Mercer Island Under $1M: The Seattle suburb of Mercer Island...

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Behold the $54 Houseboat: Over on Curbed Seattle, they're celebrating...

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Jay Buhner Lists: Former Seattle Mariner and current Mariners...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Friday, June 10, 2011, by Sarah Firshein

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Kennewick: A housing market to watch in 2011 (Inman) | Seattle <b>...</b>

Three structures at 300 Area of the U.S. Department of Energy's Handford Site are demolished with explosives on Oct. 9, 2010. Handford demolition and cleanup work is helping drive the Kennewick area economy. (Handford/U.S. Department of Energy)

The Kennewick area is one of “10 real estate markets to watch in 2011,” according to Inman News.

“(H)ousing appreciation in the Kennewick area remained modest while the rest of the country was experiencing a boom,” the real estate news service wrote Friday.

The metro area has fairly low unemployment compared to the national rate and was one of three markets on the list to see household income rise between 2008 and 2009. Population and in-migration from other states also rose during that time, each up 4.2 percent. Median sales price in the Kennewick market rose 8.9 percent from fourth-quarter 2009 to fourth-quarter 2010.

And there’s economic strength in Kennewick, Don Havre, broker at The Real Estate Firm there, told Inman.

We are a transportation hub with rail, barge traffic and (a) freeway network. Our economy includes agriculture, with its growing grape/wine market, high-tech companies like Infinia, which manufactures generators powered by the sun’s energy, Pacific Northwest Laboratory, and the Hanford Project.

Speaking of federal projects, the No. 1 market to watch was Washington, D.C. No other Northwest areas made the list.

Read more real estate news. Visit seattlepi.com’s home page for more Seattle news.

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Gala Introductions: Please Welcome Curbed Seattle to the Dancefloor!

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, April 19, 2011, by Sarah Firshein

Fire up those bookmarks—there's a new kid in town. Fresh from the land of Starbucks, Nirvana, and Bill Gates and streaming onto a computer near you is the newest member of the Curbediverse, Curbed Seattle! Headed by Kelly Skahan and launching right this second, the site will join Curbed National, Curbed NY, Curbed LA, Curbed SF, Curbed Hamptons, Curbed Chicago, and Curbed DC on our shared quest for complete and utter domination of real estate and neighborhood news on the web.

In other news, the Eater sphere expands, too, with today's launch of Eater Seattle, which casts wider the Eater net that presently includes Eater National, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, Miami, Austin, and DC. Expect in-depth restaurant, nightlife, and bar-scene reportage. The Emerald City never looked so tasty!

· Curbed Seattle [official site]
· Eater Seattle [official site]

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Credit Crunch Has Home Builders Sleepless in Seattle

Rubberball/Tyler Marshall | Getty Images

The only thing more cold and gloomy than my pre-dawn live shot here in Seattle this morning was the February housing report from the Department of Commerce.

Housing starts plunged 22.5 percent in February from the previous month, and building permits, which are an indicator of future activity, dropped 8.2 percent.

You can't blame it all on the weather either, as starts were even down 28 percent out West.

Some of the housing pundits this morning are saying this is all a good thing, as there is still far too much supply on the market, and builders need to sell all that before they start building more, but tell that to a home builder. The real issue now is credit. The big public builders can get some cash from the banks, but they represent barely a quarter of the market. The private builders are in real need now.

"Our view is that the housing market will start to get back on its feet this year," notes HIS Global Insight's Patrick Newport. "The forecast, however, hinges on builders being able to access credit. If builders cannot get financing to build new homes, housing will remain in the dumps."

Here in Seattle, California-based Shea Homes is going in a new direction for financing, tapping private equity, which appears to be far more willing to back private builders than the banks.

"What is new is hedge funds and private equity in this space. And the reason they’re in this space is because the market has become inefficient," says Shea Homes CEO Bert Selva.

Selva is teaming up with investor William Abbate, managing director at Angelo Gordon in Los Angeles, on land just outside Seattle, which they will develop into an active-adult community with over 300 homes.

"Our basis in these lots has been low enough so that we literally could build and sell homes today at today’s prices, and even, in some cases, we were projecting further price declines, and still have a healthy margins in our projections," says Abbate.

Back in the other Washington (DC), federal regulators are pushing hard to get banks to write down mortgage principal on troubled loans. This could soon be mandated as part of a combined state attorneys general settlement in the so-called "robo-signing" foreclosure paperwork scandal. If the big banks start to take even more losses on troubled loans, that will likely leave them with even less of an appetite to feed private builders.

Questions?  Comments?  document.write("");document.write("RealtyCheck"+"@"+"cnbc.com");document.write('');And follow me on Twitter @Diana_Olick

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Leschi Homes For Sale <b>Real Estate</b> Update 1/12/2011 – Seattle Homes <b>...</b>

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