As a current Salt Lake resident and former Washington state resident, I find this remarkable. In any case, Seattle needs a significantly better mass transit system before it can call itself a world class city.

Actually, that’s wrong. Seatlle gained 55,000 people from 2005-2006

Um, reality check….

Seattle population = 570k. Do you REALLY believe we grew 10% population in one year? Your powers of intellect astound.

Our mayor is optimistically forecasting 100k new residents in Seattle in the next TWENTY years. 5k per year.

55k is probably King County. I am not even bothering to check the link, cuz you are so far off base.

LOL

Santa Clara County, CA –
MLS listings today = 6,014
2005 pop = 1,700,000
Housing units in 2005 = 605,121

King County, WA –
MLS listings today = 9,518
2005 pop = 1,794,00
Housing units in 2005 = 792,682

So tell me again; why are prices not going to go down?

I really have to wonder about the motive behind this. On another forum I read, there was an M like character posting for 3 months using the same kind of tactics.

Turned out it was a masters student who was refining a personality profile and decided to test their model by fielding it in an online discussion group.

M is an archetype that we all run into in real life – and especially online.

He can’t formulate an argument that holds any weight and is infantile in his antagonism. Just let him bleed.

I wonder how their housing market is doing?

Yeah. We’re fortunate that the Seattle population declined after the dot-com boom, or we might not have had the room for all of those Special People. Total population growth in the City of Seattle between 2000 and 2005 was an anemic 1.8%

Skyrockets aren’t what they used to be, I guess….

According to the National Association of Home Builders, 2005 single family housing permits were 17,700, and multi-family permits were 7,950.

Even if all of the multi-family starts were duplexes, that would mean over 33,000 housing units were added to the metro area during the same time.

23,000 households, 33,000 homes…

Is that really a “shortage”?

But not in Seattle.

Don’t forget:

People buying 2nd (and 3rd, and 4th) homes as ‘investments’ – check (eg ‘SeattleEric’)

People moving up and buying their new home before selling their old home – check

Flippers? Naaaahhhh! Ain’t got none a’ them in these parts, nosirreee bob!

As with 2005, Washington State is classified as having “Balanced” migration.

From the article, real estate firms, financial institutions, and other observers of relocation trends regularly use the United data in their business planning and analysis activities.

United Van Lines Releases 2006 Migration Study

Regarding this claim that Seattle had a net population gain of 55K last year is absurd – that’s for the whole metro area comprising dozens of cities.

Anyone that lived here in the late 90’s and experienced the mass migration during the dot com boom can easliy tell that the infulx we’re seeing now is a trickle in comparison. I wonder if we’ll ever see a boom like that again. 2007? Nowhere near those frenzied times.

Both seattle income growth and population growth are flat

Actually, that’s wrong. Seatlle gained 55,000 people from 2005-2006

Tech-Driven Metro Areas Renew Their Population Gains”

That’s a lot of people needing homes in 1 year! No wonder prices are skyrocketing….it’s all in the strong fundamentals:

jobs – check
population growth – check
quality of life – check

This all creates insatiable demand for housing….

But on the specific topic of industry – I think you’d be hard pressed to find similar sized cities with such an international portfolio of companies – Nintendo, Weyerhauser, Amazon, Real, Immunex (now Amgen), Nordstroms, Alaska Airlines, Costco, WAMU, in addition to the obvious big 3.

then you must be walking, because you are the biggest BSer on this blog. Both seattle income growth and population growth are flat This has been gone over ad nauseum and you continue to conveniently ignore the facts.

I am moving to Seattle because I do agree that there are more opportunities in the digital arena, certainly more than Miami where I am relocating from. However, the credit excesses and speculation are nation wide, especially in Seattle as a result of upper middle income people buying second and third investment homes financed by WM. I cannot wait until the Seattle market takes on the same characteristics as Miami. Seattle is 18 months behind the rest of the world class cities like Miami..

So, do you think that I am moving to Seattle and buying a home. BTW, Seattle’s housing stock sucks…

the article talks about Jeff buying a mansion in BH, CA. I did not mean to imply the reverse, sorry for not being clearer.

The point I was making was that people, like Jeff a Seattle resident, buy homes in LA because it is a world class city. I was wondering how many rich folks from LA or BH buy mansions in Seattle?

The fact of the matter is, money talks and b.s. walks. People are moving here in large #s for high paying jobs and quality of life….if Seattle didn’t have something going for it, it’d look a lot more like Detroit, with mountains. I don’t really care about the “World Class” city label….I like living here, and apparently so do enough other people. Newcomers are generating demand and driving housing prices up. You can’t simply argue this away…it’s there. So however you analyze it, the bottom line is that Seattle’s attractiveness is self evident. People keep coming here and buying houses.

Amazon was started in Seattle. First, the fact he’s moving back here just means he fled this place years ago. Second, the headline “Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Going Beverly Hills” implies that he was in civilization in LA, and moving to the hodunk boondocks of Seattle where skeeters are big as mice. Hardly a ringing endorsement of our “World Class City” status.

;< )