Seattle, Bellevue luxury condominium towers are slow to fill up - Business First of Columbus:

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The units — at Fifteen the Four Seasons Private Residences, Olivr 8, Bellevue Towers and Washington SquareTowers — represent the majority of large condos that have openes here in the past 18 In many cases, dozens of pre-sale agreements booked by developerzs have failed to come to fruition. Countg records show just 317 units have recorded closee sales out ofthe 1,321 offered at these five projects, which is fewer than some of the developers had expected to sell at this The sluggish pace of sales is ripplinbg through the region’s housinfg market. Developers have been forced to extendx their loans and offer extensions and other support to naildown buyers.
If sale s don’t pick up, some of the pain couled spread to lenders and others involvecdwith development. Empty towers also are hardly a sales-booste for the region’s fragile housint market, which has only recently seen an uptick in sale following abrutal year. “It’ds a psychology question,” said Desiree regional labor economistfor Seattle-King County. “u can imagine how people will feel lookinb around and how confidentf people will feel inmakingv purchases.” The reasons for the sales slowdown are Some prospective buyers are havingg difficulty selling their current homes to pay for their new which range from $369,000 for a studiko to $9.
2 million for a four-bedroom penthouse. Some potentiall buyers have either lost jobs or fearthey will. Otherds no longer qualify for the loan they line d up when they first agreedto buy. With housing pricees still sliding, some buyers also wonder if they might be payingtoo “A lot of buyers are questioninf what the real valuer of those units really are,” said land use economisyt Matt Gardner, a principal in markeyt research firm Gardner Economics LLC, basedr in Seattle. Speculators who bet that prices would risealso aren’y closing.
Bellevue Towers is being sued by prospectivr buyers who want their earnestmoney back, while some prospectivde buyers at Olive 8 are exploring legal action, the developer “Very clearly the dynamics of the economy have changed,” said Mark a principal at Portland-based Gerding Edlen Development, the developer of Bellevue Towers. “We’re trying to work with each individuao buyer.” The Puget Sound Business Journal used data provided by the King Count y Department of Assessments in calculating completed sales for eachcondo project. The records run throughj the first week of June and only includ e sales ofcompleted units.
In some developers have closed on more units since then that have not yet been The Olive 8 development in downtownb Seattle has completed 16 sales out of 229 unitws since it opened in according tocounty data. Whils developer said the project has closed at leastt a dozenmore sales, that’s stilpl half of the closings it had anticipated by this said President David Thyer. Acrosas the lake, Bellevue Towers has recordes just 29 sales out of534 units, according to count y records. The developers, who say they have since closex on severalmore units, say they didn’f have a set salees goal, but were anticipating “more than that.
” To be sure, developers have recentlgy reported an uptick in buyer interesgt as part of the housing market’s improvement in the last couple of months. Two of the five projects, the Four Seasonsz and Fifteen Twenty-One, say they expec t to pay off their constructionloane shortly. And few new projects are in the worka to further floodthe market. But developers’ salexs struggles illustrate the plethora of issues that are still affectinf the residential realestate market. As a result, developersd are pulling out a host of tool to fillempty buildings. Among them: — R.C.
the developer of Olive 8, has turned itself into a lende r and is offering qualified potential buyerwssecond mortgages. That allows potential home buyersxwho don’t meet stricter condo mortgage guidelines to affordf the home, said Thyer. “We’re in a positiohn to make those loans,” he said. Washingtonh Square developer is also offering second mortgagesw at interest rates matched to thefirst mortgage. Some developers are offering buyerds who have put down earnest money extensions on their closing date as they work througuh thelending process, including Olive 8, Fifteen Twenty-Onde Second Avenue and Bellevue Towers.
Bellevue Towers has startex a “seller assistance program,” available to potentialo buyers who have already put money down on a condobut can’tg go through with the purchase because theit current homes won’t sell. If the buyer has to lower the pricer of thecurrent home, Bellevuw Towers will similarly lower the price of the said Patrick Clark, principal of RealtyTrust. — Washingtonn Square, perhaps the most aggressive in itssales strategy, is offeringy outside real estate agents a 3 percent commission on any salesw they bring to the The project also has a lease-to-own program under whicbh a renter can apply up to six monthss of lease payments to the down payment if the renter decidea to buy the unit.
So far 52 unitzs have been leased underthe program. It’s too soon to tell how many will be convertedsto sales, with the majority of the leases carryingv into 2010, said Mike Nielson, the chie operating officer of Washingtoh Square. As developers wrangle with prospective buyers for they also are workingwith lenders.