If you live in Seattle and don’t own a home, you probably think that the real estate bubble is nothing but trouble. Well it’s about time that the bubble did something for you.
A hot real-estate market is going to help Seattle residents cut their losses as the city shakes off the collapse of the Seattle Monorail Project.Odds are good that this month’s sell-off of 33 of 34 unused lots — which the SMP purchased for stations, a maintenance base and some tight corners along the track route — will recover at least the $62 million spent to buy them. If so, the monorail’s citywide car-tab tax, which began in 2003, would be repealed by early fall.
…
The liquidation of the monorail dream couldn’t happen at a better time, at least for making money. Commercial property values in King County have increased 14 percent since 2004.“What the monorail has going for it is a real-estate market in the city of Seattle like we’ve never seen,” said Art Wahl, managing director of the commercial real-estate firm CB Richard Ellis. “There’s never been anything close to this. There’s a high demand for real estate, and in truth, not a lot of product.” Wahl’s firm was one of several that vied to serve as SMP’s broker for the land sell-off. GVA Kidder Matthews was selected to handle the land sales.
Of course, if you don’t own a house or a car, or if you live near to but outside of Seattle, the bubble really is nothing but trouble.
(Mike Lindblom, Seattle Times, 03.12.2006)
Ah, just as I receive another $400 bill for car tabs, they’ve almost paid things off. Bastards. I should be allowed to ride the public transit free for life after all I’ve paid into this mess.
Anon 9:57-
Trust me, Seattle Public Transport is so abyssmal that even for free you would not want to use it on a regular basis.
Even if the "golly" nonorail (always mispell it this way to really piss of the trainiacs) never runs its supporters will have still succeeded in their primary mission of punishing automobile owners.