One of my hobby horses is that just about everyone that is here is a recent transplant. I think that has something to do with the situation.

I lived in Highland Village, Texas, and we get more sun than Seattle gets rain. It is the South/Midwest, so people should be friendlier.

Just about everyone on my street was a professional of some sort, and there was a high incidence of church attendance.

Nobody talked to each other. Nobody was from Texas. We had people that had moved from Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, California, Michigan, and Connecticut. Nobody was from Texas. Everyone was an outsider.

In Kitsap County, my neighbors are recluses (Bainbridge – X-Cals/New Yorkers), but my extended family (Silverdale, Poulsbo, Bremerton, Kingston) have block parties, and lots of social functions with friends. I guess that happens if you, your parents, and grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all went to high school in the area.

I think it is just because Seattle is a place where everyone is a newbie, and knows everyone else is a newbie.

Dammit JIM! I’m a pilot, not a psychoanalyst!

I don’t have any quibbles per se with what people like or where they want to do it. I think you’re correct, for people who are socially sort of reclusive, for lack of a better word, this would be a comfortable place. There’s certainly no pressure to be super connected to anyone.

I think in my day to day life I’ve come to find social life here somewhat vacuous almost. Like a progressive version of the Stepford Wives. Polite and pleasant smiles that suddenly seem to have dissappared from your conversation.

I work with a number of out of staters – we jokingly call the dissapparing phenomena the “Seattle Drop”

This is primarily because I rarely go to Seattle itself. I live in the suburbs because I work in the suburbs. If I had my way, I’d live outside the metro completely, maybe even quite far away, because what I want in a place to live isn’t walking distance to metropolitan city attractions, it’s peace and quiet, preferrably with lots of trees near the mountains. I don’t have anything against Seattle, there’s just not much there for me, and it’s not the reason I live here. I live here for my job and for the scenery — and not in that order.

I also realized that a lot of that Seattle Freeze article could have been talking about me specifically because I show a lot of those traits. I don’t need people in my life at all times. Quite the opposte in fact. I prefer to spend my private time alone or with select friends, either at home or in the mountains. I don’t have anything against other people — it’s not like I think I’m better than them or anything – I just don’t need that many people in my life. Solitude is more important to me than sociality. I’ve been this way my whole life, it’s just more socially acceptable to be this way here than where I’ve lived before. Maybe I feel more at home here because of The Freeze?

The scene from the article that stuck in my mind was where a guy told the new guy what he was doing that weekend, but didn’t invite him along. I would have done the exact same thing, and in fact I do. It’s not anything against the new guy. It’s that my weekends are my time for solitude in the mountains. The Seattle area seems to have more independent-minded people that other places I’ve lived (one thing I really do enjoy about the area), so my advice to that new guy would be to not depend on others to have fun — do it yourself. That’s what I did when I moved here.

A man after my own heart!

Once again, truer words were never spoken.

On both the diversity and freeze counts.

Seattle is a bland, soul-less city with pretty neighborhoods and killer traffic.

I read the “Seattle Freeze” article, and it seemed spot-on. I must admit that I saw a bit of myself in that article.

My idea of a good time is a solitary backpacking trip in the Olympics when it is raining. One such trip was such that I only had a three second glimpse of another human over a 4 day span – near perfection.

When I’m on a layover, I like to keep to myself, and many think that is wierd. Is it because I am a 5th generation PNW? Perhaps. I tend to think it is because I’ve been cooped-up in a closet sized space with the same dude for the past two days, and you can get too much of a good thing.

Anyway, it was a great article. Enjoy your weekend – don’t call me ;)

P-3C. Atlantic Fleet, Brunswick NAS. Iceland, Sicily, Puerto Rico, Panama. Mid-90s era.

What the heck is a PhC?

Thanks for the discussion, eleua. This is really my last post on diversity! =P

Did you fly A-6’s, P-3’s, or ?

