Seattle Bubble

Here’s a follow-up to yesterday’s condo re-version story. Just in time for the condo conversion mania to switch directions, while supply and demand do that thing they do so well, here comes the State Legislature to “fix the problem.”

Renters forced from their apartments to make way for condominiums would get more time to find a new home and extra money to pay for it under a new law expected to pass the Legislature.

House and Senate bills being considered could require developers to pay many tenants up to three months rent in relocation assistance, provide at least 120 days’ notice for a condo conversion, and ban construction work during the notice period.

Presently, renters get 90 days’ notice and, in some cases, $500 in relocation assistance from developers.
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The House already has passed a measure, House Bill 2014. The Senate is considering a more expansive version, Senate Bill 6411, that would give renters 180 days’ notice and also give local governments the ability to cap the number of apartments being converted to condominiums.

Way to go guys. Maybe next you can “do something” about dot-coms with no cash flow that pay their employees in stock options. I hear that’s a big problem.

(Andrew Garber, Seattle Times, 02.05.2008)

As 2008 gets rolling, your lawmakers are getting back to the business of budgets and lawmaking in Olympia. Of course, with this being an election year you can expect to hear a lot of talk about “doing something” to address the latest hot issues that are on everyone’s mind.

So what is one of the biggest issues they intend to “do something” about this year? You guessed it… the “housing crisis.”

Legislative leaders tried to keep expectations to a minimum this week as they prepared to convene Monday for the 2008 session.
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A good portion of their energy will go toward responding to big events from 2007: fallout from the housing crisis…
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Sen. Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said her caucus has prepared a package of housing and home security bills and plans to begin working on them in the first weeks of the session.

“There have been a lot of successes in our state, the economy has been strong, unemployment rates have been low, but people are starting to feel an sense of uncertainty,” Brown said.

Awesome. So like we all already knew, our state is special and strong and all that, but our legislators are going to work hard to pass laws and spend our tax money to address “feelings.”

“They are feeling a sense of political uncertainty, they don’t know what will happen in the coming year. They are feeling a sense of economic uncertainty as they hear bad news and when they look at their own bottom line, things can be deteriorating.”

Oh. I guess it’s not just feelings, but actual financial hard times, even for people in our own special corner of the country. But I thought we were immune.

House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, agreed that the state needed to address housing security.

“There is nothing that comes closer to the American family than their home,” he said. “We’ve got to help people … to get that leg up in order to get into a home, and to help them through the difficult times.”
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“Our goal is to help people with those very basic checkbook issues that they are struggling with or are concerned about … immediately,” Brown said.

Can someone please explain why it should be the government’s responsibility to help people own a home, or to deal with “basic checkbook issues” when they have frittered away their money and their home equity on plasma TVs and SUVs? I’m just not feeling it here. Seems to me that people should be responsible for their own “checkbook issues.”

Here’s a crazy concept: Don’t buy stuff you cannot afford.

(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 01.10.2007)

Here’s an article that appeared in the Everett Herald a few weeks ago about yet another misguided legislative attempt to solve the “housing crisis.”

One of the bills Nathan Gorton is backing in the Legislature this year sounds like it makes too much sense to do anything but go down in flames.

What he’d like to see passed is a measure that would require cities to do what it takes to build enough homes each year to cover the number of new jobs they’re expected to create. …he’d like communities to provide homes for their own work force because it would stick fewer cars on the freeway for the morning commute.

I suppose if people were robots programmed to live only in the closest available place to where they work, legislation to that effect would indeed “make sense.” However, as some of us are aware, people do not necessarily live in close proximity to their workplace, even if they can. Even the richest man on the planet, who can clearly choose to live anywhere he wants prefers to live with a 5-mile stretch of overcrowded SR-520 between his home and office.

Housing is important to Gorton. He’s the new executive officer for the Snohomish County Camano Association of Realtors based in Everett.

Gorton noted Friday that three years ago, the median price for a home in Snohomish County was $220,000. Now it’s $356,000.

“If you’re a homeowner, it’s a great thing,” he said. “But we think we almost reaching a crisis point.”

Oh we’re reaching a crisis point all right, but not for the reason that home salesman Mr. Gorton is implying. Home prices have experienced such a steep ascent not because of a lack of legislation, but because of fly-by-night lending and pyramid scheme psychology.

Gorton said that from 1993 to 2000, King County added 237,000 jobs and 75,000 homes. Obviously, many of those workers had to look for a home somewhere else. There isn’t a statistic handy, but conventional wisdom tells us that many of those workers bought a home in Snohomish County, where the prices are typically $50,000 less.

“That drives up housing prices outside King County and puts a lot of cars on the road,” said Gorton, noting he’s already hearing of Seattle workers who are buying homes in Whatcom County and making a very long commute each day.

Because there are simply no homes left from Seattle all the way to Bellingham. Right. Give me a break.

That brings us back to House Bill 1726.

“It says if you’re going to bring in a lot of jobs, let’s do better with planning where you’ll put those folks,” Gorton said.

He thinks it will help keep home prices down and reduce freeway congestion, which he notes should make it a lot easier for businesses to recruit new employees. And you certainly don’t need to be a business to want to reduce traffic and make it possible for people to buy homes.

Maybe it’s just me, but Mr. Gorton’s comments seem to have the same disingenuous feeling as the It’s A Priority campaign—which incidentally is a project of the Washington Realtors, a group which Mr. Gorton is a member of. Hmm.

P.S. (Check out the latest Google search results for It’s A Priority. I love it.)

(Mike Benbow, Everett Herald, 02.26.2007)