Seattle Bubble

Interesting story from Kirsten Grind over at the Puget Sound Business Journal: Experts see more subprime-loan pain ahead
Another big wave of subprime mortgages will see interest rates reset to a much higher rate over the next six months in the Seattle area, an indication that the Puget Sound region might still be facing further economic [...]

[Read more →]

Is this the first sign that downtown Bellevue has reached its condo saturation point? Seattle Times: Bellevue condo project, European Tower, put on hold
The housing slowdown has claimed another local high-rise, high-end condo project.
The developer of 16-story European Tower, a downtown Bellevue project whose design features just one unit on each floor, said Wednesday [...]

[Read more →]

The Puget Sound Business Journal reported Friday on some more news from WaMu that is likely to affect local homeowners.
Washington Mutual Inc. has slashed or suspended $6 billion in available home equity credit to its customers in an effort to reduce its risk in a flailing housing market.
If they haven’t already been notified, WaMu’s customers [...]

[Read more →]

My favorite personal finance blog Get Rich Slowly gave me a heads up earlier this week about an excellent radio piece that you should make the time to listen to.
It’s titled The Giant Pool of Money, and you can download the mp3 for free through the 18th of this month. They interview a handful [...]

[Read more →]

How about a few more WaMu updates. The (bad) news seems to keep coming for the Seattle-based bank.
First up, a look back at how WaMu got itself into this mess, courtesy of the Seattle Times: Where WaMu went wrong. This article has its own thread in the forums, so be sure to check [...]

[Read more →]

Over at the P-I earlier this week, Bill Virgin chimed in on the housing mess again with yet another well-reasoned column: Homes are good investments, not slot machines or ATMs.
In the great American sport of finger pointing and blame shifting, a new villain has emerged to explain the mortgage-finance crisis.
The fault, it turns out, lies [...]

[Read more →]