S-Crow

I would tend to agree, only I would add that if race is neutural, then there is no value in favoring one race over another or saying that a “diverse” group has a higher intrinsic value than a homogeneous one.

I’ve had numerous experiences with “diversity” and it always ends up being some feel-good, taffy-pulling, ya-ya, circle-jerk, that largely exists to give whiney, insecure White Liberals a photo-op for their trophy case.

The bulk of my professional endeavors have north of 95% White-males. Given that there is no diversity to blather on about, the group tends to be rather focused on operations and results, in lieu of politically trendy Bravo-Sierra.

You can’t have it both ways – race is neutural, but a diverse group of races is superior.

In order to explore this phenomenon further, it would be best to take it to another fourm.

RE:”The chill”
Seattle seems by far the least friendly of the three major cities (include Portland and Vancouver, CA)in the NW. It is the coldest environment I’ve ever lived in in social terms. When you combine that with the clouds and rain I think it’s a pretty depressing place on the whole.

Diverse cultures, diverse ideas, etc.

Kill whitey.

You may be right, but there were references to “both kinds of white people.”

Almost everyone that speaks of “diversity” is just substituting that term for non-white.

If you want a laugh, go to any public gathering on Bainbridge and get the whole “diversity” dialogue going. Everyone loves diversity.

Then, ask if it would be OK to build a bridge from Southern Bainbridge to Bremerton, or bus kids from Suquamish into BI schools.

Blank stares.

Diversity talk is cheap. People spend a life’s work to keep diversity at a safe distance. This phenomenon is almost universal among American real estate priorities.
It is why Realtors are not allowed to comment on the racial makup of a neighborhood.

No “if” about it anymore. I know of two houses back on the market after contingency sales fell thru…and in both cases the buyers were from CA and could not sell their properties.

I have a friend in Huntington Beach who lives at Pacific Ranch (Villas/Townhomes) and he says prices are already 10% off the highs from last fall.

The “equity locust” spigot is quickly turning off. More quickly than I thought it would.

For an article on the “Seattle Freeze” please click on my name/URL.

I don’t know of anyone that really likes diversity, but I know of many that like to say they like diversity. There is a big difference.

One is all talk, and talk is cheap. Another demonstrates that people will sacrifice much and spend a life’s savings in order to keep diversity at a safe distance.

I doubt that The Tim wants this topic discussed with all the normal warts. If anyone wants to continue, please visit my blog and we can continue. I don’t mind if you really cut loose and put your feet up on the furniture.

E

Didn’t you know that listening to Mozart makes you smart? Geez…where have you been???!! Ha, ha

Well, maybe I am just an ignorant musician (with a PhC), but I must be doing something right because I make over 6 figures and can afford a house.

Have you ever heard of someone living in Glencoe, Illinois saving up so they could move to Joliet?

Has anyone ever read a news article about the scads of families in Hawaii Kai that wish they lived in Waipahu or Nanakuli?

Do people move from Coronado, California to San Ysidro?

I doubt anyone on Mercer Island is chomping at the bit to move to the ‘vibe’ and ‘diversity’ of K street in Tacoma.

When the government spends billions to reeducate the population about the wonders of diversity, and sanctioning those that try to sidestep this bit of social glory, you have to wonder if it is really a positive.

Just about everyone I know, and have known over the past 25 years, pays good money to leave the “diversity” behind.

Why are we getting all the X-Cals?

I’m not trying to turn this into a social screed, but as far as real estate goes, diversity is normally a negative.

My lack of seeing diversity in Dallas could have been where I lived/worked. I lived in Plano and worked in the tech corridor along US-75. It was white as far as you could see. There were almost no minorities anywhere. Living and working in the suburbs of Seattle is much more diverse from my experience. But that’s just what I’ve seen. Those numbers are surprising.

re: Seattle Freeze

I dunno, I haven’t really seen it. But then the only local community I’ve been involved with is the outdoor community, particularly hikers, although I’ve dealt with the photography community a bit as well. Friendliest group of folks you could ever hope to meet. I hav heard that the dating scene here is pretty hard to crack, but I’m not much for dating scenes.

