I got the 80% increase in Seattle population using an Olympia growth % since 1990 I believe I heard from Ken Shram’s radio show….I assumed Olympia and Seattle had about the same growth. You’re right, undocumeneted immigrants and chain migration (old age relatives) could spark the Seattle population 80% though. Its undocumented, you need a Ouiji Board to do a count….

As far as wild numbers, hey, my predictions make Paulson’s bailout predictions for a better economy look like a laughing stock….lol

I’d like to see an investigative journalist report on exactly how that money is being spent. If the agencies are overwhelmed after receiving that much, what will happen if we give them another 1.5 mil?

I’d like a recap on how the money is being spent. How much is going towards high executive salaries and how much is going to hire and train competent, people?

The non-profits could hire grad school interns to get their counseling hours under their belt before taking the state exams.

The non-profits could hire out of work mortgage production people (not LOs) and they would be able to get up to speed very fast.

On the up side, I’m very happy to hear that so many people are visiting the agencies. The social services are in place and it’s great to hear that they are being used.

It’s more sad when you hear the stories about people who do nothing and then ask for help when it’s too late.

Where do you get the stats that you post? You come up with some pretty wild stuff. Wasn’t to long ago that you said that Seattles population had shot up something like 80% in the past ten years.

Maybe you’re right though, the census might not be counting all of those illegals that you keep warning about. San Diego could very well be 5 times larger than Seattle with all of those shadow citizens. Seattle could also be significantly larger than any of us realise with all of our invisible citizens.

I understand that is where many deals come from. But some of those landlords were ATMing the money out of these properties during the boom, and many people who bought at the top are starting to rent out now.

I think that a great tutorial for this site would be to show people how to find out what is owed on a property from records. That would let a prospective renter get an idea of what the cash flow is for their landlord, and avoid an unstable rental.

I would agree that it sucks to be in a family that has to leave a rental because the landlord could not deal with their finances effectively. But at the end of the day, that is the risk of renting. With renting you lose some control over your circumstances.

I don’t think that landlords have a moral obligation to put the mortgage of their investments above their own happiness, and I think that creating a legal obligation here would be damaging as well.

I hear people boasting about living in a place where the rent would not cover half of the mortgage. That is all well and good, and I don’t think that you should pay more, but you should be prepared to perhaps have to move one day because of this.

Housing units (2006)
King: 803 000
Snohomish: 270 000

Homeownership % (2000)
King: 60%
Snohomish: 67%

My calculations:
Owned units if ownership % stayed similar:
King: 803 000 x 0.6 ~ 480k
Snohomish: 270 000 x 0.67 ~ 180k

King + Snoho = 480k + 180k = 660k

This would give a yearly foreclosure rate of ( 1000 x 12 ) / 660 000 ~ 1.8% or 1 foreclosure for every 55th home…that sounds brutal.

Understanding that the numbers are outdated and not perfectly accurate.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008279405_webzillow17.html

Hey, did you read the home mortgage interest rate spikes in the last weeks on Bankrate?

they’re talking 7% in a few weeks…..

see the proof:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081017/us_time/thebankbailoutssideeffectrisingmortgagecosts

Now, since the bailouts caused the horrifying interest rate spikes and home prices should collapse faster in Seattle with the bailouts…..wouldn’t you say foreclosures are just the tip of the iceberg right now in Seattle?

How in Hades will Seattle area’s distressed homeowners sellout in time?

On Oct 13, seemed to take exception to an unnamed bubble blogs comparison of the Seattle / San Diego chart, guess they ignored the entertainment purposes only portion…

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/17/25-layoffs-at-seattles-zillow/

KING 5 didn’t make any comparisons to San Diego, only I did. And San Diego County has a population of 2.97 million, compared to the King + Snohomish population of 2.47 million. They’re relatively comparable in terms of population.

Seattle Tacoma Everett area has population of about 3.4 Million
San Diego Metro area about 2.8 Million

San Diego has 5 times the population of Seattle, therefore our 1000 a month is 5000 a month in comparison. Seattle is FAR worse than San Diego.

But you news reporters could care less about simple math logic?

“Yet” appears to be the key word. San Diego was at an identical point on the graph at the same point into the drop that Seattle is now seeing. If Seattle winds up doing a full retrace of San Diego, it’s going to be ugly. I didn’t think it would happen because Seattle didn’t run up as high. However, the current state of the economy puts tremendous downward pressure on Seattle house prices that isn’t going away soon. The situation continues to be interesting.

Seattle vs. San Diego