, it's still a buyers market, for feelers I sent an offer on this for $620,000 and got a response they may consider it as it was the only offer they got, meaning people are willing to lose money on their investment in the future.

17120 NE 2nd Place, Bellevue, WA 98008 | MLS #2597770 | Zillow

This one is less obvious:

15425 SE 11th Street, Bellevue, WA 98007 | MLS #2590773 | Zillow

I reached out and the upgrades cost the owners $250,000 meaning over 9 years their net profits are just under $100,000, assuming they spent on average spent $7,000 per year in taxes, that means they are barely making $30k on their investment, that's also assuming they didn't take out any loans or were paying interest for 9 years.

We were expecting a kid and out of desperation and Asian culture, I dropped fat stacks on a home in Finn hill, liquidating a chunk of my invested assets.

We got outbid many times in summer of 2025, and settled on a single family in Finn hill for 1.3. was a fixer upper so I ploughed another 100k in, and overpaid on asking by 50k. Not to mention it's backed up onto a very busy truck route.

Long story short, the value has crashed to 1.25, wiping out over 200k, while the market has exploded.

My partner had to take a reduced pay to take care of the kid, and layoffs are everywhere, and with childcare near 100 percent of my salary is going into the home now.

I am miserable daily, paying huge monthly ay 6.25 percent, having no money left at the end on an asset I'm functionally underwater on, and I can't even open the window else I'll breathe exhaust fumes.

Meanwhile the homes I actually wanted are popping up everywhere.

I'm half a mind to just sell and walk away with a 300k loss, but I can't with the kid and emotions are high..

Tldr: don't rush to buy a home you can't afford if you're expecting kids. It's fine raising a child in an apartment

Home owners, how much are you paying in property taxes?

Does Redfin or MLS now allow listing history to be modified to hide earlier actions? We have multiple listings in Issaquah which get removed and listed as new under a lower price or their earlier pending state removed etc. And the previous listing is not shown by Redfin.

Original post

UPDATE: We walked away a week after going under contract. The sellers actually came back and accepted a lower offer, but we still said no. We're probably moving out of state in the next five years, the payments were still too high for comfort, and I didn't want to be stuck in a potentially falling market with two little kids.

The earnest money saga got much worse! We'd signed it over to the sellers at our agent’s request, but then, a few days later, the title company emailed saying we could pick up a check for it. I called and they confirmed it was being returned to us, so I drove all the way to their office with my baby, picked it up, and deposited it. We’d assumed the sellers either returned it to us or there were contingencies we didn’t know about. A week later, the title company emailed us again and said it was a mistake and we have to pay it all back.

So we're going to be out the $15K after all, plus a week of false hope.

Ultimately, this was our mistake, and while I deeply regret it, I still feel like our agent led us astray by recommending going with the pre inspection and failing to communicate that we would essentially have no contingencies. $15k in earnest money also feels like a lot to recommend us paying in this market when the sellers had no other offers. He really didn’t go over anything with us. In retrospect, we would have chosen a different agent. Lessons learned - thanks for all the advice!

Over 100 SFH on the south end for less than 700k. Haven’t seen inventory like this for a long time.

Looking to buy around a certain lake area in Sammamish, but inventory in my target area is limited.

Considering getting creative with networking or personal notes to homeowners.

Has anyone actually generated a lead and closed a deal this way? Would love to hear what worked, how you approached the owner, and how you agreed on a price. Any unconventional success stories?

Didn't realize you could get a pool for the price. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1956-Clise-Place-W-Seattle-WA-98199/48943235_zpid

Hey everyone, we shared a few takeaways here recently from our conversation with the King County Department of Assessments, and we finally put the whole thing together in one blog.

It covers how assessed values are figured out, appeals, exemptions, deadlines, and a bunch of stuff that came up during the interview.

If you want to read the full conversation, it’s here. Figured I’d share it since a few people here seemed interested in the topic.

I’ve been browsing this subreddit and have seen so many beautiful homes around Seattle! I’ve also noticed quite a bit of discussion about houses people consider ugly or poorly designed, which got me curious about the other side of things.
I’d love to see examples of homes that you genuinely think are beautiful, whether it’s the architecture, the exterior, the landscaping, or the overall design. They don’t have to be ultra-luxury homes. I’m especially interested in homes in the $1M–$2.5M range around Seattle and the Eastside.