What’s the difference between a musician and a pizza?

A pizza feeds two!

I live in Belltown, right by Pike Place Market. The Ventana Appartments. It’s a newer building (2001) and is of high quality.

I haven’t lived in an apartment for 17 years, and I’m really enjoying it.

Cool down in the winter (they actually have one in Denver). ;-)

Seriously, I’m one of the people who thinks that it’s great and pretty that there’s so much water around here, but I am sick to death of the 345 days of drizzle that produces it every year. Why live here through 10+ months of depressing misery, when I can simply choose to vacation here for the nice parts?

“Yes, skiing is great, but the travel time is too long and the ticket cost is too high (IMHO).”

Uhm…where are you skiing?

The closest thing that Seattle/Tacoma has to Rockies-quality skiing is Stevens Pass, and that’s no further from Seattle than Winter Park (11,000 ft, 300 acres, 24 lifts, $40 discount lift tickets) is from Denver. As far as cost goes, perhaps you’re thinking of the uber-expensive resorts like Beaver Creek, Vail and Aspen — but these places massively outclass any resort in this area (save Whistler).

“You can’t compare the artistic culture of Denver to Seattle. Seattle blows Denver out of the water. The symphony there is a joke. Amateurs.”

Perhaps the symphony is better here, but the Denver art museum is far superior to the SAM (hard not to be), they have a world-class natural history museum (instead of…the SAM), a library system that has a collection of books (as opposed to bums using computers), and a music scene that actually plays national acts from time to time (rather than “local” acts who aren’t good enough to get gigs anywhere else).

“The downtown is a sad. The highlight is the theaters on 16th St. Oh, and all the souvenir shops.”

Yeah….Thank goodness Seattle doesn’t have any of those. Certainly not on 1st Ave, the waterfront, or in the form of a gigantic public market. Those would be tacky.

“P.S. So what’s the deal with housing there?? Yes, houses are cheaper, but Denver has the highest foreclosure rate in the nation!”

Denver today == Seattle 2008. Take a good look, and see the future.

All of our back-and-forth aside, Seattle and Denver are very similar. They’re similar in size, they both have fickle economies (based on a few large employers), they both experienced large run-ups in housing prices between 2000-2005, and they both have similar income distributions.

People like to say that Denver was hit hard by slowdowns in the aerospace industry (i.e. Lockheed Martin represented a huge employer in the area, as did the military), but I don’t think that tells the whole story. I sincerely believe that Denver is experiencing the pain that will befall Seattle in a few short years — Denver developers were starting their speculative condo build-up in 1997, so they were always a few years ahead of the curve.

Here’s a quick breakdown of Dallas County based on the 2000 Census.

Total Population: 2,218,899
White (non-hispanic): 28.48%
Hispanic or Latino: 29.87%
African-American: 20.31%
Native American: 0.56%
Asian: 3.98%
Pacific Islander: 0.06%
Other (Mixed/unlisted): 16.74%

Lake Hills Renter, I applaud you for truly being colorblind.

Here’s what it is for King County:

Total Population: 1,737,034
White (non-hispanic): 73.46%
Hispanic or Latino: 5.48%
African-American: 6.51%
Native American: 0.92%
Asian: 10.81%
Pacific Islander: 0.52%
Other (Mixed/unlisted): 2.30%

No wonder the Aryan Nation “openly debated a plan to forcibly take five northwestern states – Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming – from the United States government in order to establish an Aryan homeland.”

Seattle’s rough on the newcomer. But I’m a passive agressive Seattle-ite at heart, grew up here, I too like meeting people at parties and never calling them, I enjoy cutting in line and having no one honk at me, I’m moody and I drink coffee 24/7… ah! Home Sweet Home! no better place!

