In this case, the NY Times bestselling book series (and potential movie) "Fifty Shades of Grey" features a condo building in Seattle called Escala where the characters make sweet love all over the place in the penthouse.  

As you may know, Escala is home to major league Pitcher Tim Lincecum as well. Granted, he is in the sub-penthouse making the fictional story of Christian Grey's exploits above all the more plausible.

Here's some pics and more info on the new Seattle cause for celebrity from Zillow.  We now have werewolves, steamy billionaires, and sleepless romantics as some of Seattle's hollywood brand associations -- pretty cool IMO! 

By Wendy Leung with Seattle Condo Review. A guide to Seattle condos exclusively for buyers and sellers.

• Overall, for the third month in a row, Seattle condo sales were up over the previous month with a healthy 20% growth versus March.
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• Belltown/Downtown is probably showing the most strength coming in with a nearly 50% leap in month-over-month sales and beating year-over-year sales by 26%.  
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• While demand (as measured by number of sales) has been gathering some steam, supply has stayed relatively flat with less units on the market in April than there were in January.
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• In summary, one of the stronger months we've seen in a while.  Who knows, maybe we're finally crawling our way out of the valley after all...
  
  

By Wendy Leung with Seattle Condo Review. A guide to Seattle condos exclusively for buyers and sellers.

Since the data is still limited, I ignored buildings that didn't have 3 or more 2BR unit resales (i.e., a previously purchased unit subsequently sold by an individual on the resale market and a brand new unit sold by the developer) in 2011.  For what remained, I looked at the average days on market for all the units sold and then plotted them in the bar chart below. The data includes bank owned and short sales as well. 

What's interesting is there appears to be three tiers of buildings.  Tier 1 buildings like Waterfront Landings, Continental, and Cristalla seemed to be able to find buyers for their 2BR units in a little over 3 months.  Tier 2 buildings like Cosmopolitan, One Pacific Tower, and Seattle Heights took almost 5 months to sell.  Lastly, Tier 3 buildings like Belltown Court, Watermark Tower, 2200 Westlake, Meridian, and Vine took a whopping 7 months or more on the market before they were sold.

Of course, if you cut prices, I'm sure you could sell any of those units much more quickly but there's no reason to think that Tier 1 sellers like Cristalla were asking for a lot less for their units than say Tier 3 sellers like those at 2200 Westlake.

   
        (Data is individually extracted from NWMLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.)

By Wendy Leung with Seattle Condo Review. A guide to Seattle condos exclusively for buyers and sellers.

• Consult your financial planner (If you have one): How is the rental property going to fit into your whole investment portfolio? Is it going to be long or short term?  These questions may have impact on your investment goals whether you're are looking at medium term capital appreciation or as part of your long term portfolio.
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• Consult your tax account- In most cases, there are some tax benefits when you own an investment property.  You could deduct your mortgage interest, taxes, insurance, and expenses associated with owning the rental property.  If you are experiencing rental loss, you might even be able to write that off but they are subject to some income limitations.  So, talk to your tax account to find out if you're eligible for those tax benefits.
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• Get pre-approved! Unlike during the condo boom years when you can easily get a pre-approval letter within hours after giving out some basis information over the phone, these days, it takes a little bit more work. Lenders are much more stringent about giving a pre-approval letter. Besides running a credit check, most lenders may need you to provide your pay stub, W2, and bank account statements. Depending on your individual circumstance, (employed, self employed,etc.) the documents required may also vary with different lenders.
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• Are you ready to be a landlord? Are you going to manage the rental property or have someone do it for you?  If you are newbies, you may feel excited with your first investment and wanted to manage it yourself.  There's paperwork, time and energy needed to manage a rental property.  So, if this is something you don't feel up for, you might want to hire a management company to deal with it.
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• Run all your numbers. After getting pre-approved and narrowing down the price range that you're comfortable with, run the numbers.  This is where an experienced realtor can come in and help you figure out the high level calcs.  The costs for buying and selling the rental property, the rental rates, vacancy rates, maintenance/repair costs, cost of hiring a management company and other expenses associated with owning an investment condo should all be considered.
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• Be open minded. I once had a client who thought distressed properties are usually not in good condition and did not even want to consider looking at them. However, majority of the condos that I have come across are usually in pretty good shape or only require minimal work to make it rentable.  Since this is an investment property, be open minded about looking at distressed properties (short sales and bank owned).  After all, these properties are generally priced 5-20% below market value which will give you a good start and more head room for appreciation down the road.

By Wendy Leung with Seattle Condo Review. A guide to Seattle condos exclusively for buyers and sellers.

In theory, this should mean people will continue to want to move here from California and the East Coast for many years to come.

Coming in #1, Seattle had 57% of Americans polled saying they had a favorable opinion of the Emerald City (only 14% were unfavorable). Coming in second was the other Northwest city, Portland, with 52% favorable.  San Francisco came in the middle of the pack with 48% favorable and 29% unfavorable. The bottom: Detroit, Oakland, and LA.

Check out the full report. Stay loveable Seattle.

By Wendy Leung with Seattle Condo Review. A guide to Seattle condos exclusively for buyers and sellers.