Seattle: Sellers' Dream, Buyers' Nightmare

So here we are in Seattle—a fun town with a healthy diverse economy. All good unless you’re looking to buy a home. We've gone from a housing market in Portland where you stand to lose $30,000 to $80,000 when you sell your home and where initial offers to buy a home are 25% percent below the asking price is the norm to an alternate universe where the process goes like this:

1. List house on Wed or Thurs, begin private showings

2. Open house 3 hours each on Sat and Sun.

3. There is a review period, which is when all buyers' offers must be submitted (generally the Tues after listed). There is no preference given for first offer made. Bids with a pre-inspection attached are standard. All cash offers get top priority.

4. Bids below asking price will not be considered.

5. Offers reviewed, and if necessary "escalation clauses" invoked (i.e. keep increasing your bid by $10,000 until you're the winner)

6. House goes to Pending status one week (or less) after being listed.

You think I’m exaggerating, right? No, for once I'm not. And it’s not just a matter of insane asking prices- people are getting them. Since we've started looking our realtor has tracked the homes we've seen that have sold and closed and, on average they're selling for $20,000 to $50,000 over the asking price. All this is leaving my poor brain reeling, so I have to ask:

Anyone else live somewhere with a booming housing market? Does this sound familiar to you?