Cute, but inaccurate. I’m a classical musician and my day job is in accounting. Many of the musicians I know have financial jobs as well (banking, escrow, etc).

Of course, I’m not saying that I think Meshugy is a financial guru, either… just pointing out that being a musician and being financially savvy aren’t mutually exclusive. ;)

It sure isn’t the southern hospitality I saw in New Orleans.

I’ve found New York to be more genunine than Seattle when it comes politeness and socializing.

There are really nice people, but there’s also a good amount of “smug”. (anyone ever see the “smug” episode of South Park?)

Back on Topic:

My lease just came up for renewel and my rent was NOT raised. It was a 6 month lease and I just renewed for a year.

I like it for its beauty, I dislike it for many, not all, of its people. Never have I met a group of people who are so inverse to others around them. It is almost painful for some people to talk to one another.

As an aside, I would choose San Diego over Seattle. I lived there for many years and found the area to be an excellent place to live without all the weird hang ups that people seem to have up here. Just my .02

I just moved here from New Orleans, and I can tell you that the Jazz scene there is MUCH better – even post-Katrina.

Seattle does get some good national acts at Jazz Alley and Triple door, but the local scene is mediocer, IMO.

It tells me something about the local scene when a bar-band from New Orleans that plays there every Monday for $7 can charge $22 when they play at Jazz Alley.

Of course, NOLA is the birthplace of jazz, so it’s probably not a fair comparison. (If you started comparing murder rates and school quality, the scales would quickly tilt back to Seattle.)

Seattle is a nice town for many reasons. But it’s not a metropolitan city. So IMO, it shouldn’t have metro housing prices.

You guys should try living in Dallas sometime. There’s just the one type of white person. Nothing else. As far as Seattle goes, I run into a lot of diversity — Japanese, Korean, Indian, Persian, etc. Even worked with a guy from Gambia for a while. Never had anything remotely like that in Texas.

Exactly. There are “for rent” signs EVERYWHERE, including on some condo buildings. The papers have been screeching for rent increases at the behest of their masters in the RE industry for months. Fortunately my landlord isn’t a moron and knows better than to listen to them.

From todays Dataquick release:

“During 2nd quarter ‘06, Foreclosure activity in CA. soared by it’s biggest margin since the numbers have been tracked (1992).

This was in response to diminishing price appreciation, an industry tracker said Wednesday.

Default notices are up 67.2% from one year ago.”

the article’s on todays “thehousingbubbleblog.com”

Re. “Rents Rising” : We’ve discussed this before but it bears repeating. Do not mildly accept an outrageous rental increase.

The media’s been touting this rising rent thing for months. It’s a perfect way for FB’s to try to get out from under.

There are plenty of rentals in Seattle. Just tell them you’re moving. That’s worked in the past in Seattle for many individuals to keep rents reasonable or even provoked a CUT in rent.

So take care of yourself and don’t fall for the hype.

The rising rentals at this stage of the game is just a big bluff.

Thre are a lot of desperate LL’s out there right now. Don’t pay for their bad financial decisions.

I think you are onto something…

So either millionaires are flocking to the region, buying up all the property and not making any money, or people are getting in over their heads and creating a bubble.

I think it is both. OK, I know I don’t really follow the King/Pierce/Snoho markets, but in my town, anywhere from 30-45% of the buyers are X-Cal equity refugees. That does not include X-Cals that move on island or from King County.

OK, so if 30-45% of your market is a market anomaly, and that anomaly were to vanish overnight, what would that do to the market? Keep in mind that X-Cals buy almost exclusively in the top half of the market, which translates to 60-90% of the top half of the market is comprised of people that could very easily get trapped in their 3 bedroom, OC, Brady-bunch, tri-level.

Part 2.

