See the proof:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2008-06-17-housing-starts_N.htm

But its far worse than the 1990 Bubble; i.e., Seattle population is approximately 32% greater, so housing starts numbers comparable at those past levels are horrifyingly depressionary in my book today.

Whoa – verbatum from a Microsoftie. A bubblehead in the making? (see thread started in forums) -

Cons (working at Microsoft):

Three words: Real estate prices. In 2007, the median price in Redmond Washington for homes was over 650 thousand. Granted some of those are really nice and have a good bit of space. But I moved from a place where the same sized place cost half of that. Anywhere within a 30 minute commute to Microsoft will cost 450K+. The costs are such that the low income people are being driven out of the area and the medium income people are becoming the low income people because they can barely afford a 300 thousand dollar condo 45 minutes away from where they work.”

glassdoor

I wish they would split 500 into two sections, since the reality of the Eastern half is a world away from the Western half. Fall city has nothing in common with Factoria and Newport Hills. let alone Issaquah.

In Seattle that increase in animal life is mainly seen in the species equus caballus; oddly they seem to mostly be less than 58 inches tall and colored pink.

I believe they call it a “virtuous cycle” on the Fox News channel

What mankind is doing is moving hydrocarbons from below ground and turning them into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the carbon dioxide increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with twice as much plant and animal life as that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the industrial revolution.

That increase in animal life is obviously increasing the demand for real estate in general and can explain ever rising prices.

Jon was talking about the “seasonal” with respect to solar cycles.

oooh. I think I read about these! also responsible for our recent spate of warm weather, IIRC.

Jon was talking about the “seasonal” with respect to solar cycles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle

You really need around 11 years of data to find anything meaningful.

It’s hard to judge looking at just one year of data, because both sales and inventory are so strongly seasonal

Isn’t that why you look at a whole year? Because it contains all of the seasons?

I think you are right about that. I live in Ballard/Whittier Heights and there are still quite a few townhomes being built in the area and it seems like they are still selling well.

A lot of them in this area are a bit more modern or less ‘cookie cutter’ than the ones further north in Greenwood and Northgate. There also don’t seem to be huge numbers of homes for sale compared to other parts of town, which may drive sales a bit as people want to move to these neighborhoods.

There’s a 10 acre building area in east King county that was cleared, subdivided into home lots, fenced off and development all of the suden stopped about 6 months ago.

Is surging inventory and tighter bank loans putting new homes on hold?

If I was an used home owner I’d cringe everytime a new home was built [adding to the glutted inventory], especially since the new homes seem better priced [in my estimate] than most of the older homes and they generally aren’t “money pits”, like older homes generally turn out to be.

Not that people are selling their SFH to buy a condo, but if they are a new entrant (divorced, new to area, first-time buyer) they are opting for condos in general.

This would explain the strength in the condo numbers too.

Gill