Yes, the X-Cals are causing the remainder of us to use suicide loans, just to keep pace. This explains why the PNW is very high on non-traditional loans.

So, if California inverts, and lenders even get a twinge of sobriety, you are looking at a market that can end overnight. One day, it could be great, and the next there could just be a complete dearth of buyers, all while sellers get motivation and religion.

While this is a rough analysis on the Bainbridge/Kitsap market, many of the same principles could apply to the urbanized counties.

The speed at which this market will turn will be breathtaking. Waiting for it to come is just torture.

This is not what happened. You have incorrectly reported what happened. While SBUX’s quarterly results may have disappointed the street, their sales did not drop. Starbucks saw a decrease in the growth rate in same store sales. This may represent a deceleration, but there were no losses, and no downward revenue trends.

From The Associated Press Business Writer

Comparable-store sales for July grew at 4 percent, the lowest rate the company had seen since December 2001, down from 7 percent a year ago. Executives said they expect comparable-store sales to range from 3 percent to 7 percent for the remainder of fiscal 2006 and 2007.

And guess what, revenues and profits were still up.

Despite the operations issues, Seattle-based Starbucks said profits rose 16 percent.

For the 13 weeks ended July 2, Starbucks had net income of $145.5 million, or 18 cents per share, up from $125.5 million, or 16 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue for the latest quarter increased to $1.96 billion, up from $1.6 billion last year.

I’m not arguing that there aren’t some economic indicators of concern, but use those, don’t make stuff up.

I was reading an article about the sale of the Sonics to Oklahoma businessmen, and they mentioned that Oklahoma has a larger minority population than Seattle (different minorities, but still).

Having grown up around DC I laugh heartily when I hear people talk about diversity here. Maybe they mean that the mountain bikers and rock climbers get along?

There’s a great article in the Baltimore Messenger today about an overzealous condo developers getting their deserved come-uppance.

I’ll be right there with you. I would never buy a conversion, and have little sympathy for developers that over-extend themselves. They have financial people working for them, so there’s no excuse. I don’t feel sorry for any speculators or flippers either.

I do feel for the people kicked out when their apartment gets converted, lower income borrowers who are going to end up with a property they can’t afford (ARM reset, whatever) and anyone in the middle class who, even with a price drop, will likely remain unable to purchase a home near the biggest cities.

Unlike some here, I don’t think most home buyers (evne ones with exotic mortgages) are fools or idiots. And I won’t be happy to see them foreclosed.

Not to single out the women specifically – but I know alot more women that own, so odds are higher.

Why isnt there a LOT more time spent on company earnings and which companies are taking a hit as housing slows down.. THE DOMINO EFFECT.. Housing Dominos anyone?

For example sales at Wherehouser fell by 1/3 in the last year.. US Automakers SALES FALLING By roughly a third, some say its High Gasoline Prices however I think the housing ATM MACHINE has a great deal to do with this.

How about Insider Stock sales as % is matching the same insider sales percentages as 2000 at the current time frame??

AOL Just announced reducing workforce by 1/4 today with the next 6 months.

The Stock market is very stagnate at the moment.. Big money trades have almost no movement in buying positions in the markets. Couple of years ago there were buying in the late hours of trading. Most big money buys at the end of trading not early. Those big money trades have really lost steam.

How about Home Depot.. all these effects work into other areas which affect Jobs which affects housing costs or peoples affordability..

Seattle is just a part of the puzzle. US catches a cold and Seattle by any means isnt ammune.

How about 17% drop in same store sales from Starbucks.. Starbucks is only showing increased profit in expansion of stores this last Quarter.. while sales on average are Down.. whens the last time this happened to starbucks?

I see big ticket items and Luxuries as the first places taking a hit..
comeone someone have some better insight..
Lets focus also on how were going to profit not just on where the housing prices are going to go.

“Wow, I just don’t understand why the my granite countertop slid off onto the floor. Wikipedia told me
exactly how to install them!”